One of the most intriguing upcoming 2026 movies on the way has to be Tom Cruise's comedic turn for Digger. The comedy from Birdman and The Revenant filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu will feature Cruise as we’ve never seen him before: sporting gray hair, wrinkles and a “firebrand Foghorn Leghorn accent," according to first reactions to footage shown at CinemaCon. One of the movie’s actors just hyped up Cruise’s performance as Digger Rockwell even more.
Emma D’Arcy is best known for playing Rhaenyra Targaryen in House of the Dragon, but they also has a supporting role in Digger alongside Cruise and Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons, John Goodman and Riz Ahmed. When talking about the movie, they had this to say about it:
[It was] one of those career moments where the whole time it's happening, you can't believe it. I had my notebook with me, and anytime that I wasn't shooting, I was just trying to make notes about how Alejandro [and] Tom were working, about that process, about the extraordinary rigor that Alejandro brings to every element of his work.
Emma D'Arcy
Cruise has been best known lately for starring in big-budget action movies like Top Gun: Maverick and the Mission: Impossible films where he’s pulled off some crazy stunts. But, when he was starting out in the 1980s and 1990s, he regularly was critically-acclaimed for his acting chops more than being Hollywood’s daredevil.
D’Arcy’s comments about working with Cruise and Iñárritu implies we are really in for a treat with Digger, especially regarding the lead’s performance. The House of the Dragon actor literally had their notebook out during filming afterall. As Emma D’Arcy also added during an interview with Entertainment Weekly:
It's sort of unparalleled, and Tom Cruise is phenomenal. I'm very excited. I haven't seen it, but I knew while I was in the room that something incredibly special was happening. I would've gone there and shot nothing. I would've been happy just to stand at the door and ogle at that process.
Emma D'Arcy
In Digger, Cruise plays a fictional oil tycoon who’s apparently a “massive jerk” to anyone he comes in contact with except for his frail old cat. The movie’s writer/director has said the actor’s performance in the role is “another kind of fearless” than we’ve come to expect from the actor, adding that he thinks it might be “his most challenging” yet. You can check out the first look at the movie below:
As we look forward to Digger, one of the movie’s other actors, Jesse Plemons has also commented on the film as well. He called it “one of the strangest, funniest, most tragic scripts I’ve read” – and that’s coming from a guy who was in Bugonia. He also called it “a kind of modern-day Dr. Strangelove thing” while saying it’s “something else entirely” in the same sentence.
This is definitely enough to get me excited for Digger after the mysterious marketing thus far. Digger is coming to theaters on October 2. If you follow House of the Dragon, catch Emma D’Arcy in Season 3 starting on June 21 via HBO Max subscription.
