dpIt’s always Mission: Possible for Tom Cruise.
Tom Cruise is totally unrecognizable in his forthcoming film, “Digger” — but he’s the same guy underneath the prosthetics.
For the flick, the Oscar-nominated star sports gray hair, a fat suit, and a face full of prosthetics to play the fictional oil tycoon. The whole transformation process originally took the hair and makeup team six hours to complete, according to Cruise.
On the new episode of “New Heights” with Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce, Cruise said he made the process “more efficient” with a little pressure.
“The first time we did the makeup, it took six hours,” he told the brothers. “I’m doing the math. There’s 24 hours in the day … I need to do things so well to be so economical in what I’m doing.”
After calculating that he needed to sleep at least six hours a night and spend 12 hours filming per day, the notoriously “intense” superstar took matters into his own hands to cut the prep time way down — to less than one hour.
“I had a chalkboard with an eraser and a marker,” he said, “With each piece I put them up there and then I had a guy there with a stop watch.”
The glam team did not take kindly at first, with Cruise recalling, “They were like ‘no we’re not doing that, it’ll never happen.’ I was like ‘if you say no you can’t do it, you’ll never get there.’”
He continued, “Each piece was timed and timed and then they would drill and practice,” until they got it in the allotted time. “I like going into a system, studying it, trying to figure out how I can do it better, more efficient,” he explained.
Elsewhere, Cruise also bemoaned life underneath the prosthetics, saying that he was sweating underneath the special effects, requiring a fan break often, and the extra weight took a toll on his knees and body.
Plus, he reminisced on his GQ shoot, in which he stripped down for the cover shot and walked along Hollywood Boulevard among the tourists, calling the experience “really fun.”
“Digger” hits theaters Oct. 2.
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