Tom Cruise Confirms ‘Triple Role’ in Digger That Set All-Time Career Record

Tom Cruise‘s Digger hasn’t made a strong impression at the box office. However, the actor has not compromised when it comes to his performance, especially because it has a layered meta-structure. For months, we have known that Cruise plays Digger Rockwell in the movie directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. In an interview for the movie at the Academy Museum, the actor-director duo confirmed its biggest twist for those yet to watch the movie.

SPOILER ALERT !!!

Major spoilers for Digger follow.

“The most challenging thing was that, obviously, we were doing a play and a film, and you are serving two different art forms,” the director said (via GoldDerby). Cruise then clarified that he is actually playing three characters on screen, which he defined as “Digger A, Digger B, and Curtis.” For the unversed, Curtis Markson is an actor in the movie who is playing two versions of Digger Rockwell in the fictional stage play Fossil Fools.

Cruise noted that he has “never seen a character like this ever,” and that’s why he had to go to some extra lengths to completely absorb the nuanced differences between the “three” roles.

Tom Cruise Reveals His Secret To Playing ‘Triple Role’ in Digger

Tom Cruise in Digger | Credit: Warner Bros.

Cruise had to “find his accent” without a dialect coach for Digger. Alejandro G. Iñárritu also explained that the stage reveal, which comes almost half an hour into the film, meant that they had to work in more theatrical terms, including having “a lot of dialogue.” Describing the process of going from one version to another, Cruise said, “I’m looking for something emotionally where I can ground a character in an emotional reality. As an actor, I’m looking for that commonality. I found that by going from Digger to Curtis.” He elaborated that “there’s a Curtis in all of us, in some ways,” and “there’s a Digger in all of us.”

Although marketing for Digger didn’t reveal the big twist, Iñárritu  confirmed that there were “some crumbs” left for viewers to figure out even before it was revealed. No one can claim that they didn’t try something bold with the movie. However, it might not be sitting well with the mainstream audience. Made on a reported $160 million budget, the movie opened at $8 million (The Numbers) across North American locations, with a current total of $ 20 million worldwide. Digger is being dubbed Tom Cruise’s worst box office performance.

Have you watched Digger yet? Let us know what you thought.