The movie line Tom Hanks didn’t want to say: “Meh, that’s a little on the nose”
There are films we first watch during our childhoods that never leave us, even if they were simply intended to be a moment of distraction, our parents parking us in front of the television on a miserable Sunday afternoon so they could get stuff done. Yet, a film has the ability to shape our minds, and the ones we watched as kids often gave us some of our most powerful early memories. Many of these titles often featured Tom Hanks, a familiar face and voice for a certain generation of movie-lovers.
Perhaps you were moved to tears when you discovered that Jenny had died in Forrest Gump, longed to jump across a giant floor piano like Hanks in Big, or mourned the end of your childhood through the final scene of Toy Story 3. The actor has often picked roles with strong emotional themes, capturing the hearts of audiences across the world. As a result, Hanks has become a Hollywood icon, and back in the 1990s, he dominated movie theatres with countless award-winning, box-office successes.
From rom-coms like Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail to powerful dramas like Saving Private Ryan, Philadelphia, and The Green Mile, Hank spent the decade giving performances that both charmed and moved viewers. Winning two ‘Best Actor’ Oscars in 1993 and 1994, Hanks established himself as a heavyweight champion of Hollywood, and he continued this run into the 21st century.
While Hanks’ career over the past decade has been a little less memorable, he has still starred in a handful of movies that received positive reviews, like A Man Named Otto. It appears as though Hanks is still all for starring in moving pieces of cinema, made with the aim of pulling on our heartstrings while telling an important story. With the 2022 film directed by Marc Foster, Hanks played the titular character, a man suffering from depression following his wife’s death.
The movie blends humour with some dark themes, such as Otto’s various suicide attempts. Hanks is great in the lead, mastering the balance between emotion and lightheartedness as he has done so many times in the past. However, there was a line in the film that he was worried was too obvious in relation to its emotional charge.
Speaking to Virgin Radio UK he explained, “There’s a line that, when I first read it, I said, ‘Meh, that’s a little on the nose,’ but then, when we got around to doing it, I said, ‘No, that actually is a great way to describe love and partnership in one’s life’.”
He continued, quoting the line, “It’s like, ‘I see things in black and white, she saw things in colour, and, without her, I’ve got none in my life.’ I get that completely.” While the line might sound a little cliché to some, Hanks believes that audiences should just take the line and all of its meaning for what it is because sometimes there is no other way to describe the love you feel other than through age-old metaphors.
