The first full-length trailer for Alejandro González Iñárritu's highly anticipated comedy-drama Digger has been released, offering audiences their first look at Tom Cruise's least recognizable role since he donned a fatsuit and prosthetics for 2008's Tropic Thunder. The film, set for worldwide release in early October, stars Cruise as Digger Rockwell, 'the most powerful man in the world,' on a mission to save humanity from an ecological disaster.
Cruise on the Challenge of Digger
Ahead of the trailer's launch, Cruise spoke to press and fans at a Warner Bros event in Los Angeles, emphasizing that the project was unlike any he had worked on before. 'I have never had something that could challenge me in this way and neither had Alejandro when we went in, ever,' said the actor, according to The Hollywood Reporter. 'When you see this film, it's totally original.'
The trailer reveals Cruise with a grey combover, a pot belly, and a strong southern accent, playing an oil baron whose company may have triggered an ecological disaster that could lead to nuclear war. Per the film's logline, he 'embarks on a frantic mission to prove that he is humanity's saviour before the disaster he's unleashed destroys everything.'
Supporting Cast and Iñárritu's Vision
The supporting cast includes John Goodman, Riz Ahmed, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, and Sophie Wilde. At the LA event, Cruise expressed his admiration for Iñárritu, dating back to the director's 2000 gritty drama Amores Perros. 'What a brilliant film. It was amazing,' the actor enthused, according to Variety. 'The performances. The design. The colour in the movie. Every aspect of that film was very thought out, very detailed, and you could feel the powerful human voice of someone who was incredibly skilled at what they were doing.'
Around seven years ago, Iñárritu pitched Digger to Cruise over several days, reading the script aloud. 'I'm listening to everything that's in his mind, so that I can understand that, and then I know how to contribute to it, and bring that collaboration together. It was beautiful,' Cruise said. 'There's nothing better than to physically and metaphorically stand on the edge of a cliff and go, “Let's do this. And I trust you, and whatever we're going to do, I know this is going to be a hell of an experience.”'
The Origin of Digger
In a video message shown at the LA event, Iñárritu said the idea for Digger came to him while finishing his 2015 epic The Revenant, which won him the best director Oscar and best actor for Leonardo DiCaprio. 'It was just after The Revenant when I had an idea,' the director recalled. 'Not a script, not a film, just a relentless, recurring obsession that has endured through all these wild years. I knew who this character was. I knew how he spoke, how he survived, how he seduced reality into agreeing with him. But it took me 10 years to do this film, because I wasn't looking for a story. I was looking for the right way of saying it. And it's absurd, it's dangerous, but certainly comedic, because the source of great comedy is tragedy.'
Digger was filmed in VistaVision, a high-definition analog process first introduced in the 1950s that has seen a return to popularity recently, with films such as The Brutalist and One Battle After Another shot with the technique.
