tom hanks interview

7/28/2019 Tom Hanks Interview

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p'[ob/interuienrKSm Hanks used'fo bea comedian. Nowhe's an actor. After a

two-year sf,nt of movie farcesin which Hanks' quick-wittedcads were often the only sav-ing graces, last summer'sNothing in Common gave hima chance to prove he couldplay a three-dimensional, es-sentially dramatic rote. A bit-fersyyeet "dramatic comedy,,by director Barry Marshail(The Flamingo Kid), Nothingrn L;ommon paved the way forhis current fullJtedged ro-mantic drama, Every Time WeSay Goodbye. Now criticshaye taken to calting Hanks"ayoung Jack Lemmlon," andif his performances here are

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company. Hanks quit schoolb pertorm rotating repertorytheater, appearing in numer-aus works from town to town .After moving to New YorkCity with his family, Hanksstruggled and did stage workand appeared exceedinglybriefly in a 1980 slasher mov-ie, He Knows You're Alone.Probably in spite of that, hisbig break soon followed: The

such a successful acting ca-reer as yours might havebeen the main reason for it?Hanks: Oh, no. No. Thatwould be pre5uming thatwhat I do falls into(searching for right word) Di-vorce is inbred in Western so-ciety; it's simply a part of it. llI had been in the insurancebusiness, I think it would havebeen the same thing. Those

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ninety bucks on Staten ls-land. I got the role because Iwalked into an audition anddid a reading and they saidoh, okay. I had three days orithis movie. I didn't know whatI was doing; I just showed upand learned how to hit a markand then moved on. I mean,c'mon, it was a long timeago? (laughs)GENEsrs: Well, it did help yourcareer to have a movie, didn'tit?Hanks: Oh, yeah, it Certainly

name o' the movie? S'Whuzzit about?' lt's abmermaid, 'Who s maxDisney. 'Oh. Cute.We were all just reascared to think that wedoing anything fantastireallv liked the movie. wF a loiot fun doing it and$ worked very, very harf; weren't totally preparedE taking off the way it did.i Genesrs: But after it did$ turned around and did8 elor Party, which wasnactly Citizen Kane.Hanks: While I wasSp/ash, Neal lsrael an

Proft came to me aboutelor Party, and I said,I'm really busy right nojust send it to the peoplyou send these thingThey did, and they [alsoto make it [without me], didn't work. When I wasfilming Sp/ash, theyF back again, specific4 guess, wanting me. By? had tirne to read their sc! toto tnem, 'Look, this! rock'n'roll sex com$ tnere's some funny$ there's something to wohere, so let's go ahea


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INTERVIEWlc(.)ntrrtued from page 30)more?' The most Walter could ever saywas, 'Oh, YEAH?' But what these guyswere always able to do, I guess. rscome up with a halfway decent quipI've found that for what are more orless limited roles, I've been able to workin a lot of variety. lt may be very hidden,very subtle variety (laughs) but varietynonetheless.Geruesrs:With Nothing in Common,l galh-er you were able to have a bit more inputinto your character's formation.Hanks: I did have input,b lot, because[director Garry Marshall and the pro-ducers] came to me, and they were niceenough to ask me what I thought. But Idon't think that means I had any particu-lar say over what was done and whatwas written. I guess the best translationis, I complained a lot about some things.We all wanted to play to the strengthsthat were already there in the script, butnothing was absolutely, totally planned.Geruess: Nothing in Common also gaveyou a chance to play drama, somethingyou hadn't done on film before. Was itdifficult to switch gears?Hanks: (thinking it over) I did what anyactor does, and that is, having gonethrough something in life and thendredging it up so that he can use it as

tlon he s gonna have to go through inthe role. Like David Basner in the movie,mi, parents were divorced when I wasvery young. And my father had beenvery ili and there were times I was sittingin a hospital room thinking this was thelast tlme I was going to see him. But(bilghtedng), making the movie was nota three month experience of cinematicpsychoanalysis! So while it wouldn't be{air to say it's autobiographical, you bet Itook a bunch of my own stufl in therewith me.Geruesrs: So this "dramatic comedy"gave ybu what your broader comediesdidn t?Hanks: lt gave me an opportunity to actin a much bigger, a much more obviousway than I'd been able to do on anyother job, alry other gig. I've always triedto invest as much realistic emotion intowhatever part it is, in whatever movie it'sgoing to be, even something that turned'out to be as innocuous as the Ihe ManWith One fred Shoe, or as I guess kindastupid as Bachelor Party.I think what we do as actors and fllm-makers is capture a period of time. Andthe best movies don't just capture whathappened at this period of time, butthey capture what it was like. One of thebest examples, I think, is Ihe Eesf Yearsof Our Llves (William Wyler's 1946 clas-sic about returning WWll vets), which is

