So that’s why they have until now shielded Tom Cruise’s face from all the promotional material for his upcoming film, Digger.
Like any old school magician knows, the trick is in the reveal.
Alejandro G. Inarritu film Digger released its first full trailer today, which finally gave audiences a look at Cruise in the title role. He’s not the blockbuster action super star of the past decades.
Hiding behind prosthetics and a rotund body suit, Cruise looks more like the 25 years later version of Les Grossman, the crass movie executive he played in Tropic Thunder, but with slightly more hair.
Digger represents a massive departure for Cruise, whose recent body of work has been almost exclusively action roles in the Mission: Impossible movies and in Top Gun: Maverick. This is a return to the thespian who embraced a diversity of parts in a variety of genres.
In Digger, Cruise plays an oil baron faced with a dying cat and a cataclysmic event. Both things are devastating. That disaster might be of his making, but now he’s being tasked with saving the world.
There is also, someone else points out, a nuclear race – which may or may not be related. It’s a lot to take on for an oil baron.
The film looks to be a riotous comedy-drama and what the trailer shows of Cruise is a very expressive character who almost always tells you exactly what he’s thinking.
The supporting cast includes John Goodman (as the US president, no less), Riz Ahmed, Jesse Plemons, Sandra Huller and Michael Stuhlbarg.
At a trailer launch event in Los Angeles, Cruise said Digger was unlike anything else he’s done.
“I have never had something that could challenge me in this way, and neither had Alejandro when we went in, ever. When you see this film, it’s totally original,” he said, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
He added, “Alejandro took several days during which he was just reading the script to me, and 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’s not just the role that’s a departure, it’s also who he is working with. For the recent Mission: Impossible movies, he has been in a lock-step filmmaking relationship with director Christopher McQuarrie.
They often built the movies around the stunts Cruise wanted to do, and would start filming without a complete script.
Maverick was directed by Joseph Kosinski, who Cruise had previously worked with on Oblivion, and McQuarrie was also a presence on the set of the Top Gun sequel.
With Inarritu, it’s a new director for Cruise, who said has admired the Mexican filmmaker since he saw the 2000 drama Amores Perros. Inarritu is also considered an auteur filmmaker with a distinct style. His works include Babel, Birdman, The Revenant and 21 Grams.
Inarritu has won four Oscars, including two for directing, and it’s expected the studio will push Digger for an awards campaign.
Cruise has been selling this film as the culmination of his four-decades-long career, which was emphasised during an earlier promotional video which played like a highlights package of his filmography.
The actor’s long-time fans will be glad to see him sink into a role that recalls his thespian ambitions on his earlier films such as Magnolia, Collateral, Born on the Fourth of July and, yes, even Tropic Thunder.
As his Digger character says in the trailer, “Let’s f..king go!”
Digger is in cinemas on October 1
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