There have been few movie secrets in 2026 as fiercely guarded as "Who is Digger Rockwell?".
A cryptic teaser landed all the way back in December 2025, showing Tom Cruise's superstar silhouette transformed into something softer and pudgier. In the long months between the teaser and the trailer, rumours whipped around the Alejandro G Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant) satirical black comedy.
It was a musical, it was set in purgatory, Digger was based on Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, it was a bomb, it was a masterpiece.
The narrative remained a mystery right up until a few months ago when audiences learned that Digger Rockwell is an oil magnate with a direct ear to the US president (John Goodman), an uncanny valley cat companion, and a catastrophe on the horizon.
However, secrets and whispers still shrouded the movie with theories on what the "twist" embedded in the film could be.
Digger's enigma was so important to Iñárritu that right up until a few days before release, it hadn't even been announced which character Australian actor Sophie Wilde would be playing.
"I literally feel like Tom Holland right now!" Wilde tells ABC News, referring to the Marvel star's infamous habit of accidentally breaking embargos on his own projects.
"I haven't been able to say anything. It's stressful keeping the secret of the film but I think that the kind of mystery around it is really exciting. I'm very curious how audiences will be receptive to it."
Standing up to Tom Cruise
Digger exists on two different planes: an overt, sneering satire which sees Cruise's business tycoon breathlessly deal with the fallout from his oil drilling causing a Greenland ice shelf to collapse and make its way to mainland Europe.
But lurking beneath the bombastic bluster is something more slippery, a B-plot which re-contextualises Digger's story while forcing the audience to contemplate the very nature of their lives.
"We are trapped in our own narratives, telling our story and we are so distracted that we don't see the story that actually we are living, meaning reality," Iñárritu tells The Screen Show's Jason Di Rosso.
"[Digger] is about storytelling exactly and the power of it and sometimes how useless it is."
It's in this meta B-plot that Wilde's Hannah exists, but to unveil the character any more would go against what Cruise, Iñárritu and a bevy of critics have firmly reiterated — keep Digger's secret.
What can be revealed is Wilde is one of the only actors in the whole production to stand up to Cruise's character. It's a prospect that delighted the young Australian actor.
"Reading that in the script, it's like what an incredible opportunity to get to butt heads with such an amazing actor like Tom. I was nervous, but excited to kind of delve into that," Wilde says.
"I think what's incredible about Alejandro is that we have such an extensive rehearsal period. Then we'd shoot a scene over multiple days. So it was kind of amazing because you had so much time to explore with each other, find new things and really lean into the kind of energy of the scene.
"It felt like a theatre company with the rehearsal process and it felt like a real family."
From NIDA to Digger
Standing alongside industry titans like Cruise and Iñárritu on an immensely high-profile project is an achievement Wilde's not taking lightly.
Involved in acting since she was a child, Wilde graduated from the prestigious Australian National Institute of Dramatic Arts just seven years ago. Not long afterwards, her starring role in Danny and Michael Philippou's breakthrough horror Talk To Me catapulted her into international consciousness.
Since then, she's featured alongside Nicole Kidman in Babygirl and ventured further into TV with Boy Swallows Universe, but Digger was on a whole new level.
"I had so many moments on this film that were pinch-me moments where I was like, 'This is what I imagined making a film like when I was like five years old and I wanted to be an actor,'" Wilde says.
"You're sitting there on these huge sets in Pinewood [studios London] and you're like, 'Wow, like, I'm making a movie.'"
Wilde doesn't take her career for granted, having stuck through the slow shuffle towards stardom that is almost a rite of passage for local actors.
"It's a hard industry and it can be disheartening when things aren't coming your way," she says.
"But I think that everything happens for a reason and it happens at the right time. If you just stick to your guns and continue pursuing what you love, something will come out of it."
Digger in in cinemas now.
