For Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Tom Cruise went above and beyond his own exceedingly high standards to deliver some nail-biting aerial and underwater sequences for his long-time role as IMF agent Ethan Hunt.

Shooting on an Arctic set and in South Africa proved challenging for different reasons on the wildlife spectrum.

Impossible’ took the cast to Norway — where they experienced “polar-bear-related shutdowns,” says director Christopher McQuarrie