'Knight and Day': Behind the Scenes

In Knight and Day, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz hop on a motorcycle for a climactic high-speed chase through the Spanish city of Cádiz. Some of the scene was shot with stunt doubles or with their chopper comfortably attached to a mobile camera rig, but Cruise often went freestyle with Diaz sitting behind him. He’s ridden motorbikes since he was a kid, so that wasn’t much of a problem — until the day they had to ride alongside a stampeding herd of bulls.

”They’re going to get food at the end of the run,” says Diaz, ”so the ones in back are trying to get to the front. There’s a lot of pushing and trying to move up on each other. But you can’t really be fearful, [because] then you’re putting yourself in danger. You have to be focused.”

The crew had shot with the bulls for four days before the stars arrived, but there were still a few risky moments. ”The stone road was very slick,” says Cruise. ”That’s why we chose that Ducati [motorcycle]. The tires were good. It was lighter in weight than the superbikes.”

The tricky part, says Diaz, came ”mostly in the throttling and braking. You know, keeping the right speed for the camera, but making sure that we were the right distance away from the bulls.” Laughs Cruise, ”The heart was definitely pumping that morning!”