Tom Cruise pulls off his most daring stunt yet at Super Bowl 2025: Delivering a speech about football

Tom Cruise has taken on his most challenging stunt yet: hyping up the competitors at Super Bowl LIX.

The Top Gun: Maverick star appeared in a prerecorded segment introducing the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles that added a cinematic flair to Sunday's proceedings in New Orleans. The segment aired shortly after Cruise's next film, Mission: Impossible – The Final Recknoning, dropped a new trailer and revealed behind-the-scenes footage of the actor's signature stunts during the Super Bowl broadcast.

Cruise's intense speech repeated the words "mission" and "impossible" multiple times, was backed by the same score as The Final Reckoning's trailer, and utilized the M:I franchise's distinct logo font, but never explicitly plugged the movie itself. Synergy!

Related: Tom Cruise agreed to join Olympics closing ceremony for free on one condition: that he do his own stunts

What the segment didn't include, though, was a live stunt from the actor, whose death-defying antics have led the Mission franchise to almost 30 years of success. The stuntlessness of Cruise's intro might be seen as a disappointment to some viewers, especially since we were treated to a wild segment at the 2024 Olympics closing ceremony that saw the actor jump from the top of the Stade de France (live on TV!) and then ride a motorcycle into a plane that he skydived out of in a pre-recorded segment that brought the Olympic flag to Los Angeles. But it's still a pleasure to hear Cruise wax poetic about... anything really.

"Tonight in New Orleans, we encounter a mission that doesn't come along very often," Cruise began. "Standing in front of this final act knowing that the long, winding road here has all led to this." (Is he talking about the game, or the eighth and supposedly final Mission movie?)

"Everything this sport has seen and done, every first, every mountain climbed, every seemingly impossible conquered," he continued. "Yet there's always another accomplishment never achieved. There's always new heights waiting to be reached. Stepping into the unknown, being first — that comes with unbelievable pressure."

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The segment intercut Cruise's words with video and audio footage of Chiefs and Eagles players discussing the stakes of the game — which the actor also teed up in his later remarks. "When the Chiefs take the field today, they aren't walking in someone else's footsteps," he said. "Their hearts are set on reaching further, soaring higher than any team ever has: a third consecutive Super Bowl title. An achievement this league has never seen before."

Cruise had a little less to say about Kansas City's opponents. "Their final test: an Eagles franchise that has returned to finish their job," he said. "A Goliath that has imposed their will, their speed, their strength on anyone and everyone that has gotten in their way."

Related: Harry Connick Jr. welcomes Super Bowl 2025 viewers to his hometown, New Orleans

He concluded, "The mission is clear: win here and be remembered forever. The Kansas City Chiefs. The Philadelphia Eagles. One last game on this iconic stage to challenge the impossible. To say goodbye to never, and forever be known as a world champion. Welcome to Super Bowl 59."

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Cruise's segment had a similar energy and style as another prerecorded introductory segment that aired just a few minutes beforehand: a statement from Brad Pitt that linked the ideals of football and broader American culture by hyping up huddling, for some reason.

Other entertainers bringing star power to the Super Bowl 2025 include Kendrick Lamar, SZA, and Jon Batiste.

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