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 Tom Hanks
Interview by: Shawn Koonin
Tom Hanks has been almost everything. He’s been a 12 year old boy, a detective with a dog as his partner, a band manager, a mentally disabled savant, an Army Captain, an animated cowboy and now, finally, Santa Claus. Not to mention he gets to play four other parts (including the other lead roles of Hero Boy and the conductor) in his latest film with director Robert Zemeckis, The Polar Express. Even more, he’s released two other films this year (The Terminal and The Ladykillers) and is in the works for two others. Quite the busy guy.
As a two-time Oscar winner, Hanks is the kind of actor who can bring clout to any project he works on. Adding his presence to this latest animated film, Hanks could either bring glory or disaster to the Zemeckis/Hanks team up. Is the world ready for an animated Tom Hanks? The world certainly wasn’t ready for Tom Hanks to play the villain in the much maligned Ladykillers.
Based on Caldecott Award winning author Chris Van Allsburg’s book of the same name, this new animated film brings Hanks to the big screen in ways never seen before. The movie was filmed using a new technique called Performance Capture, which allows an actor to play any part regardless of size, gender, and race. Could this be the terminal end to actors as we know it? “No,” Hanks believes. “What this can do from an actor’s point of view is to free us up to a huge degree.” In fact, “it’s possible now to play any character, in any circumstance, in a way that simply was not feasible before.”
In fact, Zemeckis initially wanted Tom to play all the parts in the film. But, much like his ancestor Abe Lincoln, Hanks had the humility to decline saying, “there’s only so much I can internally grasp as an actor.” Grasping five characters still seems like a tremendous challenge. How did Hanks maintain the separation between so many characters? “Well, that’s my job. My job is to make manifest these other people,” Hanks says, adding, also, “I would change my shoes depending on which character I might play.”
However risky this new venture might be, Hanks remains excited for the release. This film “is about belief,” Hanks says. Because, in the end it’s not whatever fancy techniques are used, but that the film creates a sense of wonderment and surprise. “The reason you go to the movies is to be surprised,” and this is “a movie that is more complicated, sophisticated and dazzling than I could have ever imagined.” Here’s to believing.
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