In Hollywood, it seems, simple solutions have finally run out.
For the new film Digger 64-year-old Tom Cruise was made up to look significantly older — gray thinning hair, wrinkles, altered facial features, heavy prosthetics, and a completely different overall look.
And the internet, of course, instantly summed up the main point:
64-year-old Tom Cruise was aged to play a 65-year-old.
Sounds like the makeup artists worked all night for just one extra year. 😄
In reality, it's a bit trickier. In Alejandro González Iñárritu's new black comedy, the actor has transformed into an eccentric oil magnate, Digger Rockwell. He is one of the most influential people on the planet, whose reckless decisions trigger a devastating avalanche of events.
"The actor's transformation was simply astonishing," director Iñárritu shared his impressions while talking about working on the film. Cruise plays a character who must look not just "a little older," but noticeably more worn and heavier — a man with a different lifestyle, character, and history. So the task was not to add a year to him, but to completely remove the familiar Tom Cruise that audiences know from perfectly polished action films.
And here's where it gets really funny.
Because in real life, Tom Cruise at 64 still runs, jumps, hangs off planes, and looks like he's about to personally argue with the concept of aging.
But in movies, they had to artificially "catch up" with makeup.
It goes something like this:
Makeup artist: "We need you to look older."
Tom Cruise: "How much older?"
Makeup artist: "About a year."
Tom Cruise: "That's going to be tough." 😄
But the result turned out so convincing that in the first photos, you really might not recognize him.
So now Hollywood has a new paradox:
an ordinary 64-year-old is usually made to look younger.
Tom Cruise, on the contrary, had to be artificially aged.
And that, perhaps, is a better advertisement for his genetics than any wrinkle cream.
