Tom Cruise has admitted that wearing the fat suit for his upcoming film Digger felt tougher than hanging off the side of a moving airplane. The actor sat down to discuss his new project and spoke about stunts, prosthetics, and the physical toll of transforming into his character for months on end. What followed was a surprisingly candid breakdown of just how demanding the disguise truly became.

While one experience involves gravity and open air, the other involves silence, sweat, and hours of standing still under layers of rubber.

Tom Cruise made it clear that nothing in his career compared to the discomfort of the Digger fat suit, not even airplane stunts. When asked how the two experiences stacked up, Cruise said the fat suit was a higher level of difficulty than hanging off an aircraft mid-flight. He explained that clinging to a plane is dangerous, yet the body stays free to move. On the New Heights podcast, he described the sensation plainly.

"There's a certain point you're just hanging on," he said.

He then added, "hoping you don't get hit with something that k**** you."

Beyond the comparison itself, Cruise revealed that the daredevil instinct started long before Hollywood ever entered the picture. He told hosts Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce on the New Heights podcast that he was climbing out onto rooftops around the age of two and a half to look at the stars. His mother reportedly tried baking cakes just to lure him down from trees during windy afternoons. That same restless curiosity eventually shaped the discipline he now brings to the physically demanding role of Digger.

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That same discipline toward efficiency did not stop at performance, since Cruise also turned the suffocating prosthetic process into a personal engineering project.

Tom Cruise revealed on the New Heights podcast that the very first application of the Digger prosthetics took a grueling six hours to complete. Faced with brutal twelve-hour filming days and limited sleep, he decided the process needed a complete overhaul. He brought in a chalkboard and a stopwatch, timing every single piece as it went onto his body. The crew initially insisted that the timeline could never be shortened in any meaningful way.

Through repeated drilling and careful practice, that six-hour ordeal eventually dropped to under a single hour without ever being rushed. Cruise noted that the team barely noticed the improvement happening in real time, despite doing nothing differently besides refining sequence and timing. It reflects the same mindset he applies to every physical challenge he takes on. Whether it involves rubber prosthetics or open air, Cruise insists that comfort was never really the point, only endurance.

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