Tom Cruise on AI, Theaters and His New Film Digger

You can't fake the shiver that runs through a sold‑out cinema. Can a synthetic face ever replace that collective gasp? Tom Cruise posed that question in London and didn't back down from the answer.

Speaking at BAFTA's Life in Pictures series, Cruise looked back over four decades of work — Top Gun, Jerry Maguire, Magnolia and the relentless stunts of Mission: Impossible — and sketched a clear view of where film sits in an era of rapid technological change. He also offered an early look at Digger, his new collaboration with Alejandro González Iñárritu.

When the conversation turned to technology, it wasn't hypothetical. The Mission: Impossible franchise has always chased new tricks, and the next chapter, The Final Reckoning (2025), even casts artificial intelligence as the antagonist. Host Edith Bowman asked how Cruise sees AI reshaping the industry. His response was unguarded and simple.

'The thing is, nothing is like a human,' he said, stressing that cinemas do something streaming can't: they gather people together in a shared, immediate experience. He made space for streaming — 'I have no problem with it' — but insisted that watching a film on the big screen remains a different art form.

People want to see real things. He pointed to this summer's box office as proof: U.S. ticket sales from May through Labor Day topped $4.76 billion, a record-breaking season that, in his view, proves audiences still crave human stories and demonstrable craft.

Cruise urged filmmakers not to retreat in the face of new tools. 'This technology is coming and it's going to happen,' he said, but added that creative professionals must keep making work rooted in human performance. 'I always believe in humanity,' he finished — a line that felt less slogan and more conviction in that room.

On Digger, he loosened a few spoilers. Directed by Iñárritu, the film casts Cruise as a billionaire tied to the oil industry — a role that required a dramatic physical transformation. He spent hours under prosthetics and in a weight‑augmenting suit; initial makeup and prep could take roughly six hours per day. 'I'd never read a script like this,' he said, calling Digger one of the most original and affecting pieces he's encountered.

Warner Bros. will release Digger on October 2. Whether it's the spectacle of stunts, the craft of prosthetic makeup, or the emotional pull of a story told in a darkened room, Cruise's message was clear: technology will change the tools, but the appetite for authentic, human cinema won't disappear. Go see it and judge for yourself when it opens this October.