Tom Cruise’s love for ‘Amores Perros’ led him to ‘Digger’

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) — Tom Cruise still remembers being in awe of Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s feature directorial debut “Amores Perros,” which took home the Academy Award for best international feature film in 2001.

“What a brilliant film. It was amazing,” Cruise told journalists at a recent press event. “Every aspect of that film was very thought out, very detailed, and you could feel the powerful human voice of someone who was incredibly skilled at what they were doing.”

Twenty-five years later, Iñárritu and Cruise have collaborated on the highly-anticipated dark comedy “Digger.” Cruise kicked off his promotional tour for the film — and previewed a potential Hollywood awards campaign — at a trailer reveal event last week on the Warner Bros. studio lot. He greeted and posed for photos with film journalists and influencers.

“He’s never made something like this before, nor have I,” said Cruise, who told journalists it felt as if all the skills he has developed throughout his 45-year acting career led up to his performance in the film, set for theatrical release on Oct. 2.

Iñárritu knew the role was meant for Cruise.

“The transformation he went through was astonishing,” said the filmmaker in a prerecorded video at Thursday’s event. “And I think we both know what it means to carry an entire career into a single moment like this. We both knew that throughout our journeys, we had never done anything even close to this.”

The 64-year-old actor and producer stars in Iñárritu’s “Digger” alongside a cast of A-list talent like John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Riz Ahmed and Jesse Plemons.

Iñárritu first approached Cruise with the script and read it to him line by line over a series of days, a method Cruise says he asks of all collaborators.

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“I’m listening to everything that’s in his mind, so that I can understand that, and then I know how to contribute to it, and bring that collaboration together. And to be there with Alejandro, it was beautiful,” said the actor.

The trailer showcases an eccentric oil baron named Digger Rockwell, played by Cruise in heavy prosthetic makeup, whose company sets off a chain of events and hijinks.

Iñárritu says he had the idea for the film just after completing “The Revenant,” but it took him a decade to complete the story.

“Not script, not a film, just a relentless recurring obsession that has endured through all these wild years. I knew who this character was,” said the Oscar-winning director. “I knew how he spoke, how he survived, how he seduced reality into agreeing with him … I wasn’t looking for a story. I was looking for the right way of saying it.”

Like “The Brutalist” and “One Battle After Another,” the film was shot on VistaVision.