‘Cloud Atlas’: Tom Hanks on the movie that “altered my entire consciousness”
Tom Hanks has forged movies that have made millions, notably breaking the box office in the early 1990s with a starring role in Forrest Gump. With the turn of the new century, he made it rain on a deserted island with Cast Away, and he keeps people coming back to the toybox with his well-loved performance as Woody in Toy Story. But Hanks loves his lesser-known and lesser-earning features just as much as he loves the blockbusters in his catalogue.
When the American actor isn’t in the recording studio voicing the rootinest-tootinest cowboy around, he occasionally delves into more uncertain territory, into films that aren’t necessarily guaranteed to make hundreds of millions at the box office and aren’t even guaranteed to win over the audiences and critics who do purchase a ticket.
From a drag-driven comedy by Michael Lembeck to James Ponsoldt’s disappointing adaptation of The Circle, there are several box office failures and critical flops in Hanks’ catalogue. But the actor doesn’t let the reception to a film colour his opinion of it. “I’ve made an awful lot of movies that didn’t make any sense,” he admitted during a chat with The Guardian, “And didn’t make any money, but that doesn’t alter the work that goes into it, or even what your opinion of it is.”
One of those movies – by Hanks’ standards, at least – came in 2012 with Cloud Atlas. With the Wachowskis at the helm, who rose to acclaim for their 1990s classic The Matrix, the film marked one of Hanks’ few ventures into the realm of sci-fi. He starred alongside the likes of Halle Berry and Susan Sarandon in a whole range of roles spread across the country and across history.
For a film of its scale, Cloud Atlas performed poorly at the box office, taking in around $130million in all. With a budget of around the same number, it was an underwhelming response and one of the more disappointing performances in Hanks’ catalogue. Still, the lack of enthusiasm from audiences and critics couldn’t dim the starring actor’s love for the project.
Instead, he suggested that the sci-fi film had a transformative effect on him, altering “entire consciousness”. Deeming the movie “fab”, Hanks went on to afford the Wachowski-helmed film some of the highest praise an actor can give: he stated that it was the only project in his filmography that he has watched more than twice.
“And it didn’t do any business,” he continued, “And there’s nothing you can do about it.” While Hanks went on to acknowledge that this can cause an actor to feel “bummed out”, he maintained that a film’s commercial and critical success should not be the only driving factor in taking or standing by a project. Even though audiences may not have connected with Cloud Atlas, Hanks clearly believed in the project, and it had an impact on him personally.
While many actors give bad reviews, quickly resorting to panning their own work and their own creative collaborators, it’s refreshing to hear Hanks sticking by his artistic decisions. Not every film is going to make a hefty profit at the box office, and not every film is going to win over all of the critics. Consequently, neither of these should factor into an actor’s decision to take on a job. It should come down to real belief in the project.
