No, a video of Tom Cruise jumping over Keegan-Michael Key isn’t real. It’s a deepfake

A video of actor Tom Cruise leap-frogging over fellow actor Keegan-Michael Key has taken the internet by storm, with many wondering how the 59-year-old “Top Gun” star was able to jump over the 6-foot Key. Cruise is 5 feet 7 inches tall.

“Just want to jump in here and wish you luck! Congrats on the AFI Awards. Congrats on life. Congrats on the look. Work on the humor a little bit,” Tom Cruise appears to say. 

One tweet said: “Tom Cruise is 59 doing sh** like this, HOW???? 😭😭” The video with the tweet had nearly 3 million views.

But, was the “Mission Impossible” star actually performing his own stunt work?

THE QUESTION

Is the video of Tom Cruise jumping over Keegan-Michael Key real?

THE SOURCES

• Miles Fisher, an actor and Tom Cruise impersonator
• Actor Keegan-Michael Key
• Chris Ume, a video creator
• Getty Images

THE ANSWER

No, that video is not real. It is a deepfake created by Tom Cruise impersonator Miles Fisher. Fisher has been creating Tom Cruise deepfake videos for years.

WHAT WE FOUND

This video was recorded during the American Film Institute (AFI) Awards luncheon on March 11 in Beverly Hills, California. In the video, Cruise appears to jump over Key and congratulates him on the AFIs.

VERIFY tracked the clip back to accounts known for making deepfake videos with an actor digitally altered to look like Tom Cruise. This particular deepfake was created by video creator Chris Ume and Cruise impersonator Miles Fisher.

A deepfake is made using artificial intelligence technologies that can be used to replace or synthesize faces, speech or expressions of emotions.

In a message to VERIFY, Ume said he and Fisher created the video for the purpose of "educational parody." 

"To avoid confusion we add a watermark to every video, clearly label the channel parody and DeepTomCruise, and have actually de-aged Cruise's face significantly in the videos. We created the project to raise awareness of deepfakes in a fun and lighthearted manner. While we never intend to deceive anyone, we hope that people who may temporarily believe it's the real Cruise come away wiser to what is now possible with synthetic media and view content online more critically," Ume said.

We can VERIFY that actor is the real Keegan-Michael Key. Key attended the awards ceremony with his wife, according to photos from the Getty Images website. Key was wearing the same outfit in the Getty photos as he is in the deepfake Cruise video. 

Key posted the video on TikTok and Ume posted the stunt video on his Instagram, writing, “#deeptomcruise jumps are inhuman.”

Ume tagged both Key and Fisher on Instagram. In response, Fisher joked he was very close to being injured during the stunt. Ume also posted a video to YouTube revealing how the Cruise deepfakes are created.

Fisher has 220,000 followers on Instagram and has posted various Cruise deepfakes on the account, but he really gained a following on TikTok, where his @deeptomcruise account has amassed more than 3.4 million followers.

So, we can VERIFY that no, Cruise did not perform that stunt. The video was created by an impersonator and a video creator. There is also no evidence Cruise attended the AFI Awards ceremony at all.

Fisher and Cruise did not respond to VERIFY’S request for comment at the time of publication.