1 of 6 | Tom Cruise, seen at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, stars in “Digger.” File Photo by Rocco Spaziani/ UPI | License Photo
Warner Bros. released a new trailer for Digger on Monday. As Digger Rockwell, Cruise sports gray hair, a pot belly and a wild cowboy wardrobe.
On Thursday at the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, Calif., Cruise compared creating his latest character to some of his earliest and most classic roles.
“Whether it’s Les Grossman or Interview with the Vampire, Collateral or Risky Business, I’m always asking, ‘How do I communicate this?'” Cruise, 64, said. “The physicality, the makeup, that is stuff that you find as you are learning how to communicate.”
The trailer shows tycoon Digger chastising a technician reporting a crisis at his Arctic station, smooth-talking the President of the United States (John Goodman) and nursing his ailing cat. Cruise described such character nuances as music.
Once again citing a variety of different roles, from Tropic Thunder’s studio exec Grossman, to his early comedy Risky Business and utterly sincere Jerry Maguire, Cruise described how he hones such characters. He went through the same process with Digger.
“The behavior of a character, the movement of a character, these are things that as we’re looking at the makeup side, as you’re developing, you got to go: is this our tone?” Cruise said. “Is it drama? Is it comedy? Is it too much?”
In a recorded video introduction from the editing room in England, director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu described the character of Digger.
“Digger is charming,” Iñarritu said. “He’s funny. He’s impossible not to watch. Like all the most dangerous people, he makes you want to agree with him.”
Iñárritu, who won Best Director Oscars two years in a row for Birdman and The Revenant, filmed Digger in VistaVision, the 1954 process Paul Thomas Anderson brought back for last year’s One Battle After Another. Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki also added a new component.
“For the first time ever, Chivo and I were allowed to mount on some new crazy wide vintage Leica lenses designed specifically for our film,” the director said.
As a producer and film enthusiast, Cruise also marveled at the technical details of Digger. Like Top Gun: Maverick and recent Mission: Impossibles, Digger will also screen in IMAX.
“The lenses that they created to get his handcrafted look, you can see and feel the difference,” Cruise said. “Just loading a camera in VistaVision, the sound of that film going through, I was like, ‘Just everyone quiet for a second. Let’s just hear it go through.’ It’s a beautiful thing.”
The cinematography also reminded Cruise of earlier experiences. On the military school drama Taps, Cruise spent time with cinematographer Owen Roizman learning about camera, framing and staging.
“It wasn’t just Owen Roizman and the knowledge that he had at that particular moment, but everyone that he learned from previously when he was the young guy loading the camera, being there with the great masters and not so great masters,” Cruise said. “You learn from both.”
Before all the technical details and character work is finished, Cruise considers himself an audience member first and foremost. He even attends public screenings with full crowds, who sometimes recognize him sitting in the aisle.
“I love going to opening weekend,” Cruise said. “I like being there with an audience. I want people to be immersed in the movie, so whatever it takes to tell that story, and it takes all of us.”
Digger opens in October in theaters.
