Tom Cruise has been making movies for more than 40 years, and he is still not taking it easy. His latest film shows audiences a version of him they have rarely seen on the big screen.
The 64-year-old actor, best known for his daring stunts as Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible series, now leads Digger, a dark comedy by Mexican director Alejandro G. Iñárritu.
Speaking with ABC News' Chris Connelly in an interview that aired on Good Morning America on September 23, Tom reflected on his long career and called it "a real gift."
"I dreamed of a life to be able to do this for the rest of my life as a kid," he said. "And every day, I'm thinking, 'You know what? I can't control what's going to happen. But what I can control is I can just do the best I can.'"
In the film, Tom takes on the title role of Digger Rockwell, a wealthy and eccentric oil tycoon billed as "the most powerful man in the world." After his company causes an environmental catastrophe that puts the entire planet at risk, Digger races to convince everyone that he is the one who can save them.
"This is a story about power, greed, about responsible and being irresponsible," Tom said of the film. "He's trying to control things that are just – you can't control it. It's not going to happen."
The project first reached Tom roughly eight years ago, during a meeting with Alejandro. That meeting happened to fall on his very first day of shooting Top Gun: Maverick.
Tom has long been known for going all out on every project, and he said that is simply the only way he knows how to work.
"I don't know how else to do it. And it's so fun because I'm learning constantly," he said.
His dedication is clear in the film, where he looks almost nothing like himself. Prosthetics gave him a balding, graying head of hair and a bigger, older-looking body. His first session in the makeup chair lasted six hours. Tom challenged the crew to work faster, and over time, they managed to finish the whole look in under an hour.
The cast also includes John Goodman as the president of the United States, along with Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons and Michael Stuhlbarg.
Digger marks Alejandro's return to English-language filmmaking for the first time since The Revenant (2015), the film that earned Leonardo DiCaprio his long-awaited Oscar. Alejandro has four Academy Awards to his name, including back-to-back Best Director wins for Birdman and The Revenant.
For Tom, the film comes after Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025), the eighth movie in the franchise. In November 2025, the Academy gave him an honorary Oscar for his decades in the industry, and it was Alejandro who presented the award. It was the first Oscar of Tom's career, after four nominations that did not end in a win.
Digger began opening in cinemas worldwide on Sept. 30.
—By Paolo Lim