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 in his least recognizable role since he donned a fatsuit and prosthetics for 2008's Tropic Thunder.
The film will be released worldwide in early October and stars Cruise as Digger Rockwell, described as “the most powerful man in the world” on a mission to save the world from an ecological disaster.
Cruise on the Challenge of the Role
Ahead of the trailer's launch, Cruise spoke to press and fans at a Warner Bros event in Los Angeles, saying that it was unlike any project 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 shows Cruise with a grey combover, a pot belly, and a strong southern accent in the role of an oil baron whose company may have triggered an ecological disaster that could lead to nuclear war. Per the film's logline, he then “embarks on a frantic mission to prove that he is humanity’s saviour before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything”.
Supporting Cast and Director's Vision
The supporting cast includes John Goodman, Riz Ahmed, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, and Sophie Wilde. At the Los Angeles event, Cruise expressed his admiration for Iñárritu, dating back to the 2000 gritty drama Amores Perros. “What a brilliant film. It was amazing,” the actor enthused, according to Variety. “When I saw that film, I don’t know how you all felt, but I was like, ‘What the fuck? This guy!’”
Cruise praised the film's design and performances: “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.”
Development and Filming Technique
Around seven years ago, Iñárritu pitched Digger to Cruise over several days, during which the director read 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,’” he added.
In a video message shown at the LA event, Iñárritu revealed that the idea for Digger came to him as he was finishing his 2015 epic The Revenant, which won him the best director Oscar as well as best actor for star 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.
