'He's a force of nature': John Goodman reacts to Tom Cruise's prosthetic transformation in Digger | Exclusive
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "'He's a force of nature': John Goodman reacts to Tom Cruise's prosthetic transformation in Digger | Exclusive")
John Goodman and Tom Cruise in Digger
Emmy and Golden Globe Winner John Goodman opened up about working with Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Tom Cruise in Digger. Goodman plays President Compson in the film.
With a career spanning film, television and theatre, John Goodman has built a reputation for bringing both scale and nuance to some of cinema and television’s most memorable characters. The Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor, known for acclaimed performances in Roseanne, Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Argo and Monsters, Inc., now joins five-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu for Digger.
In the film, Goodman plays President Compson, a commanding figure at the centre of Iñárritu’s wildly ambitious world. For Goodman, working on a film of this scale meant trusting Iñárritu’s vision. He also compared his approach to a painting and a symphony, with every individual’s performance contributing to the larger picture in the film.
‘Alejandro is a conductor’
Speaking about Iñárritu’s approach to the film, Goodman said, “Everything’s geared to tell the big story. It’s a painting. It’s almost a symphony, and Alejandro is a conductor. He knew where he wanted to go with this thing, which I couldn’t possibly see. But, if I could just put my little piece of the jigsaw puzzle in correctly, then I could trust that everything else is going to be there and it’ll fit inside of this big, kaleidoscopic adventure that we’ve got going on.”
That trust also gave Goodman the freedom to experiment with his performance as President Compson, allowing him to try different approaches without worrying how it would look. Goodman said, “The script and the concept are so enormous that I just threw everything out there; I didn’t care what a fool I looked like. Alejandro just started pulling back things, and it worked.”
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‘Tom Cruise looks like he is 15 still’
On working with Cruise and seeing his transformation into Digger Rockwell, Goodman said, “The kid’s a force of nature. He’s just inspiring. He’s so committed, and he’s a cheerleader. He’s an amazing guy. He was in [the prosthetics] all the time, so I just forgot about it, then when he’d come in without the prosthetic on I was like, holy shit that’s Tom Cruise, ‘cause you know, he looks like he’s 15 still.”
Beyond the performances themselves, Goodman also found that the time given to the cast played an important role in discovering the film together. Reflecting on the collaborative process, Goodman said, “We had the luxury of a great deal of time and a learning curve to get on top of things and below things and into things, and to listen to each other.”
Cruise stars in the title role alongside Oscar winner Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Oscar nominee Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg and Oscar nominee Jesse Plemons. Robert John Burke, Emma D’Arcy, Burn Gorman and Sophie Wilde are also part of the film.
Digger’s screenplay is by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Oscar winners Alexander Dinelaris and Nicolás Giacobone, and Sabina Berman, from a story by Iñárritu and Berman. The film is produced by Iñárritu, Oscar nominee Mary Parent, Tom Cruise and Michael Sharp, and executive produced by Joshua Grode, Sabina Berman, Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone, Jez Butterworth and Emmanuel Lubezki.
Digger is now running in cinemas worldwide.
