{"id":608753,"date":"2026-09-23T02:20:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T02:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/608753\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T02:20:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T02:20:18","slug":"tom-cruise-welcomes-prince-william-kate-at-digger-premiere-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/608753\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Cruise Welcomes Prince William, Kate at ‘Digger’ Premiere in London"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTom Cruise<\/a> world-premiered his new film \u201cDigger<\/a>\u201d on Tuesday night to an enthusiastic audience in London, which included some royal guests.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrince William<\/a> and Princess Catherine of Wales got a front row seat to Cruise\u2019s latest transformative role, this time as wealthy oil tycoon Digger Rockwell in Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u2019s satirical black comedy. \u201cDigger\u2019s\u201d world premiere also doubled as this year\u2019s Royal Film Performance, an event held by The Film and TV Charity that is attended by members of the U.K. royal family, with its proceeds donated to the cause.<\/p>\n

\n\tGuests found themselves in a maze as the premiere took over the whole of Leicester Square, with set pieces from the film \u2014 including an Arctic Ocean-themed step-and-repeat and Digger\u2019s prized shovel \u2014 as well as blown-up photos of Cruise in character (some with his beloved and ancient cat, Maggie) surrounding the red carpet.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrince William, sporting a black velvet suit jacket, and Kate, wearing a fittingly royal-purple gown, arrived as the carpet began to close to avoid a frenzy. They shook hands and held conversation with each \u201cDigger\u201d cast member, including Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra H\u00fcller, Michael Stuhlbarg and Jesse Plemons. The royals spent extra time with Cruise and I\u00f1\u00e1rritu, chatting for a good 10 minutes \u2014 with Cruise at one point causing William and Kate to burst into laughter \u2014 before entering the Oden Luxe theater together. Royal guards dotted the audience in preparation, and the King\u2019s band even marked their entrance with a trumpet salute of \u201cGod Save the King\u201d as the crowd stood up to show their respect.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCatherine, Princess of Wales and Prince William at the \u201cDigger\u201d premiere in London.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMatt Crossick<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the cast took to the stage, Cruise grabbed the mic and commended William and Kate for being there. \u201cWe want to thank the royal highnesses for supporting this event, and just to tell them that we love them and we really appreciate what they do for the arts, for this country and for the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tCruise also thanked the Film and TV Charity and then turned his attention to producer Mary Parent \u2014 whom he called \u201cabsolutely brilliant\u201d \u2014 and, of course, his director. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAlejandro,\u201d Cruise began. \u201cYou are one of one, and I have so admired your films from the very first one. And to have the opportunity to work with you has been one of the great dreams of mine and a pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe continued, \u201cYou\u2019ll see \u2014 this character, what he\u2019s created, I\u2019ve never seen anything like it. I don\u2019t know, his mind is just extraordinary.\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAlejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu and Tom Cruise at the \u201cDigger\u201d premiere in London.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMatt Crossick<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDigger\u201d follows Cruise\u2019s titular character \u2014 the \u201cmost powerful man in the world,\u201d according to the film\u2019s synopsis \u2014 as he \u201craces to prove he is humanity\u2019s savior before the disaster he unleashed destroys everything.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tCruise has been making the promotional rounds for the film over the past few weeks, appearing on the cover of GQ<\/a>, \u201cThe Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon\u201d and Travis and Jason Kelce\u2019s \u201cNew Heights\u201d podcast (notably after watching the Kansas City Chiefs\u2019 first game of the season next to Taylor Swift<\/a>). <\/p>\n

\n\tHe also gave an intimate talk at London\u2019s BAFTA headquarters on Monday night, delivering an impassioned monologue on why he believes human skill and craftsmanship will always prevail over AI.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou know, it is coming and it\u2019s going to happen,\u201d Cruise said of AI. \u201cBut people want to see real things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added, \u201cPeople want that experience. They\u2019re going to movie theaters. I always believe in humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDigger\u201d opens in theaters on Oct. 2 from Warner Bros. Pictures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Cruise world-premiered his new film \u201cDigger\u201d on Tuesday night to an enthusiastic audience in London, which included…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,6374,156,8346,111,139,69,4289,7629],"class_list":["post-608753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-digger","tag-entertainment","tag-kate-middleton","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-prince-william","tag-tom-cruise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}