Tom Cruise Slashed Digger Makeup Time From 6 Hours To Under An Hour, Here's How

Tom Cruise is set to star in Alejandro G Inarritu's Digger, playing a wealthy and brash oil tycoon whose company inadvertently triggers a catastrophic global environmental disaster. The role required Tom to undergo a physical transformation, with the makeup and prosthetics process initially taking around six hours each day. The actor revealed he and his team eventually managed to cut the transformation time from around six hours to less than an hour.

During his appearance on Travis and Jason Kelce's New Heights podcast, Tom Cruise said, “The first time we did the makeup, it took 6 hours. I have to sleep at least six (hours). They keep saying I need more… but OK, that's 12. Now, we have 12-hour days filming. So now that's six hours on, two hours off with the makeup."

Early in the production, the actor realised that spending hours in the makeup chair for the prosthetic transformation was not sustainable. To speed things up, he introduced a series of “drills” to his team. He used a chalkboard and a stopwatch to track the time taken for each stage of the process and identify ways to make it more efficient.

“I had a guy there with a stopwatch, and I'm like, ‘OK, you see that time, 6 hours? By the time we're done, we're going to get it under an hour'. They were like, ‘No, I'm not doing that; it will never happen'. I'm like, ‘OK, first of all, if you say no, you can't do it, you will never get there. So can we agree that we'll maybe make it a little less?' So with each piece that was going on, it was timed and then we'd drill and practice," Tom shared.

The drills eventually proved effective, bringing the entire transformation process down to less than an hour. “They were like, ‘What?!' And they didn't even know it, and they didn't even rush. I like going into a system, studying it, and trying to figure out how I can do it better, more efficient. The films that I make, I'm constantly going, how can I do it better? How do I prepare better?” he added.

Digger is set to release in theatres worldwide on October 2.