Tom Cruise Makes His 13th Korea Visit Unrecognizable as a Greedy Oil Tycoon

Tom Cruise walked into the Conrad Seoul press conference on October 1 and said it plainly: he wants to come back 30 more times. This was his 13th visit to Korea, the most of any Hollywood actor, and the occasion was the imminent release of Digger, director Alejandro González Iñárritu's black comedy that opens on the 3rd.

The film has already generated a specific kind of attention. International press has begun circulating Cruise's name in Best Actor Oscar predictions months before nominations open, and the reason is visible the moment he appears on screen: he is barely recognizable. Through prosthetic makeup, he plays Rockwell, a bloated, balding, deeply self-satisfied oil tycoon whose drilling operation triggers a global climate catastrophe. Every trace of the athletic, grinning action hero from the Mission: Impossible and Top Gun series has been stripped away.

When asked whether the transformation was calculated to win awards, Cruise didn't hesitate. "I make films regardless of awards like the Oscars, regardless of what people think or how they evaluate the work," he told reporters. "Making films itself is the privilege." He went on to describe his 46-year career, which stretches back to Endless Love in 1981, as something he considers an ongoing honor rather than a résumé to be managed.

A Role Unlike Anything He'd Read

Cruise was still in the middle of filming Top Gun: Maverick in 2019 when the offer arrived. He went to Iñárritu's office that same night and they talked until morning. "I dare say it was on a completely different level in every respect," he said, choosing his words carefully. The genre, the character, the structure, none of it resembled anything he'd encountered before.

Rockwell is not a complicated antihero so much as a study in willful blindness. He values money over human life and hears only what he wants to hear. When a small crack appears in a glacier caused by his drilling site, it is initially dismissed. By the time it becomes undeniable, Rockwell and a circle of American political figures are already working to construct an alternative story. The film moves through this cover-up with a satirical, darkly comedic touch that draws clear lines to contemporary politics and climate denial, though it does so through a new narrative structure that Cruise described as genuinely multilayered.

"What captured my attention was human nature," he said. "Beyond the thrill of playing such a radical character, I wanted to reflect on life together with the audience through the many stories beneath the surface." He also stressed the film's collective dimension: "It expresses the responsibility that all of us share" for the kind of disaster Rockwell sets in motion.

Iñárritu in the Same Breath as Spielberg and Kubrick

Cruise was generous about his director in a way that felt specific rather than promotional. He placed Iñárritu alongside Steven Spielberg, with whom he made War of the Worlds (2005), and Stanley Kubrick, with whom he made Eyes Wide Shut (1999). "A director who naturally realizes the rhythm of a film," he said. "A historic master and an extraordinary artist."

Iñárritu had been scheduled to attend the Seoul press conference alongside Cruise but could not travel due to personal circumstances. He sent a letter through Warner Bros. Korea expressing that Korean audiences' passion and support for cinema had always moved him deeply, and that he was genuinely sorry to miss the chance to be there.

On the production side, Cruise mentioned that he slept on set during preparation and that the film's extended takes, around ten minutes each, were typically completed in just three or four attempts. For an actor who has built a career on physical performance and practical stunts, the discipline required for that kind of sustained, dialogue-driven take represents a different challenge entirely.

Digger opens in Korean theaters on the 3rd. Cruise, for his part, is already counting down to visit number fourteen.