“In real time”: the movie Tom Hanks called a substantial challenge
As someone who has almost become synonymous with the star power of Hollywood, Tom Hanks always manages to draw attention whenever he signs onto a new project. After receiving acclaim for his work in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, he is set to collaborate with the American auteur once again on his upcoming film, The Phoenician Scheme, which has already started generating a lot of buzz.
While Hanks’ future projects will always be of massive interest to fans, it’s his past works that continue to help strengthen his huge global fan base. Including the likes of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump and Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia, Hanks’ filmography is stacked with classics that serve as continuous reminders of his talent.
On multiple occasions, the star has spoken about the obstacles he faced while making his most iconic movies, which ended up elevating them to another level. However, that is also true for some of his other works that might not have received the same kind of critical appreciation but remained challenging for the actor nonetheless.
One great example of the latter is Hanks’ recurring take on Dan Brown’s famous fictional professor, Robert Langdon, in the film adaptations that divided fans of the original books. While some thought Hanks was not the right actor to portray the protagonist of the novel series, others preferred his interpretation over the literary Langdon.
During a conversation with Bafta, the Philadelphia star opened up about the difficulty of filming the Dan Brown adaptations, contrary to the opinions of those who dismissed it as rudimentary treatments of the popular crime thrillers.
“They are a substantial challenge to make as an actor because they happen in real time, meaning it’s like, by and large, 24 hours,” Hanks said. “So you’re always putting on the same costume and picking yourself up right after it. And to bring an immediacy and a true sense of knowledge to some of the arcane stuff that you’re saying, you do have to do research in order to understand what you’re really talking about.”
The actor added: “When I would read the books or read the screenplays, I’d do it with Google right next to me because you’re setting [it] in a space, so you could go on and see what the picture was and see the artist’s references of it, and get the history of it right there, and it ends up kind of like being like a great summer course in art history making those films.”
Despite the negative reviews, The Da Vinci Code ended up being a massive commercial success because it was mainly admired by audiences who were not familiar with the source material. Either way, the adaptations encouraged more people to pick up the books, which fans still swear by.
