Tom Cruise reveals shocking transformation secret for movie ‘Digger’: ‘drill and practice’

Tom Cruise got his transformation time for filming Digger down from six hours to less than 60 minutes.

The 64-year-old actor looks dramatically different as an eccentric oil tycoon in his new movie and very early into production, he realised it wasn't practical for him to spend so much time with the hair and make-up team having his appearance altered with prosthetics.

Appearing on Travis and Jason Kelce's New Heights podcast, he said, “The first time we did the make-up, it took six hours. I gotta 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 make-up,” Tom added.

The Mission: Impossible actor brought in a chalkboard and someone with a stopwatch to time how long each step of the process took and revealed, “I had a guy there with a stopwatch, and I’m like, ‘OK, you see that time, six 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,’” he recalled.

Tom continued, "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.”

The drills eventually paid off and the process took less than an hour with the Top Gun star saying, “They were like, ‘What?!’ And they didn’t even know it, and they didn’t even rush."

Tom Cruise then went on to admit the experience was typical of his general approach to work. “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?”