New details about Tom Cruise s stunt at the 2024 Paris Olympics are coming to light.

The Mission: Impossible star closed Sundays ceremony in true Hollywood fashion by leaping into the Stade de France and hopping on a motorcycle, before a pre-taped clip showed him skydiving toward the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles and the 2028 Olympics.

While the feat seemed most inspired by the stunt-laden Impossible franchise, former Late Late Show producer Ben Winston told The Hollywood Reporter that this symbolic passing of the baton was instead influenced by a 15-year-old bit from Conan OBrien .

I liked the idea of doing the bulk of it in Los Angeles but with an amazing open in Paris, Winston said Monday . This is such a weird reference, but remember when Conan OBrien started on The Tonight Show and moved from New York to Los Angeles?

He did a really fun sketch going cross country, he continued about OBriens hilarious 2009 opener . That has always stuck with me. So I was like, How do Tom Cruise and all these incredible athletes take that flag from Paris to L.A.? Its a weird inspiration.

Winston recalled learning that theres this tradition of a 12-minute show to symbolize the Olympics journey from one host nation to another and immediately thinking: Well, it would be the coolest thing if we snatched the flag, and we could get Tom Cruise to do it.

While he originally planned to have a masked stuntman pull off the more dangerous moments, Winston said filming the closer which had onlookers in the Hollywood hills believe they were filming the next Impossible movie went even better than expected.