So deep he disappeared — Tom Cruise’s method acting left co-stars blanking on him
Tom Cruise went so deep into Digger Rockwell that a co-star sometimes forgot who was opposite them — and you’re not getting much on Riz Ahmed’s character yet.
Every so often, Tom Cruise goes in for a role so hard that you forget you’re watching Tom Cruise at all—which, for someone who once turned up as Les Grossman (look it up), is saying something. Now he’s done it again with his latest film, Digger, where even Riz Ahmed, his co-star, got lost in the performance.
Digger is set for release on 2 October 2026.
Cruise disappears, Digger arrives
Cruise, now 64, is playing Digger Rockwell, a seriously rich oil tycoon at the heart of this pitch-black comedy. Apparently, his dedication to the character was intense enough that Ahmed, who plays a scientist called Ganesh, genuinely started to forget he was working with one of the most famous blokes on the planet. In an interview with Empire, Ahmed said filming with Cruise meant dealing with Digger, not Tom:
As Ahmed put it to Empire, "I kind of forgot about Tom. Because Tom was Digger, and he became Digger, and he stayed in Digger."
According to Ahmed, this sort of thing just comes with the territory. Whether you like the term ‘method acting’ or not, he reckons the border between actor and role always goes a bit blurry—that’s just how the job works. They even had a laugh about it at the film’s wrap dinner, when Ahmed joked to Cruise that it was nice meeting him, but he rather missed his mate Digger.
Method in the madness
On his own end, Cruise has called the part "a leap into the unknown." He said it involved pulling together everything he’s learnt across more than forty years of acting (yes, really—he’s been at it since Risky Business and then some). But it wasn’t all down to Cruise’s own process. The director, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, decided to get in on the action by reading the script out loud to Cruise, trying to give him a feel for the rhythm and the heart of the thing. The transformation carried over everywhere, right down to Cruise fiddling with his voice, overhauling his look, picking out new clothes, even tweaking how he moved—all to nail that 'oil tycoon with a conscience' energy.
Who else is on board?
The film also ropes in Jesse Plemons, Sandra Hüller, Sophie Wilde, Emma D’Arcy, Michael Stuhlbarg, and John Goodman. As far as plot goes, it’s all about Digger accidentally setting off a huge ecological disaster, then scrambling to make amends—so, not entirely a low-stakes romp. Ahmed is keeping schtum about how his own character Ganesh crosses paths with Digger, but it’s safe to guess there’ll be some sort of science-versus-greed confrontation in there somewhere.