Tom Hanks, actor
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 May 2016
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kirsty Young's castaway is Tom Hanks.
From 'Big' to 'Sleepless in Seattle', 'Captain Phillips' to 'Apollo 13', his long and distinguished film-making career has brought him multiple awards and many plaudits. He's the recipient of eight Emmys, one Bafta and four Golden Globes and was the youngest ever actor to be given a lifetime achievement award by the American Film institute. The voice of Woody in the 'Toy Story' films, he won the first of his two Oscars in 1993 for Philadelphia and again the following year for Forrest Gump.
His parents split up when he was five and he went to live with his father. By the age of ten he'd lived in ten different houses in five different cities. He loved school and developed a passion for history which is reflected in the film he made with Steven Spielberg, 'Saving Private Ryan' and the TV mini-series 'Band of Brothers' and 'The Pacific' which he also produced.
His latest film is 'Hologram for The King'.
He is married to the actor & producer, Rita Wilson.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale
The podcast version of this programme is an extended version of the broadcast interview.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this specially extended |
| 0:05.0 | podcast of Tom Hank's Desert Island discs for BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons, |
| 0:10.5 | the music is shorter than in the radio broadcast. You'll find more than 2,000 |
| 0:16.2 | editions of the program to listen to and download at BBC.co. UK slash Desert Island Discs. My castaway this week is Tom Hanks. His work spans four decades of filmmaking and his reputation both on |
| 0:45.6 | set and in life marks him out from so many of your run-of-the-mill movie stars. |
| 0:50.3 | The Big Box Office returns, the multiple Oscars, the audience adulation, yep he's had it all. |
| 0:55.8 | And yet, it seems he's managed to keep his head and his principles firmly intact. |
| 1:01.7 | From Big to Philadelphia to Forrest Gump to Apollo 13 to Captain Phillips |
| 1:05.5 | and his most recent film, A Holligram for the King. The golden thread that runs |
| 1:10.0 | through each highly individual performance is his portrayal of a man grappling with the dark undercurrents of their emotional horizons. |
| 1:18.0 | He learned the basic skills of acting as a child not just as some stage school kid putting on a play, but coping with real life. |
| 1:26.2 | By the age of ten, he'd already had a mother and two stepmothers and lived in ten different |
| 1:31.0 | houses in five different cities. To survive he says he was able |
| 1:35.3 | to acclimatize himself to whatever social circumstances he was in, |
| 1:40.0 | surviving by imitating the way he was supposed to be. |
| 1:44.0 | He says of his work now, every time I take on a job I lose sleep over the choices I make. |
| 1:50.0 | I always wonder if I'm doing it right. I wonder if I'm fooling myself, if I'm coasting on some sort of prestige. |
| 1:56.6 | The process of performing in a movie requires an awful lot of emotional investment, |
| 2:01.3 | and that's the same no matter what. |
| 2:03.4 | So welcome Tom Hanks. |
| 2:04.4 | Sounds rather run of the mill to me but okay all right I'll take that. |
| 2:08.4 | Um welcome to the show you're aware I think that you're being cast away and you are one of very few of our castaways on |
... |
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