Tom Hanks, is the reason I started making
films.
I love this man and almost all of the films
he did.
Actually, I’ve never met anyone who disliked
Tom Hanks or his movies.
To me, he is one of the greatest actors that
have come out of American cinema.
But what makes him such a great actor?
Growing up, I didn’t have much of an exposure
to other cultures, especially the western
culture as I grew up in a very small town
in South India.
It was completely a homogenous population
with similar values and conditionings.
Couple of Hollywood movies that I watched
was Godzilla and Anaconda dubbed in a regional
language.
Almost 10 years ago, when I moved to a big
city I accidentally stumbled upon a DVD of
a movie, about which I knew nothing.
It was called ‘Forrest Gump’.
It was different from all the other hyper
realistic Hollywood movies, to which I was
accustomed.
Immediately after that I watched The Terminal
and The Saving Private Ryan one after the
other.
To me, one of the glaring factors that made
all of those movies such a mesmerizing watch
was Tom Hanks.
That was the first time I consciously noticed
how a performance could elevate a movie to
a whole new level and that’s when the bug
of filmmaking caught me and it stayed, for good
To analyze Tom Hanks, it is important to know
that his screen career as a lead began with
Bosom Buddies, an eighties’ American sitcom
that centered on the misadventures of two
single guys dressed as women in order to keep
living in the only apartment they could afford.
Starting with that, for almost a decade Hanks
did characters with comedic undertones with
movies like Splash, The Man With One Red Shoe,
the infamous Big, Punchline, The Money Pit
and many others.
The point is, he is really good at comedy,
and he is an effective slapstick comedian.
Selling a joke through your performance and
body language is a very hard thing to do and
by the time he starred in Big, that came naturally
to him and that’s one of the reason why,
when he shifted to dramatic roles, not just
his face but his hand and muscles also reacted
to the situation because of his slapstick
roots.
Tom Hanks is great at making us relate to
a character that he is playing through certain
subtleties that we encounter in everyday life.
Great script and effective dialogue is every
bit necessary to that relatability but what
elevates it to another level is his minor
pause, or a nose scratch, or a head nod, things
that we all do in day-to-day life but unconsciously.
I’ve never seen him go to extreme measures
like some method actors do, to give his characters
credibility.
Instead he resorts to actually understanding
the character and its quirks and react in
a way like any rational person in that situation
would react.
Another reason of this instant relatability
is that he is extremely likeable as a person.
Be it an appearance in a late night talk show
or a radio show or an award ceremony, he seems
honest, with very little ego and sometimes
even self-depreciating without seeming to
be faking it.
People who have met him in person, people
in the industry, the press and fans alike
unanimously agree that he is one of the most
genuine people with a lot of humility.
That genuineness is of incredible value, especially
in today’s society, because of all the lies
and deceit that are told in front of our faces,
by politicians, celebrities and the rise of
fake news through social media.
So, his genuine personality is a rare commodity
in a society like ours and earns an instant
likeability.
These bits of off screen information are important
because people who watch TV and interviews
in YouTube are the ones who also go to watch
the movies and the moment they see Tom Hanks
on screen, his character earns a likeability
that doesn’t need to be earned by the script
and he uses it excellently by choosing the
right scripts; by mostly playing an everyman,
an underdog or a respectable American hero.
Top it with a realistic performance by a person
who truly understands and lives the character
that he is playing, you get one of the finest
actors that’s living today.
All said I have only one qualm with Tom Hanks.
For all his excellence in acting, he has yet
to play a villain.
I’m not talking about a maniac like the
Joker but a passive aggressive villain like
Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs
or the masterful Jun Kunimura in The Wailing.
These kinds of characters would suit Tom Hanks
exceptionally well as it uses his instant
likeability against his own audience and it
would be, phenomenal, to watch.
Tom Hanks is my inspiration and I really enjoyed
doing this episode.
I would, love to know what your favorite Tom
Hanks character is?
Leave that, in the comments below.
I’ve also included a playlist where you
can find all my other videos to watch.
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Thank you so much and see you soon.
