Tom Cruise accepts ice bucket challenge (+video)

Tom Cruise and Chris McQuarrie get doused in ice. Photo/YouTube

Hugh Jackman challenged Tom Cruise to the ALS ice bucket challenge and his response? Mission: accomplished.

Cruise and Mission: Impossible 5 director Chris McQuarrie doused themselves in not two, but eight buckets of bone-cold water to raise awareness and money for ALS, known in Australia as motor neurone disease (MND).

Cruise posted the video to Twitter along with the message: "Thx @RealHughJackman for challenging @chrismcquarrie and I to the #ALSIceBucketChallenge. Mission accomplished."

Thx @RealHughJackman for challenging @chrismcquarrie and I to the #ALSIceBucketChallenge. Mission accomplished. https://t.co/bhKR96NFU9

McQuarrie says the whole cast and crew would have been there, except because they're days away from shooting, everyone is spread out over three continents.

"But we didn't want to miss the 24-hour deadline so Tom and I are here to take a hit for the team," he said in the video, which Cruise posted onto Twitter.

Cruise added: "Chris and I are also making donations on behalf of every member of our cast and crew that were lucky enough not to be here today."

The pair then sat and awaited their fate, as people threw the icy water over them. By the sixth bucket, they were struggling.

"How much more?!" Cruise said. "There's no end," McQuarrie added.

Funnily enough, they needn't have even gone through with it.

In the ice bucket challenge, the water is the punishment if you don't donate to the ALS Association within 24 hours - which they did.

If you donate, or get iced, then you nominate another three people to the challenge.

It's why Charlie Sheen simply poured money on himself - because that's the amount he was pledging to donate.

However, celebrities such as Cruise, Jackman and others getting involved is not only amusing, but also helps by raising awareness as well as funds.

Cruise's video followed a similar one of Jackman, Rooney Mara, Garrett Hedlund and the cast of Pan throwing buckets of the water over themselves in a chilly, wind-swept field.

Jackman had been challenged by Les Miserables castmate Russell Crowe.

- AAP