Tom Cruise is not a man who\u2019s easy to forget. He\u2019s one of the biggest stars Hollywood has ever seen. A man whose contributions to cinema range from some of the most jaw-dropping action spectacles ever pulled off (see: the Mission: Impossible<\/em> movies, Top Gun<\/em> and its sequel, and many more) to arresting character dramas that made him a megastar in the first place (from A Few Good Men<\/em>, to Rain Man<\/em>, to Jerry Maguire<\/em>). And yet, during production of his latest film Digger<\/em>, Cruise\u2019s co-star Riz Ahmed found himself lost in the larger-than-life character that the star has worked up with director Alejandro G. I\u00f1\u00e1rritu: a certain Digger Rockwell.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI kind of forgot about Tom. Because Tom was<\/em> Digger, and he became Digger, and he stayed in Digger,\u201d Ahmed tells Empire<\/em> of Digger<\/em>, in which he plays scientist Ganesh. \u201cWhatever people say about method acting, whether you try or not, lines blur between yourself and a character. They have to. That\u2019s the process, right?\u201d While he\u2019s keeping schtum on any further details about Ganesh, or how he crosses paths with Digger Rockwell \u2013 a brash oil tycoon who unleashes ecological catastrophe, and is charged with making it right \u2013 Ahmed has much to say on his experience shooting with Cruise. Or, more accurately, with Digger. \u201cI joked, at the end of it all we had a wrap dinner, I was like, \u2018It\u2019s really good to meet you, but I wish my pal Digger was here\u2019,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was that kind of feeling. We\u2019d joke around like, \u2018Man, I\u2019ve heard Tom Cruise is meant to be on set somewhere.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s a move that Cruise himself has described as a \u201cleap into the unknown\u201d \u2013 and Ahmed was thrilled to join him in the freefall. \u201cHonestly, I think it was quite liberating for him as well, to be able to lose himself, lose that globally recognised face into a character. I could see that allowing him to be open, in a different way,\u201d he says. That\u2019s Digger Rockwell: nothing is done by halves.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read Empire<\/em>\u2019s world-exclusive Digger cover story \u2013 speaking to Tom Cruise, Alejandro G. I\u00f1\u00e1rritu, Sandra H\u00fcller, Riz Ahmed and more \u2013 in the October 2026 issue, on sale Thursday August 27. Pre-order a copy online here. Digger<\/em> comes to UK cinemas from October 2.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tom Cruise is not a man who\u2019s easy to forget. He\u2019s one of the biggest stars Hollywood has ever seen. A man whose contributions to cinema range from some of the most jaw-dropping action spectacles ever pulled off (see: the Mission: Impossible movies, Top Gun and its sequel, and many more) to arresting character dramas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-47"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13254,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13252\/revisions\/13254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Empire](\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/digger-riz-ahmed-forgot-about-tom-cruise-while-starring-opposite-his-wild-new-character.jpg\")
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