The director Tom Hanks wants to “spectacularly” fall out with: “We should come to loggerheads”
Even though there’s very little evidence to the contrary, Tom Hanks claims to have a dark side, and maybe it’ll manifest itself one day when he gets his wish of falling out with a filmmaker he’s known for decades.
Nobody earns the nickname of ‘America’s Dad’ by being a dickhead, and while almost everyone who’s worked with Hanks has nothing but the nicest things to say about him, the two-time Academy Award winner maintains that he’s been known to indulge his petulant and difficult side on the odd occasion.
Out of every director he’s ever worked with, there are two who stand out above all others as the pair he’s never, ever going to argue with. The first is, of course, Steven Spielberg, with their decades-spanning personal and professional relationship often bringing out the best in each other. He’s known the other one for longer, which might be why they’ve made it onto Hanks’ self-deprecating shit list.
Since first crossing creative paths on a 1982 episode of Happy Days, the actor and Ron Howard have been as thick as thieves. The latter handed the erstwhile A-lister his first major motion picture leading role in Splash two years later, and the former took top billing in Apollo 13, Howard’s favourite of his own features.
They reunited for the Da Vinci Code trilogy, with Howard also executive producing The ‘Burbs. They’ve been close for over 40 years, with Hanks likening them to “college roommates who spend too much time together.” However, when Movies suggested that they were wholesome yin to Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog’s antagonistic yang, the Forrest Gump headliner had an idea.
“Yeah, maybe we should come to loggerheads every now and then,” he pondered. “Sometimes, that great stuff comes out of movies where the director and the actor hate each other, and they’re fighting the whole time. Fistfights in the desert, stuff like that. Storming off the set for one reason or another, but we have so much work to do, we don’t have the time to get pissed off with each other.”
Hanks and Howard haven’t worked together as star and director for almost a decade, but if and when they make their fifth picture together, he has a plan that could potentially be the making or breaking of them.
“We should try and put some time aside on the next movie to fall out,” he added. “Spectacularly.”
Obviously, the chances of the duo ending up at each other’s throats are as close to zero as you’ll find in the film business. There’s a reason why both of them have been constantly touted as two of the most famous stand-up guys in an industry full of snakes, backstabbers, and unscrupulous sorts, and if they never fall out with other collaborators, how are they supposed to fall out with each other?
Individually, Hanks and Howard have made a mockery of the ‘nice guys finish last’ mantra, becoming two of their era’s most successful talents on either side of the camera. That said, if they go full Kinski/Herzog and audiences get a masterpiece out of the deal, then why shouldn’t they throw caution to the wind and have a bust-up for the ages?
