The film Digger, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, follows Tom Cruise in two distinct roles: one as Digger, an oil magnate who engages in excessive drilling, and the other as Curtis Markson, Digger's stage interpreter. Curtis is searching for his missing daughter and has disagreements with the play's director, Sophie Wilde, about the tone of the production. About a third of the way through the film, the story takes an unexpected turn, revealing that what has been shown so far is actually a rehearsal for a play. This play satirically portrays the collapse of the existing world, offering a glimpse into the bleak and worrying lives of the actors and audience members who are briefly escaping their reality through performance. Digger explores the complex relationship between reality and fiction, drawing parallels between the two. Inarritu explains that "fiction, or rather art, offers us the possibility to represent reality. Whether it is a novel, a film, a painting, or a song, an artwork is a representation of reality. Of an emotion, a thought, or an event. And sometimes, the representation appears more realistic than the reality it depicts, because it allows you to see yourself, to recognize yourself." Inarritu emphasizes that the characters Digger and Curtis embody this theme: reality and its representation. He notes that the director is confused about how to tell the story and is unsure whether it should be funny, entertaining, or a serious drama, farce, or satire. In the end, what matters is that we are part of a story and must understand the one we tell ourselves, navigating the questions that arise from that. Inarritu suggests that Tom Cruise's portrayal highlights the dual aspects present in every human being, pointing to the struggles of an actor trying to embrace the role he must play. The director adds, "I think we all have a bit of Digger in us. We all have these stories we want to tell about ourselves. We want to justify our ambition, our ideology, our views or our truth. But we tend to confuse truth and reality, which are two distinct things: reality has nothing to do with the truth, while the latter is an emotion that reflects our way of seeing things, of growing, of being educated." John Goodman plays a grinning and irritable president wearing a red tie, highlighting the film's critique of contemporary America. The film also includes recurring use of masks, an element that appears in Inarritu's earlier works such as Eyes Wide Shut and Mission: Impossible.