Tom Cruise’s Digger Press Tour Kicks Off With a Lot of Nothing

For a guy who insists he’s “not afraid to be afraid” in a new and rare longform interview with GQ, it sure seems like Tom Cruise is afraid to say something — anything — incisive or reflective about his career in the lead-up to Digger, his big awards-season gambit and the first non-IP movie he’s made in over a decade. In what feels like an eternal conversation with Zach Baron, Cruise (sometimes paired alongside Digger director Alejandro G. Iñárritu) talks himself in circles about his image, “the movies,” and loving people and stories. It is largely gibberish, hilariously and frustratingly incoherent. Like, can we please get back to Robert Pattinson’s little voices or John Malkovich’s clown outfit when it comes to the forthcoming Best Actor race? No, it’s Digger from Digger’s time to shine, and he’s got a whole lot of nothing to say.

Though the conversation with Baron tackles real issues and points of interest in Cruise’s career — his decision to step away from auteur-driven cinema to make action movies with his BFF Christopher McQuarrie; his apparent and ongoing death drive; what he does on his day off — Cruise circumvents real answers left and right. When forced to “reflect back” on his life, Cruise says he has “no idea” what people’s biggest misconception of him is. “I’m not sitting here thinking about that stuff. I never think about that. I’m more looking out. For me, I’m more in present and future,” he explains. What little insight we get is that he loves Amores Perros, Iñárritu’s debut film; he thinks Brad Pitt is a great actor; and he loves being as far away from his phone as possible. For a guy who is more or less campaigning on the idea of being the mayor, if not the president, of the Movies™, it’d be great if he were able to talk about them in a little more detail. If there’s one thing we know (or think we know) about Cruise, it’s that he sees a lot of movies. Instead of waxing semi-poetic about how “there’s so much life, and there’s always another dream,” he ought to just say how sick The Odyssey was. At least that’s something we can all agree on.

What Cruise’s first big foray into Oscars campaigning for Digger proves is that he can talk but he can’t really vamp. There are a lot of actors — maybe not necessarily of Cruise’s stature — who are world-class yappers but who we never learn much about. Surely Cruise won’t be sacrificing integrity by shedding more light on his days off by saying, I don’t know, that he likes pickleball, or something? He’s gonna have to be on the podcast circuit, gabbing it up with the Kelces, and he’s going to need something: anecdotes! Specifics! Details! All of which is to say Tom Cruise needs a writers’ room, and he needs one stat. Lucky for him, I’ve seen a lot of movies and am great at making up stories about seeming normal. Tom, give me a ring!