made. lt not onlv srrL\,,5 1"6u, hapit shows what it was iikeGeruEsrs: But how eractly do yougears from comecjv to drima?'Hapks: ln making movies. one'oprerequisites is having this kindlaxed concentration l didn't wamake the big, dramatic crying scenevent of the movie {for myselflhere it comes, I gotta do this. Becahad done it that way before andmiserably.GEtrEsrs: ls that one of the reasonFed Shoe and Volunteers justclick?Hanks: I figure those movies dtouch any kind ol resonant choalso may be that they weren't perwell-made films. They're not the gest movies, they're not seamlessies, they have some faults. But Iin general, what can you say? Sthing happened, we took a shot,didn't do real well. But perhaps ifirst place, the actual gut issuewere addressing were not interestpeople.Geruests: Would you want to styourself so far as to play a villacharacter?Hanks: Yeah. Yeah. I guess my desnot necessarily to do everythingcertainly to be able to do anythingproblem with villains is they're not


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There would be some moments wherewe'd be sitting together on the set wait-ing tor things to go, and he would offer alew things, but I made a consciouschoice before we went in to the moviellat l'm not going to ask this guy ques-tions, I'm not going to bothei nim, Oe-cause if I do that, I'm not being an actor,I'm being this pesky titile fan. .Remem-ber th-at scene where you'n' Norton gotdrunk?! How' ja do thai, huh?!,GENEsrs: At the same time, weren't youconcerned that Jackie Gleason's iastfew films were ail prefty bad and alt diedat the box otlice?Hanks: No. Not at all." I guess as anactor I realize that just because a moviestinks, you can't blame a single personlor that. Because as an actor, the firstthing I thought of was The Husiler [theclassic '1961 Gleason / paul Newmin /George C. Scott poot-ptayer dramal. Ididn't even think aboui that otheraspect.GeHesn: You weren't at all worried thataudiences might stay away from ,,aJackie Gleason movie"?Hanks: I don't think they do. I think peo.ple forget the flops. lt's onty when (jok-ingly) newspaper writers bring up thbsethingsl I read stuff about that myself,belleve me, I read a lot of really- badreviews: 'Tom Hanks, who CAN'T makea decent movie to save his life sinceSp/asfr,' de da de da de da. Geesh,

what acheap shoilButl could handle rt.Geltesrs: Gleason and Nothing in Com-mon director Garry Marshall Came troma different generdtion of comedy thanyou did. Was it ditficutt meshini theirvaudeville/sitcom sensibilities wit6 yourmore contemporary sense of humor?Any creative differences in that regard?Hanks: Well, 'creative ditferences'is thisphrase that's now utilized every timesomebody walks off a movie. yeah, wehld arguments, we had all kinds of dis-agreements. But creative differencesno, because we were all involved in thecreative process. There were timeswhen I yelled (assumes an upset voice),'l'm not gonna say this, I'm not gonnasay it, I'm not gonna say it. y'know whf'Cuz it's stupid. 'Cuz, it's stupid an'd,and .'. 'cuz I'm not gonna say it!'(laughs) No, actuaily, whdn we naO Ois-agreements like that, I did not just say Irefuse to do this; I explained tne rea-sons why we couldn't do that. I guess insome instances you plead your case.which to me is viable. So yein, we hadstuff like that go on ail the iime.GENEsrs: Do you ever worry, as RichardPryor says he does, about someday justnot being funny anymore?Hanks: Well, Richa-l.d pryor's a standup icomedian. There's a lot more validity iir ithat, a lot more risk. I don't stand up byfys_elf and say, 'Thank you for comingi,l'm funny and l'm gonnabe funny for thi

next twenty minutes.' lf I reairvl?ke,.a cleap shot, I can ",*uudidn't write it. I had !9 say italways hide behind m:at. ti ssame worry to me. lf I'm really nosomeone else will be.Genesls: But you do seem to beaway from straight, larcical comeinto light drama. Which is thg h!f.re two for you to do, comedy or Hanks: I think there's a muchrisk. in doing comedy, oeclujestink to- high heaven, you t

tom hanks interview

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