Tom Cruise's Digger Royal Premiere Lures William and Kate Out

The Digger royal premiere turned Leicester Square into the most photographed few blocks in London on Tuesday night. Tom Cruise rolled out his new film Digger at a Royal Film Performance in aid of the UK's Film & TV Charity, and the guest list did half the marketing: Prince William and Princess Catherine walked the carpet, their first film premiere in more than four years. The event doubled as the movie's world premiere, held as a Royal Film Performance in aid of the UK's Film & TV Charity.

William and Kate have been scarce on red carpets for a while. Their most recent film premiere appearance came at the UK premiere of Top Gun: Maverick, according to Parade. This time William wore a black velvet suit jacket while Kate chose a royal-purple gown, and the pair showed up as the carpet was winding down to keep the frenzy manageable. Cruise greeted them first and spent a long chat with the couple, at one point sending them both into laughter. Before their arrival, Cruise had told the Daily Mail, as reported by Parade, "I just love them. They are lovely people and I have great respect for them." Inside the Odeon Luxe, the King's band marked the royals' entrance with a trumpet salute of "God Save the King," with royal guards positioned through the audience, according to Just Jared.

A totally outrageous character

Cruise has played pilots, spies, and samurai, but he told Reuters on the carpet that Digger Rockwell stands apart from all of them. "He's the kind of character that says things that some people think, some people can't imagine thinking," Cruise said, adding, "I've never read a character like it. I've never read a film like this." Rockwell is an eccentric oil tycoon, and trailer footage shows Cruise transformed with grey hair, facial prosthetics, and a padded bodysuit. Cruise said the transformation was far from the hardest part of the job; that was a ten-minute monologue he filmed in a single take.

The plot centers on Rockwell accidentally triggering an ecological disaster that pushes the world toward nuclear war, then scrambling to save the planet from the mess he made. Cruise described the story as an exploration of "power and greed...responsibility and irresponsibility," according to Reuters. Beyond that, the filmmakers have kept the details locked down, which has fueled speculation about the film, including rumors that it might be a musical. Cruise has dismissed that one outright. "If you experience the film without knowing anything about it, it's much better than if you knew before," co-star Sandra Huller told Reuters, adding that the secrecy was not designed to manufacture hype for its own sake.

What the cast says about ten years of work

Huller said director Alejandro G. Inarritu spent nearly a decade developing Digger, and watching Cruise inhabit the role was, in her own word to Reuters, "remarkable." She told Reuters it felt like everything Cruise has learned across forty-six years of acting had been channeled into this one character. The praise was mutual: Cruise introduced the film onstage and thanked the royal guests, telling them, "We love them and we really appreciate what they do for the arts for this country and for the world," according to Deadline's red carpet recap.

Other cast members painted a picture of a shoot that kept surprising everyone. Sophie Wilde said the film carries a message about art as "a vessel for catharsis." Emma D'Arcy compared working with Inarritu to playing in an orchestra led by a conductor, telling Reuters that musicality mattered enormously because the film is a comedy and rhythm is everything in comedy. Michael Stuhlbarg recalled scenes that kept evolving overnight, with new dialogue and alternate versions appearing day to day, and joked that so much odd material was shot he hopes a DVD of extras gets released someday.

When you can see it

Digger begins its global cinematic rollout on September 30, with the Digger royal premiere giving the film a glamorous head start, and Reuters reports it will reach cinemas in the United States and the United Kingdom on October 2. The full cast turned out for the premiere, with John Goodman, Jesse Plemons, Riz Ahmed, Michael Stuhlbarg, Sophie Wilde, and Emma D'Arcy working the carpet alongside Cruise and Inarritu. Guests included Salma Hayek, J.J. Abrams, and Hannah Waddingham, per the Deadline recap.

The Digger royal premiere also says something about how Cruise wants movies to be sold. He has spent years insisting that audiences still want the big-screen experience, and this premiere leaned into the old glamour playbook: a charity gala, a royal entrance, a shovel from the film displayed on the step-and-repeat, and a theater full of people standing for the anthem. Whether Digger justifies the pageantry is a question the film's release will answer, though the red carpet has already made its case. For culture watchers, it was a reminder that spectacle still moves the needle; for celebrity watchers, it was simply the best-dressed Tuesday of the year. More of the season's biggest releases are covered on the movies page.