Why is Tom Cruise allowed to do his own stunts when there is risk involved, given he is such a big star?

Cruise is “allowed” to do his own stunts because he wills it so; because he’s a big star.

There’s a great anecdote relayed by Matt Damon on Conan that encapsulates Tom Cruise’s approach to stunt-work.

Years ago, somewhere around the shooting schedule of Edge of Tomorrow, Damon had lunch with Emily Blunt and Cruise in London.

During said dinner, Cruise giddily revealed to Damon his vision for a grand stunt that he’d been planning for 15 years for a Mission: Impossible movie.

Although Damon doesn’t outright say it, it’s likely the stunt in question is the now iconic skyscraper run from Ghost Protocol.

Damon asked Cruise how the stunt came to pass.

“Okay, so I go to the safety guy, and I tell him this is what I’m going to do,” said Cruise to Damon.

But the ‘safety guy’ had other ideas. He point-blank declared, “You can’t do that. That’s too dangerous.”

What Cruise says to Damon next is essentially the TC experience crystallized in a sentence.

“So I get another safety guy.”

That’s when Damon knew he’d been dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight.

I looked at him and I’m like, ‘Well, I’m tapping out because you win. You are the best.’

At that point, when the safety guy, whose only job is to keep you safe, says ‘That’s too dangerous,’ my reaction is ‘Too bad we can’t do that sequence I came up with. It would have been really cool.’ His reaction is ‘No, we’re getting another safety guy.’