“Digger” Duo: Tom Cruise & Director Alejandro González Iñárritu on a Partnership 25 Years In The Making

Tom Cruise and director Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s collaboration on satirical black comedy Digger is a partnership 25 years in the making. At a trailer reveal event on the iconic Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California, the filmmaker told a select group of journalists that the footage was “only the first crack in the door, the tip of the iceberg, a promise” of what is to come when the film lands in theaters this fall.

Cruise has been waiting for the Mexican auteur since he saw his award-winning feature directorial debut, Amores Perros.  

“It was amazing. I was one of the first audiences, and I heard about it early on, so when I saw that film, I was like, “What the f**k? This guy!” Cruise recalled. “So I’m seeing the details of this filmmaker, what he conquered very early on here, and I’m going, how? The staging, what they’re doing with the camera, the performances, the design, and the color 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.” 

“I called all my friends. I was having people over. I was like, ‘Call the studios. You’ve got to see this movie. Who’s this guy, Alejandro?’ I’d never heard of him before. And he and I didn’t meet for many, many years. Then, years later, he came to me, and we talked.”

Decades later, the result of that talking is Digger, the story of Cruise’s Digger Rockwell, the most powerful man in the world, and a character Iñárritu describes as “charming, impossible not to watch,” and “Like all the most dangerous people, he makes you want to agree with you.”

The film follows Digger as he “embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything.” The film’s ensemble cast also includes Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons, John Goodman, Riz Ahmed, and Michael Stuhlbarg.

While the trailer reveal gave guests a better sense of what’s in store and the swirling mayhem surrounding the titular character and his actions, few other details were shared. In a pre-recorded video message shot on a soundstage in London, where he is finishing the film’s sound mix, Iñárritu said: “It’s absurd, it’s dangerous, but certainly comedic, because the source of great comedy is tragedy.”

“You are about to meet the most charismatic catastrophe you have ever seen.”

The four-time Oscar-winning filmmaker started working on Digger a decade ago, developing the concept just after The Revenant.

“I had an idea, not a script, not a film, just a relentless recurring obsession that has endured through all these wild years,” he shared. “I knew who this character was. I knew how he spoke, how he survived, how he seduced reality into agreeing with him. It took me ten years to do this film, because I wasn’t looking for a story. I was looking for the right way of saying it.”

One thing he knew was that Digger needed Cruise, two halves of a pair who have wanted to work together “since the beginning of the century.” 

“People often ask me why I chose Tom to play Digger. To me, that’s like asking somebody why you drink water when you are thirsty. Because it’s what you need,” he mused. “I admired him as an actor for years, and that wasn’t a surprise for me. The surprise was discovering that the human being behind the actor was just as extraordinary as the performances I would see throughout his career.”

According to Cruise, Iñárritu took the project to him seven years ago, and they worked on it together, taking each of them to creative places neither of them had gone before.

“When you see Digger, just the level of detail, the skill, the layers of making this film…he’s never made something like this before, nor have I,” Cruise, who also produced the film, shared. “Alejandro took several days 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.”

Digger sees Cruise going through some of the most extensive prosthetic work since playing Les Grossman in Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder. Iñárritu, also known for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), 21 Grams, and Babel, described that transformation as “astonishing,” adding that the actor told him it took him 40 years to become this character.

“I think we both know what it means to carry an entire career into a single moment like this,” the director shared. 

Bearing in mind the groundbreaking extremes Cruise has gone to in his previous films, such as the Mission: Impossible and Top Gun films, even he claims he “has never had something that could challenge me in this way,” promising that “when you see this film, it’s totally original.”  

“When we’re looking for characters, we’re looking for humor, drama, certain constructs. How do we communicate this? Whether it’s Les Grossman or Interview With the Vampire, Collateral or Risky Business, I’m always asking, “How do I communicate this?” The physicality, the makeup, that is stuff that you find as you are learning how to communicate.”

He continued, “You have to understand the tools. It’s not one-size-fits-all. You have to find the communication, the lenses, the color of the makeup, and the color of the cowboy boots. What are my shorts like? Even the color of the sets. They’re beautiful on every single level. You look at the taste of this man. It’s very special.” Dennis Gassner, who won an Oscar for his work on Bugsy, is Digger‘s production designer, and Jacqueline West, who previously worked with Iñárritu on The Revenant, was the film’s costume designer. 

Shot on VistaVision, “because cinema deserves scale,”—as Iñárritu put it—and using a 1954-designed camera, the director and his longtime collaborator, cinematographer Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki, used new “crazy wide vintage Leica lenses” designed specifically for the film. 

“I was lucky enough to be surrounded by extraordinary artists, producers, collaborators, co-writers, and a dreamlike, incredible cast, and people who believe in something that, for a very long time, existed only inside my head.”

Cruise, a proud cinephile and ongoing student of filmmaking, enthused that the lenses created “get this handcrafted look,” adding that “you can see and feel the difference.”  

“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 going through.” It’s a beautiful thing.” 

While discussing Digger, Cruise repeatedly referenced a career deep cut, Taps, the 1981 military drama directed by Harold Becker. The film’s stellar ensemble cast boasts George C. Scott, Timothy Hutton, Ronny Cox, Sean Penn, and Giancarlo Esposito. Still, the film’s cinematographer, Owen Roizman, seemed to be foremost in his mind when discussing his Digger experience and love of filmmaking.

“I’m there with Owen, and he’s talking about lenses. He’s got to be thinking, “Yeah, this kid’s just asking me gazillion questions.” He’s telling me all these technical things, and I was trying to absorb what he was saying,” he recalled. “I was watching, and I was going, ‘Boy, these guys knew. They understood the camera, they understood framing, they understood the stage and how to utilize that stage to create an effect.'”

Rounding out the onstage chat, Cruise, who describes himself as “grateful” and still finds it “amazing to be here at this age,” delivers his evergreen pitch to audiences, urging them to pursue their cinematic aspirations and to experience Digger in theaters when it opens in October.

“Everyone has a different point of view of life, their own experience, and it’s a lifelong journey of learning. I’ve never felt like, ‘I’m there. I’m there.’ You’re never there. It’s always the next dream, the love of this art form, and the passion; it’s all-encompassing,” he mused. 

“Since I was a kid, I’ve traveled the world, and I watch movies with audiences, and I’m very curious, ‘Do they feel the same way I do?’ That’s the beauty of this art form: everyone has their own likes and tastes, and what works and what doesn’t. I tell people: learn these skills, then go off and communicate your own stories. You don’t have to do it as I do. Do your thing.”

Digger arrives in theaters on October 2. 

Featured image: LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – APRIL 14: Tom Cruise and Alejandro González Iñárritu attend Warner Bros. “The Big Picture” CinemaCon 2026 at Caesars Palace on April 14, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by David Jon/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Pictures)