Insane video: Tom Cruise actually motorcycles off Norwegian cliff for 'Mission: Impossible' stunt. What he pulls off to survive it is even better.

Actor Tom Cruise has developed a reputation not only for performing his own stunts but also for making them incredibly elaborate and downright terrifying.

For "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One," which hits theaters next July, Cruise and his team worked up a stunt for the ages. His plan was to gun a motorcycle down an elevated ramp on the edge of a Norwegian cliff, head directly into skydive mode once he's airborne, and then parachute back to the ground.

The whole thing is over and done in a flash, but Cruise said in a behind-the-scenes video released Monday that it took "years" to develop and perfect.

"This is far and away the most dangerous thing we've ever attempted," Cruise says in a voiceover as the clip begins:

Image source: YouTube screenshot

Cruise practiced motocross jumps and skydiving to prepare for the stunt — but not just a few times. Experts working on the stunt with Cruise said he performed over 500 skydives and 13,000 motocross jumps to get him operating like clockwork.

Image source: YouTube screenshot

But the training was just one necessity. Cruise's team practiced the stunt in England using harnesses — as well as a ton of technology to track and calculate trajectory and many other factors:

Image source: YouTube screenshot

Then Cruise & co. headed to Norway and helicoptered everything to the cliff for the real thing, constructing the ramp over several months:

Image source: YouTube screenshot

Talk about a big budget.

Image source: YouTube screenshot

Cruise "warmed up" with some jumps from a helicopter:

Image source: YouTube screenshot

Soon it was go time.

Miles Daisher, the movie's BASE jumping coach, tried to calm everyone's nerves: "You know, the only things you really have to avoid while doing a stunt like this is serious injury or death."

Fortunately, Daisher added that "you're riding a motorcycle — which is pretty dangerous — on top of a ramp that's elevated ... so if you come off the ramp, that's gonna be very bad. You're falling — if you don't get a clean exit from the bike, and you get tangle up with it; if you don't open your parachute, you're not gonna make it."

Then a nifty drone filmed Cruise going for it, without a harness, without a soft landing spot:

Image source: YouTube screenshot

By now you might be asking yourself how this all played out. If so, check out the behind-the-scenes video:

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One | The Biggest Stunt in Cinema History (Tom Cruise)youtu.be