[Reporter Xu Shiying/Taipei-London Connection Exclusive Interview] The seven-day series of "Diggers" has reached its final chapter. In the first six days, we pieced together the different aspects of this movie from the role challenge of Tom Cruise in "Tom Cruise", the 10-year creative process of director Ariando González Inarritu, to the shooting scene through the eyes of actors such as Riz Ahmed, Sandra Wheeler, John Goodman, and Jesse Plemons. Looking at all the interviews together, a very interesting question will emerge in the end: Who is the real "digger"?
Director Ariandro Gonzalez Inarritu (left) once said that "Diggers" was the filming experience where he laughed the most on the set. (Courtesy of Warner Bros.)
On the surface, the answer is, of course, Tom Cruise's character Digg, an oil tycoon with vast resources and political influence, and the central figure at the center of the entire ecological disaster. When the crisis he caused gradually gets out of control, he must find a way to control the situation and prove that he is the one who can save mankind.
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However, when the director talked with the actors about the creative process of this film, "digger" seemed to be more than just a character name, but gradually turned into a creative state: everyone was constantly digging deeper, trying to find a deeper answer.
The first person to start digging was actually the director Iñárritu. This character has been following him since "Ghost Hunter" and it took him 10 years to really appear on the screen. But the time he spent was not just on writing a script, but on finding how he wanted to tell the story.
Director Ariandro Gonzalez Inarritu (second from right) praised Tom Cruise's performance in "Diggers" and even made him see miracles. (Courtesy of Warner Bros.)
Iñárritu once described that it was not a script or a movie, but an obsession that continued and followed him; he knew who Digger was, how he spoke, and how he survived, but the real difficulty was finding "the right way to tell it." Therefore, "The Digger" was not a work that first decided on the genre and then completed it according to the genre from the beginning. Instead, he dug all the way until he found the look he really wanted to shoot.
The next person to dig in was Tom Cruise. With an acting career of more than 45 years, he has tried almost all kinds of roles and performance methods, but still describes Digger as "the most challenging role." The reason is not just the character's appearance and personality, but this role requires him to master rhythm, language, body, space, camera and emotion at the same time, almost all the acting abilities he has accumulated in the past are put into the same performance.
Iñárritu even described that in a large-scale play with hundreds of extras, Tom Cruise is like the person who drives the whole dance. "If Tom fails, everything will collapse." The other actors are like satellites surrounding him, and Tom Cruise is the sun. This is not only the director's high affirmation of the starring role, but also illustrates the performance structure of this film: all characters have their own positions, but in the end they must enter the out-of-control world set off by Digg.
Tom Cruise said that acting in "Diggers" was a major challenge in his career. (Courtesy of Warner Bros.)
In the movie, Diggle digs for oil, accumulates wealth from the resources, and then converts the wealth into power, further trying to control the narrative, and finally even trying to dig out an escape route from the disaster he caused. Iñárritu keeps digging deeper into the story, Tom Cruise digs deeper into the characters, and Riz digs deeper into the characters and creative methods. Sandra is looking for not just opposition in the relationship between Digger and her sister Emma, but why both of them believe that they are doing something meaningful for the future.
Tom Cruise himself is not willing to force movies or art into a fixed type. He once said that the outside world may always want to put works into a certain category or a certain frame, but "that is not this movie, nor is it the way I look at life, nor is it the way we look at art." Therefore, "Diggers" contains disaster, politics, absurdity, black humor, family relationships and character emotions at the same time, but does not need to be completely defined by any one of these labels.
Therefore, in the end, there may be no single answer to "Who is the real digger?" It’s Digg, because he keeps grabbing resources and power from the world; it’s Iñárritu, because he spent 10 years exploring a character that is always lingering; it’s Tom, because he brings all 45 years of acting experience into the character, and even tries to make the audience forget who he is; it’s also every actor, because they are in their own positions, constantly exploring deeper into the characters, relationships and scenes.
And this may be the most interesting part of "The Digger". What Digger really mined may not be just oil, and what Iñárritu really mined is more than stories. What they dug all the way down was actually human beings' desire to control the world, to prove themselves right, and even to become a savior in the chaos they created.
In the movie, a man is desperately trying to find an exit from the disaster; outside the movie, a director spent 10 years looking for the most suitable way to tell this story, and a group of actors spent months or even longer, repeatedly searching for the best version of a scene, and everyone was digging for it.
In the end, the real question that remains may not be "who is the digger", but - when everyone digs all the way down, will they finally find the answer, or will they find themselves?
"Diggers" is officially released in Taiwan today (2nd), including 2D, IMAX, Dolby Cinema and Dolby Vision Atmos versions released simultaneously.
~ "The Digger" seven-day serialization, complete text ~
