Alejandro G. Iñárritu Was So Blown Away by Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’ Take He Refused to Film Coverage

• Collider's Steve Weintraub talks with director Alejandro G. Iñárritu for Digger.
• Iñárritu discusses years of prep and a two-year edit, honing the filmmaker's ambitious vision.
• He also highlights Cruise's masterful monologue, calling it a "miracle."

Academy Award-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu believes he has accomplished a career first working with Tom Cruise on Digger. While talking with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, the filmmaker identifies the single scene that had him “trembling behind the monitor,” and takes us behind the scenes for this duo’s first collaboration.

From the mind behind The Revenant and Bardo, Iñárritu defies audience expectations with Digger, starring Cruise in his most unexpected role to date. Digger Rockwell (Cruise) is an eccentric billionaire oil tycoon who’s on a dogged mission to convince the world he’s their savior — before his failed drilling project in Greenland destroys the planet as we know it. Digger’s all-star cast also features John Goodman, Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons, and Michael Stuhlbarg.

In this interview, Iñárritu revisits the painstaking editing process that spanned nearly two years of post-production and breaks down Cruise’s jaw-dropping monologue sequence. You can watch the conversation in the video above, with a full transcript provided below.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu Explains How 'Digger' Evolved in the Editing Room

"It's a very, as you see, intricate story that needs a lot of care and nuances..."

COLLIDER: I really want to say congrats on the movie, and a huge thank you to Warner Bros. for letting you take this big swing of a film.

ALEJANDRO G. IÑÁRRITU: [Laughs] I know, I know. I don't know how I lied to them, and they trust me, but they trust me with a big bet.

I love original films like this that take big swings. Anyway, I'm fascinated by editing because it's where it all comes together, so how did Digger possibly change in the editing room in ways you didn't expect?

IÑÁRRITU: I think it took time, I have to say, to get to where we are now. It was a two-year process. I mean, obviously, the visual preparation took almost six years, the rehearsals a year of pre-production, and almost two years of post-production, because it's a very, as you see, intricate story that needs a lot of care and nuances and details to make this possible, to make it work together.

So, in the editing, I have to say that I was lucky, and at the same time, I have a challenge to choose from an incredible amount of range of possibilities. That is liberating, but at the same time, it's much more complicated because more choices is beautiful, but it makes it more difficult to edit because you have to try all of the pieces — how this works with this, with this, with this. So anyway, but the precision of Tom [Cruise], I have to say, it was always very perfect. It was a very precise performance.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu Says Tom Cruise’s 'Digger' Monologue Was "Almost a Miracle"

"I felt that it was something special in my life and career to have witnessed and achieved that at that level."

Image via Warner Bros.

That monologue shot is incredible. Could you just talk about filming that one sequence? Because I was watching it, and I was like, “Oh my God, there are so many extras.” What Tom is delivering, the way the camera is moving, I'm like, “Holy F.”

IÑÁRRITU: I think that I had a plan to do kind of a master shot, from one moment when he really just comes out and suddenly he twists and he reverse-engineers what you will expect he will kind of accept. When he turns and doubles down, I planned one shot that was covering the context in this obviously VistaVision shot that’s very, very depth-of-field to see all these incredible extras that I wanted to work in many layers and have him alive with that purple suit.

Suddenly, it was in the fourth or fifth take that I was giving him notes about things, and he was adding notes and adding notes, and the complexity of the dancing between the camera move and him, we choreographed this, and we rehearsed many, many times, but it was the first time that we were doing it, and in the fourth take or fifth, I don't remember, I was just literally trembling behind the monitor. I said, “Don't fuck it up. You are great.” Everything was working, and it's almost a miracle because there were so many ballerinas and the crane.

When it finished, I was so emotional that I couldn't believe that it had happened, and I said, “Tom, we are done.” And he said, “What do you mean? We have a lot of coverage.” And I said, “No coverage.” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “I will never do better. You will never do better. It’s done.” He said, “Are you sure?” I said, “I'm sure.” All the extras and everything, we left that moment, and I felt that it was something special in my life and career to have witnessed and achieved that at that level, and I'm glad that you perceived that, what I felt that way, that moment.

Digger is now playing in theaters and IMAX.