"So what was it like working with Paul Newman?"
This is not the
kind of question you learn at the Great Interviewers' School. To
call it "basic" is a kindness. But any question can be redeemed by
a good answer, and Tom Hanks has one."Once you get past the intimidation factor, it was a great experience."
You were intimidated by working with Paul Newman?
"Oh, landy! Yes, oh yes. You just can't have the history of going
to the movies that I've had and not be. I remember going to see
'Hud.' And 'The Hustler.' And wasn't there a movie like 'Apache?' "
"Fort Apache, the Bronx?"
"Not that one. There was one where he was a half-breed. I want to
say 'Honda.'
" 'Hombre.' "
" 'Hombre!' That was a big movie for me."That was his H period, I said. 'Hud,' 'Hustler,' 'Hombre.'"
Seeing those movies was a big time for me. So to be there on the
set with him ... No. 1, he's much taller than you think he's going
to be. And No. 2, those eyes. The first take on the first day, I'm
not thinking about my work, I'm thinking, 'Holy cow! I'm in a movie
looking into Paul Newman's eyes. How did this happen?'
"There's a theory, I say, that no one seems like a real movie star
to you unless they were a star when you were still a kid growing
up. If they come along after you're 21 or 22, then they're just
your contemporaries. But if you saw them in grade school ..."
The theory is right," Hanks says. "Al Pacino in a room, I don't
know what to say to Mr. Pacino. Sean Connery, when I first met him
I believe I called him 'Commander.' There's just no way around it.
I think it's like when you're a freshman in high school, and the
upperclassmen look like they're 32 years old, and it isn't until
you get up there you realize, what was I thinking? We're all just a
bunch of stupid kids."
But Tom Hanks was definitely in a movie with Paul Newman, the
upperclassman: "Road to Perdition," which opens Friday. Hanks was
in Chicago for the movie's world premiere, which filled the Chicago
Theater on June 25. He stars in the movie as an enforcer for the
Chicago mob, and Newman is the boss who treats him like his own
son, up to a point--and then crosses him. In the movie, Hanks has
two sons, Newman has a son, and then emotionally Hanks is Newman's son, so there are three sets of fathers and sons, and a lot of room for betrayal.
"One thing I wondered, reading the script," Hanks said, "is that
you have to wonder, in a Catholic community in 1931, why they only
have one or two children. You wonder if they don't feel a curse.
Given their money and the theology there should be six or seven,
maybe eight, kids running around. Nope. It's just these tough, cold
men. Do the women in town think they're cursed?"
The theme of tortured and disintegrating families is not new to the
director, Sam Mendes, who won the Oscar in 1999 for his "American Beauty." That one starred Kevin Spacey as a man whose family drives him a little nuts, and vice versa. I talked to your son Colin Hanks a few months ago, I said, when he was starring in "Orange County." So there's a son going into the family business, but "Road to Perdition" is about a father who does not want his son in the business.
Did your own fatherhood inform what you do in the movie?
"I think there are periods of time when you're a father," he said,
"when truly the only thing you have is regrets. All the wonderful
qualities of your kids are mysteries to you and all you can see is
the way you've scarred or burned or somehow neglected those kids.
The feeling passes, but it's true. If you have omitted a moment, if
you have bypassed a day, you'll never get it back."
This was your third movie filmed in Chicago, after "Nothing in Common" and "A League of Their Own."
"And a little of 'Sleepless in Seattle.' But this was the first time in the winter. It was so cold. We were doing a scene with real snow and fake snow and rain. You do that all night long and it's tough. That's why those coats are so big and heavy, and why the hats have such big brims. They dress for the climate with a Depression-era Gortex sensibility."
Talk of Chicago reminds me of the current box office hit "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." It began as a one-woman show by Nia Vardalos, a Second City actress who talked about being Greek and single at 30.
The movie was produced by Hanks and his Greek-American wife,
actress Rita Wilson.
"Nia put this show on and cobbled together the money for an ad the
size of a postage stamp in the Los Angeles Times," Hanks aid, "and
Rita said she had to go see the show. She came back saying it was
hilarious and I had to see it. And we loved it and Nia had already
been working on a screenplay, so we helped her turn it into a
movie--and if you look at it proportionally, it is one of the most
profitable movies of the year, because if cost X money to make,
it's grossed four times X. If you look at it from the
percentages--hey, it's right up there with 'Gone With the Wind.' "