Hanks for the memories

SINGAPORE — At Bob’s Bar, an outdoor watering hole that ScreenSingapore has termed a place for making “power deals,” the peacocks wander freely among the cushioned chaise longues, perilously close to the massive mirrors leaning against the large wooden pillars. A waitress shoos them away as Tom Hanks wanders by, entourage in tow, before entering, not Bob’s Bar, but an air-conditioned restaurant one level below. A few loose cameramen try to snag a shot before he disappears inside.

Tom Hanks is nothing like a peacock. By common consent, he is one of the most well-liked Hollywood players around, free of attitude and temper tantrums. More importantly, he strives to pick projects that are “about something,” not just blockbusters, though he has plenty of those under his belt. He’s here in Singapore promoting Larry Crowne, his second directorial effort, which he co-wrote, produced and also stars in opposite Julia Roberts. At the press conference, he goofs around in classic Bosom Buddies fashion, but also gives considered, thoughtful answers to the Asian media. This is a guy, after all, who can switch easily from playing nerve-shattered US Army Captain John Miller in Saving Private Ryan to voicing Woody, the pull-string cowboy doll in the Toy Story movies. Talk about range. When he has to put on his producer hat, he can talk percentages and markets, but if you want to ask about working with Julia Roberts again, he’s glad to field that one, too.

Hanks (with longtime producer Gary Goetzman at left) talks about his first time… in Singapore.

Slim, wearing a black polo with the collar up and shirttail out, Hanks exudes a casual vibe. He’s been entertaining people for decades. There’s something iconic about him, yet approachable, whether he’s Forrest Gump or symbologist Robert Langdon up there on the screen. People connect to him: they see what they want to see. They see themselves, perhaps, or a better idea of who they want to be. This is something movies can still provide, and Hanks still wants to be part of it.

Larry Crowne, which opens in July, is a gamble of sorts. Set in America during the economic downturn, it’s about a guy who loses his job and home, then decides to go back to community college, where he becomes inspired and reinvents himself. Will Asian audiences get it? Will they even understand what a community college is, or a mortgage, for that matter? Put it this way: with Hanks selling it, it becomes universal.

PHILIPPINE STAR: You’re an inspirational figure to audiences, playing inspiring characters. Is there any place you won’t go as an actor?

TOM HANKS: No, there are places I won’t go as a storyteller, you know? By and large, I make movies I would like to see myself, and there’s a whole kind of motion picture or type of story that I just wouldn’t — you know, like, I’m not ragging on anybody, anyone can see whatever kind of movie they want to see, what do I know? — but did you have the Saw series over here? All I could think was, “What the hell is this? What in the world? Are we insane?” (Laughter) “Let’s go see people slowly cut up by some guy and dismembered.” I don’t get that. Now, I’m not going to bother seeing that or make it; I’m not sure what themes are examined by Saw, but maybe those are themes I can find addressed somewhere else.

The thing is, if you’re making movies at a certain level that people are paying to see, you’re making some form of social document that’s going to last a long time, whether good or bad. And I’ve made some bad movies that will last just as long as the good ones will. But in order to go off and invest time in not just making films but going around the world to talk to journalists, you really have to be making something that is going to somehow matter, and the only way it matters is if it’s really about something. Even if it’s a silly comedy or a science fiction thing, you have to land on a very particular kind of square so that you’re somehow holding up a mirror to nature and examining the human condition. I think that’s my job, and I’m very lucky to have it, and I’m very happy when we can succeed in doing that, instead of just coming close.

Was the idea of Larry Crowne personal to you?

I actually went to a junior community college like (the one in Larry Crowne). I was taking a couple classes that were required, and I took one Shakespeare class that completely changed my life. We studied The Tempest, Othello and Richard III, and I still know those plays better than any others because the teachers were so vibrant. I also had some terrible teachers that bored me, that drove me out.

How did the script come about?

We started thinking about this — myself, Gary Goetzman (producer) and Nia Vardalos (writer of My Big Fat Greek Wedding) — about six years ago. It originally started with the idea of a man’s reinvention. We actually imagined this: I go to college, Julia Roberts is my teacher and… guess what happens?

Polo player: Hanks wore four hats on Larry Crowne: co-writer, actor, director and producer.

We did the script in two phases. Nia worked on it for a couple years, it sat fallow for years, then I picked it up. As the years went by, we kept adding layers and layers — including the way the economic picture for the Western world had changed drastically, and we were able to incorporate some of the realities of the mortgage crisis, losing one’s home. So we were able to expand the theme of reinvention from just the idea that it would be interesting, to the idea that it would be an important thing for a guy to go through.

