Tom Hanks is opening up about having less-than-perfect professionalism on set.
The Oscar winner, who this week releases the novel “The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece,” admitted to sometimes feeling pressured to maintain a certain level of “charming” composure in the past. The affable Hanks is perhaps best known by many as America’s Dad, but his new novel in part deconstructs that persona. The book charts the making of a fictional big-budget superhero movie with an eccentric director and a self-destructive lead actor who delays filming — something Hanks said he can relate to.
“I have pulled every single one of those moments of behavior myself on a set,” Hanks told the BBC. “Not everybody is at their best every single day on a motion picture set.”
The “Man Called Otto” actor continued, “I’ve had tough days trying to be a professional when my life has been falling apart in more ways than one and the requirement for me that day is to be funny, charming and loving – and it’s the last way I feel.”
But Hanks called out the “cardinal sin” of delaying the length of the shoot or changing the budget, adding, “You will be amazed at how many people know that they can get away with it, and are told they can get away with it, because they are carrying the movie on their shoulders.”
Hanks additionally addressed the mixed reviews for his book, noting that his “day job as a movie star” has made him “stronger when it comes down to really being torn apart.”
The “Elvis” actor revealed that his novel was born after having “just run out of curiosity for the job” as an actor as a whole. “Sometimes you just have to have some other reason to spark your imagination,” Hanks summed up.
The “Sleepless in Seattle” icon previously credited late filmmaker Nora Ephron for inspiring and encouraging him to write, even changing the script on set.
“She told me I was a writer when I didn’t realize I was a writer,” he said during the “Q with Tom Power” podcast. “When we first met for ‘Sleepless in Seattle,’ I was a big shot. I had everybody telling me I was a big shot.”
Hanks was so convinced of his own status in Hollywood that he told Ephron he disagreed with parts of the romantic comedy co-starring Meg Ryan. “I had this problem with it, and I had that problem with it…blah, blah, blah,” Hanks recalled. “Nora was very, very patient.”
Hanks suggested changing the dialogue between his character and onscreen son (played by Ross Malinger) during a fight scene.
“Once the movie came out, I said, ‘Hey, you know, that stuff was pretty funny.’ And Nora said, ‘Well, you wrote that,’” Hanks looked back. “I said, ‘No, I just said it, then you guys put it in the movie.’ And she said, ‘That’s what writing is!’”
