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MAVERICK MAKEOVER

Hollywood Legend Looks Unrecognizable in New Role as Eccentric Billionaire

The actor made a sharp departure from his usual action-man bravado.

Tamilore OshikanluContributor

PublishedJul 13, 2026, 5:42 PM EDT

UpdatedJul 13, 2026, 5:47 PM EDT

Updated Jul 13, 2026, 5:47 PM EDTPublished Jul 13, 2026, 5:42 PM EDT

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Tom Cruise has traded death-defying stunts and leading-man looks for a receding hairline and a sizable gut.

The 64-year-old actor appeared nearly unrecognizable Monday in the first full trailer for Digger, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s upcoming black comedy.

Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, a quirky Southern oil tycoon who must race to contain a global catastrophe caused by one of his own drilling projects.

The actor’s transformation includes thinning gray hair, matching eyebrows, facial prosthetics, wrinkles, and padding that gives the famously lean action star a protruding stomach.

Cruise also unveiled the movie’s official poster on Instagram, writing, “Digg. Or Die. DIGGER. Only in theaters October 2.”

In the image, the actor stands atop the globe, wearing a cowboy hat and a business suit, and clutching a shovel. The film also stars Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons, Riz Ahmed, Sophie Wilde, Emma D’Arcy, Michael Stuhlbarg, and John Goodman.

The paunchy billionaire is a dramatic change of pace for Cruise, who has spent much of the past decade clinging to airplanes, leaping from cliffs, and otherwise finding increasingly elaborate ways to risk his life on camera.

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For 2011’s Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol, Cruise scaled the exterior of Dubai’s 2,717-foot Burj Khalifa. Four years later, he strapped himself to the side of a military plane as it took off for Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation.

He then performed a high-altitude, low-opening parachute jump for Mission: Impossible—Fallout and rode a motorcycle off a Norwegian cliff before parachuting to safety in Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One.

Cruise escalated matters again in 2025’s Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning, wing-walking on a biplane traveling more than 120 mph and completing 16 jumps with a burning parachute—a feat that earned him a Guinness World Record.

In Digger, however, the actor’s most conspicuous physical challenge appears to be carrying Rockwell’s belly.

The film marks Cruise’s first major role outside the Mission: Impossible and Top Gun franchises since he played drug smuggler Barry Seal in 2017’s American Made.

Cruise said during an audience Q&A session that it had taken his entire career to prepare for the unusual character.

“It took me 40 years to be able to put on the boots of Digger Rockwell and [play] the many layers,” he said. “I have never had something that could challenge me in this way, and neither has Alejandro.”

Iñárritu, the four-time Oscar-winning filmmaker behind Birdman and The Revenant, said he had envisioned Cruise in the role from the beginning and praised his transformation as “astonishing.”

“The film needed Tom,” the director said at CinemaCon in April. “We have wanted to work together since the beginning of the century.”

He added, “I admired him as an actor for years, and that wasn’t a surprise for me.”

Cruise has said that his relentless training stretches far beyond traditional workouts. Ahead of The Final Reckoning, he told People that he was “constantly training” in skills ranging from parachuting and piloting aircraft to dancing and playing piano.

“The wonderful thing is you’re never there,” he said. “It can always be better.”

That determination usually results in Cruise dangling thousands of feet above the ground. This time, it has turned him into a balding oil baron who may have destroyed the planet.

Tamilore OshikanluContributor

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