Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Words by JANE CROWTHER

Ahead of the Royal Film Performance™ and World Premiere of Digger, Greg Williams catches a moment of calm with Tom Cruise.

Standing on the seventh-floor roof terrace of the Chancery Rosewood Hotel in Mayfair on a bright Tuesday afternoon in September, Tom Cruise surveys London from the top of the building that was once the American Embassy in the city. Above him, in full flight, sits a huge metal 35ft-wide American Golden Eagle made from WW2 B-52 bombers by Theodore Roszak. It’s a fitting spot for the actor/producer to contemplate the worldwide premiere of his latest film, Digger, which will bow in Leicester Square to an audience including the Prince and Princess of Wales in a few hours time. 

In the movie, Cruise plays a jingoistic Texan oil tycoon with White House sway and the view that he is above accountability when his Alaskan drilling causes a global environmental disaster. Directed and co-written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu (his first English-language film since The Revenant), it’s a role in which Cruise dons ageing make-up, a paunch and cowboy boots, chewing his uncomfortable words with a syrupy Texan accent. It’s a world away from the tux he’s wearing as Greg Williams shoots him in the hotel’s Eagle Bar before he begins hours of meeting fans, media and royals on the red carpet.

‘With Digger, I have to say, I’ve never had a guy that challenged me in this way,’ he admits of the role. ‘I had to draw on all of my experience, all of my learnings from all of the years and every film I’ve made to be able to play this character and match the ambition of this movie. That’s because even while I’m drawing on the tools I’ve learned over time, this is not a one-size-fits-all job.’ To avoid spoilers it’s impossible to detail just how Cruise’s decades of acting informs his performance, but suffice to say it involves duality, a meta element and walking a tight-rope of tone in a gonzo satire that requires him to use physical comedy and oratory bombast. ‘Finding the right tone is finding that line,’ he says of the balancing act. ‘It’s so precise. You have got to buy into the character, you have got to buy into the world.’ 

Part of that process, he says, was leaning into the clothes and make-up of Digger (designed by master prosthetist, Kazu Hiro), a man who wears silk pyjamas and Stetson, beige sports shirts and Texan cowboy suits with giant belt buckles nestling under his well-fed gut. ‘The colors and the wardrobe and the makeup… and Alejandro showed me his inspiration wall for Digger. From there, I’m playing, discovering the rhythm, and suddenly I can just be the character.’ He’s nodding to the character today by wearing black cowboy boots with his classic Armani tux and Jaques Marie Mage sunglasses.

The character is one of the most unpleasant he has played in his career and one who operates within a recognisable world stage – and his performance is likely to put him into the awards conversation. And, he hopes, makes audiences question and discuss what they’ve seen. ‘It’s definitely the oldest story ever told about humanity. What Alejandro has done is put a spotlight on our humanity in such a humorous and entertaining way, and I want people to bring to the story who they are, and to discover it for themselves and have conversations. The same themes play out in the schoolyard. You don’t have to be rich to wield power or to be a bully, there is a power play going on and it’s everywhere in every level of humanity. No one is immune, and history is written by the victors. Things happen fast, but human nature hasn’t changed.’

As a self-confessed movie fan, Cruise relishes the idea of seeing a big, bold film that challenges expectations and creates a debate when the lights go up. ‘I love sitting in that theatre opening weekend, I like being there with an audience so I can experience it with them. That’s something I’ve done since I was a kid. We traveled all over and whenever I would watch a movie with an audience, I was so curious – are they feeling the same way I do, are they enjoying this as much as I am? Maybe, maybe not, but that’s the beauty of cinema. Everyone likes what they like, what works for me may not work for you, but we’re there, together, and that’s what unites us. Your taste may not be mine, but what I want is for people to be immersed in the experience, to go along on this journey that’s projected up on that screen, whatever it takes to tell that story. And it takes all of us, together.’

Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Digger is in cinemas now
Thanks to the Eagle Bar Upper East at The Chancery Rosewood