Henry Cavill reveals the hardest scene of his career had nothing to do with Superman or Geralt

Henry Cavill has found himself in many a weighty role over the years; taking up the DCU‘s Superman mantle is a task that requires all the care in the world, and who knows what sort of retribution would have come Cavill’s way if he misplayed his leading role on Netflix’s The Witcher adaptation? Toss Sherlock Holmes into the mix, and it’s clear that Cavill has had his work cut out for him for the last while.

But while his dramatic limits may have been tested as far as his aforementioned characters are concerned, they don’t come anywhere near the physical hardship that Cavill had to endure for his role in 2018’s Mission Impossible – Fallout.

In true Mission Impossible fashion, Cavill, who portrayed the assassin August Walker in the film, was put right in the middle of the shoot’s intense nuances, and while it was the furthest thing from a cakewalk, Cavill would happily do it again. In an interview with Collider, Cavill divulged how the extremity of one sequence, in particular, was only matched by his enthusiasm for such work.

I love this sequence and I would do it again in a heartbeat, but physically the most enduring […] was a ‘Mission: Impossible’ helicopter sequence. It was so extremely cold, literally above the Southern Alps in winter, with the doors open on a helicopter. I’m sticking my face into the wind and firing blanks, with all sorts of stuff flying back at me, and just doing it over, and over, and over again.

Cavill would go on to explain just how relentless and verbose the process was, touching on the guessing game he had to play given his inability to hear much during the shoot, and the added challenge of having to shoot the sequence multiple times to get it right.

Completely deaf, just waiting for the pilot to scream something inaudible and do this [gesture], which meant we are rolling. I’ll do that for 40 minutes, then land, and then sit by a little Red Rad heater, warm my hands up. Within a half an hour they’re like, “Right, we’re refueled. Let’s go again.”

Given such a grueling recounting of events, it’s hard to imagine Cavill’s delight in doing such a sequence, but perhaps it just goes to show that actors are a different breed of human. And further still, when you’re starring opposite the stuntman himself in Tom Cruise, the motivation to step up to these challenges must come in absolute spades.