Tom Cruise is pulling back the curtain on the painstaking makeup process behind his upcoming movie Digger — and the unusually methodical way he says the production brought a six-hour transformation down to under an hour.
Appearing on a Friday episode of Travis and Jason Kelce’s New Heights podcast, Cruise described how the hair and makeup teams initially needed six hours to apply the prosthetics required to turn him into his unrecognizable character in the film. With long shooting days and the basic need to sleep, the actor said that kind of schedule was not sustainable.
“The first time we did the makeup, it took six hours,” Cruise said.
He then broke down the math of what that meant during production. “I gotta sleep at least six [hours]. They keep saying I need more… but OK, that’s 12,” he said. “Now, we have 12-hour days filming. So now that’s six hours on, two hours off with the makeup.”
Rather than simply accept the lengthy process, Cruise said he approached the transformation like a system that could be studied, measured and improved. His solution involved a chalkboard, a stopwatch and a detailed breakdown of each prosthetic application.
“I had a guy there with a stopwatch, and I’m like, ‘OK, you see that time, six hours? By the time we’re done, we’re going to get it under an hour,’” Cruise recalled. “They were like, ‘No, I’m not doing that; it will never happen.’ I’m like, ‘OK, first of all, if you say no, you can’t do it; you will never get there. So can we agree that we’ll maybe make it a little less?’ So with each piece that was going on, it was timed and then we’d drill and practice.”
According to Cruise, the approach worked — and not because the team was rushing through the work.
“They were like, ‘What?!’ And they didn’t even know it, and they didn’t even rush,” he said.
The actor connected the makeup-room overhaul to the broader way he thinks about filmmaking and preparation. “I like going into a system, studying it and trying to figure out how I can do it better, more efficient,” Cruise said. “The films that I make, I’m constantly going, how can I do it better? How do I prepare better?”
In Digger, Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, an eccentric oil tycoon whose look required the actor to be altered with gray hair, wrinkles and a larger frame than his own. The film’s story centers on Rockwell after he creates an environmental disaster and is ordered by the U.S. president to repair the damage.
John Goodman plays the president in the Alejandro G. Iñárritu movie.
The role marks a return to a particular kind of character transformation for Cruise. He previously underwent a heavy prosthetic makeover to play studio executive Les Grossman in the 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder. Digger is his first character role of this kind since then.
What Happens Next?
Digger opens in theaters Oct. 2, giving audiences their first full look at the transformation Cruise and the film’s makeup team worked to streamline behind the scenes.