The Making of Tom Hanks

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture, Film Interviews, Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2023

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, on his 67th birthday, we’re joined by actor Tom Hanks! We begin by discussing his debut novel, The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece (6:45), his nomadic upbringing across California (13:56), and the Stanley Kubrick film that made him want to be an artist (19:50). Then, we talk about his early work at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival (23:38) and moving to Los Angeles for his television debut in Bosom Buddies (28:42), before pivoting to dramatic roles in films like Philadelphia and Forrest Gump (33:00).

On the back-half, Hanks describes the transformative, eight-year process of making Cast Away (36:40), receiving an AFI Lifetime Achievement award for his work at age forty-six (39:12), the vital performances that followed (40:21), and his insatiable desire to reflect the human experience (45:43).

To close, Hanks reflects on the kinship he found with Yankee hall of famer Joe DiMaggio (47:52), his formative friendships with actor Holland Taylor (50:17) and the late Nora Ephron (52:32), and the Cecil B. DeMille story he hopes to keep telling (53:20).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin. This is talk easy. I'm San Fr the one and only Tom Hanks. Since breaking out in Bozim buddies in 1980,
0:49.7	Hanks has become something of a national treasure, a permanent fixture in American life.
0:56.0	Stephen Spielberg who directed Hanks in films like Saving Private Ryan and Catch Me if you
1:01.0	can, once said, if Norman Rockwell were alive today he would paint a
1:05.8	portrait of Tom. And that tends to be how many think and talk about Hanks, the
1:10.7	prototypical American, the every man. And yet when you think about it, Rockwell's paintings and
1:17.1	Hank's performances are guided by a similar spirit to observe and reflect not just the world as it is, but as it could be.
1:27.0	Through the 90s, he tackled big social themes like women's equality in a league of their Own, the AIDS epidemic in Philadelphia, the 60s in Vietnam
1:36.8	and Forrest Gump, capital punishment in the Green Mile.
1:41.2	Come the turn of the century, Hanks plays not an every man but the best of man, a fearless
1:47.0	editor in the post, a pilot who somehow lands a broken plane on the Hudson River in Sully, Mr. Rogers in a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
1:57.2	After four decades, two Oscars and countless films, Hank's curiosity has somehow not faded away.
2:05.0	If anything, Hank, who actually turns 67 years old today,
2:10.0	is more interested than ever in telling new stories about how and why we move
2:16.6	through the world. As evidence you need only to look at his latest two projects
2:21.6	West Anderson's asteroid city in which he plays a supporting role
2:26.4	and his debut novel, the making of another major motion picture masterpiece. The book is a love letter to both movies and the people that make them.
2:36.0	And if you'd like to check it out, you can now find it at your local bookstore or wherever you get your books.
2:43.0	As you'll hear in this conversation,
2:45.2	Hank's himself has an incredibly vivid memory,
2:48.8	often telling stories as if they're well-scripted scenes
2:52.3	from the movie of his life.
	...

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