Tom Cruise confirms Digger is not a musical

Tom Cruise has confirmed his new movie Digger is not secretly a musical.

Internet sleuths became convinced earlier this month that the Hollywood star's new black comedy is actually a musical, and its true nature was being hidden by the trailer and other marketing materials.

During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night, Cruise was presented with headlines about this theory and asked to address them.

"What do you say to someone who believes Digger is a musical?" Fallon asked, and he replied, "No, but I think it's a very good idea. I think we should do Digger: The Musical."

Cruise then pretended to dance and sing like his character Digger Rockwell, a wealthy oil tycoon who races to prove he is humanity's saviour before the disaster he unleashed destroys everything.

Elsewhere in the interview, the Mission: Impossible star addressed his major physical transformation, confirming that he's wearing a fat suit and a prosthetic bum in addition to a wig and other facial prosthetics.

Discussing director Alejandro González Iñárritu, he said, "This guy comes to me, he's like, 'I want you to look like this.' I was like, 'You've got some cojones, my friend. Let's go!'"

Cruise also insisted there is no difference in his level of excitement between filming Digger's 10-minute monologue scene and his death-defying Mission: Impossible stunts.

"I have a 10-minute monologue; it's all one take... When we're doing that, it is metaphorically being on a cliff and going, 'OK, what's going to happen?'" he explained. "(It's) 10, 12 pages of just pure (dialogue)."

Digger, also starring John Goodman, Riz Ahmed and Sandra Hüller, will be released in cinemas on 2 October.