Tom Cruise reveals remarkable transformation in Digger trailer: ‘I never had anything that could challenge me in this way’ | Tom Cruise

The first full trailer for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s comedy-drama Digger has been released, and with it, audiences’ first look at Tom Cruise’s lesser-known role since he donned a tracksuit and prosthetics in 2008’s Tropic Thunder.

The film will be released worldwide in early October, and stars Cruise as Digger Rockwell, the “world’s strongest man” on a mission to save the world from environmental disaster.

Ahead of the trailer’s release, Cruise recently spoke to press and fans at a Warner Bros. launch event in Los Angeles, saying it’s unlike any project he’s worked on before.

“I didn’t have anything that could challenge me in that way and Alejandro didn’t have it when we walked in at all,” the actor said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “When you see this movie, it’s completely original.”

The trailer shows Cruise in grey, a pot belly, and a strong Southern accent as an oil baron whose company may have caused an environmental disaster that could lead to nuclear war. According to the film’s tagline, “He then embarks on a frantic mission to prove that he is humanity’s savior before the catastrophe he unleashes destroys everything.”

The cast includes John Goodman, Riz Ahmed, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, and Sophie Wilde.

At the Los Angeles event, Cruz said his admiration for Iñárritu dates back to the gritty 2000 drama Amores Perros. “What a great movie. It was amazing,” the actor enthused, according to Variety. “When I saw that movie, I don’t know how you all felt, but I was like, ‘What is this guy?’ This guy!”

“The performances. The design. The color in the movie. Every aspect of this movie was so thought out, so detailed, and you could feel the strong human voice of someone who was incredibly skilled at what he was doing.”

About seven years ago, Iñárritu screened Digger to Cruise over several days with the director reading the script aloud to the actor.

“I’m listening to everything that’s on his mind, so I can understand it, and then I know how to contribute to it and bring this collaboration together. It’s been beautiful,” Cruz said.

He added: “There’s nothing better than standing physically and metaphorically on the edge of a cliff and saying, ‘Let’s do this. And I trust you, and whatever we do, I know this will be a terrible experience.'”

In a video message shown at the Los Angeles event, Iñárritu said the idea for Digger came to him while he was finishing his 2015 epic film The Revenant, which won the Oscar for best director as well as best actor for star Leonardo DiCaprio.

“It was right after The Revenant when I had an idea,” the director recalls. Not a script, not a movie, just a recurring, relentless obsession that has persisted throughout these wild years. I knew who this character was.

“I knew how he talked, how he survived, how he tricked reality into agreeing with him. But it took me 10 years to make this movie, because I wasn’t looking for a story. I was looking for the right way to say it. It’s silly, it’s serious, but it’s certainly comedic, because the source of great comedy is tragedy.”

The Excavator was filmed in VistaVision, an analog high-definition process that was first introduced in the 1950s and has seen a resurgence in popularity recently, with films such as The Brutalist and One Battle After Another being shot using the technology.