The one thing Tom Hanks learned from Paul Newman about acting: “use it to this day”
Tom Hanks might be the de facto uncle of Hollywood, thanks to his easy charm, feel-good filmography, and abundance of warmth in all interviews, but just like everyone else, he had to start somewhere, and luckily, he had one of the greatest actors of all time to school him in his craft. In 2002, Hanks starred with Paul Newman in Sam Mendes’s crime drama Road to Perdition, and the younger actor was, not surprisingly, completely awestruck.
Throughout his nearly six-decade career, Newman starred in some of the most critically acclaimed films of the era, including 1961’s The Hustler and 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and worked with a younger generation of auteurs, including Martin Scorsese in The Color of Money in 1986 and the Coen Brothers in The Hudsucker Proxy in 1994. He was several decades into being one of Hollywood’s greatest icons of all time, so it’s no surprise that Hanks was quaking in his boots when they met on set.
In a conversation on the Armchair Expert podcast in 2022, the actor recalled how nervous he was and how Newman went out of his way to put him and co-stars Jude Law and Daniel Craig at ease.
“He just comes in and he’s the lowest-maintenance guy you’ve ever come across and easy to talk to,” Hanks said (via IndieWire). At the beginning of filming, he recalled, the actor finished performing a scene, only to be met with a reverent silence. “Then, he looked at us all and he said, ‘The first day you feel kind of self-conscious, don’t ya?’” Hanks remembered. “And everybody was released from any sort of bondage of honour that we were feeling. That was the guy.”
That moment might have won Hanks over, but the real lesson came later, after all the actors had gotten used to working opposite a legend and could soak in some of his practical wisdom. “You know what I learned from Paul Newman and use it to this day?” Hanks asked. “First thing in the makeup trailer–your face in a bucket of ice water.”
Though the actor didn’t elaborate on why Newman made such a suggestion, it is common practice for performers to dunk their faces in freezing water to reduce puffiness. Given that many of them are required to show up on set at the crack of dawn when they’ve just rolled out of bed, it’s a useful tip. Then, there’s the fact that Newman spent much of his career drinking fairly heavily, which may also have contributed to his desire to shock his face into submission every morning.
The irony of Hanks being utterly starstruck by the older actor is that he had more accolades by that point. Newman had been nominated for numerous Oscars over the years, only to be granted his first in 1987 for The Color of Money. Hanks already had two, one for 1993’s Philadelphia, and the other 1994’s Forrest Gump. He was also one of the biggest stars in Hollywood in his own right, having appeared in box office hits like Saving Private Ryan, Cast Away, and Toy Story.
The fact that he was so in awe of Newman just goes to show what an outsized presence the older actor had. As one of the most beloved stars of his generation and the one with the most longevity, he was a professional hero for most of the younger actors on set. Luckily, he didn’t disappoint.