The best thing that happened with our collaboration is that Nia wrote the women’s side of it and I wrote the man’s. Which is smart, because usually, guys who write for women, the women always say things like, “When are you coming home?” (Laughter) That’s all they really say, they don’t really have a dynamic that goes on. And for women who write about guys, all they care about is sports, you know? So between the two of us, she was able to support the Talia and Mercedes (two female characters in the movie) aspect of it, and I was always driving the Larry part of it. She was always saying, “Girls don’t do that,” and I was always saying, “Well, guys don’t do that.” With a voice like Nia there from the beginning, she was always able to say, “What if this, what if that,” just to complicate it up a little bit more than it was. So her doing the lion’s share at the beginning, me doing the lion’s share at the end, it all worked out.

Up in the Air also looked at downsizing in America, but Larry Crowne chooses to see the glass as half full. Is it important for you that movies be realistic or reflect true life?

We’re in an optional business, meaning the audience opts to go to your film, so you have to make it, I think, not just attractive, but you also get credit if you make it authentic to real life. Our desire is to entertain an audience, but you also have to include the audience in what’s going on.

In Larry Crowne, you’ll notice there’s no father-in-law trying to destroy Larry, there’s no evil guy who wants him fired, or some guy from college trying to make a fool of him; there’s just a bunch of people trying to get by in their lives. And I think we can be authentic to what people really desire, which is to belong to something bigger than themselves and hope for their future. And while paying attention to the tragic nature of what is going on, an audience also goes to the cinema, I think, to foment faith in themselves; so we want to make a funny picture, no lie, but also one that’s rooted in reality.

So you’re now a Hollywood player?

You’d think so. I still have a little time left, it seems.

And you’re here selling a film in Asia, not as an actor but as a director and producer. What does that say about the state of Hollywood today?

Hollywood is never going to change, it’s always been the same, but what’s different now is the world market. You’re no longer showing 16mm prints in an outdoor theater somewhere in Delhi. It’s just different now. I don’t know how far away we are, but it’s not very far, from being able to see any movie ever made, anytime, on any device, wherever you are — and hopefully paying a few dollars for it — that’s just going to be the reality of it.

Compare acting to directing.

Being an actor is like a license to steal, in some ways. As an actor you don’t have to explain yourself, you just put on the clothes and show up, while being a director is a constant test of all your communicative skills: you’re always talking to somebody, you’re always trying to communicate your vision; you’re either trying to cajole them into doing something they won’t do, or you’re trying to communicate to them that there’s no way you’re going to let them do the thing they really want to do.

How do you pick what to direct?

The things I’ve directed I’ve written myself or have come out of Playtone (Hanks’ production company), or I’ve been involved in from the get-go, until they get to a place that I’m so involved that I don’t want to turn it over to another director to screw up the hard work we’ve done. The worst place to begin is with an actor saying, “Hey, I wrote a script! And I want you to direct it!’ No director wants to take on that job, that’s a recipe for disaster. But it gets to a point where I think it’s so special, I can’t get it out of my head, I can see the tenor and nature and tone of it, and I end up taking it on myself.

What was it like directing Julia Roberts, who you’ve starred with before?

Julia Roberts is the best there is. There’s a reason she’s become the screen icon of legendary stature and beauty, what have you. And when we imagined the teacher that would teach Larry Crowne, she was always who we wanted. I don’t think I would have been able to get her to be in the film if we hadn’t worked together on Charlie Wilson’s War. We got to know each other very well and had a very good, relaxed time, and I think did very good work between us, so she knew the type of job or the type of boss I would be. She was open to the idea. And the collaboration we had, with what Mercedes and Larry are going through, matched up very, very well because she’s very smart and very much a taskmaker.

You have your own production company. How do ideas generate there?

When it came to exploring these things, it’s nothing more than someone coming into work at Playtone one day and saying, “Hey, I had this interesting idea, I read this interesting article about somebody going through something.” We try to make movies and television projects that other people don’t make. We try to make Larry Crowne about a guy going back to college, which sounds simple enough on paper, but we think it’s fascinating and we think we’ve made a good movie about it. We’ve made television series like John Adams about colonial America (for HBO). It comes from a fascinating book and other people might not touch it, but we think it will make a great eight hours of television. So we try to bend the rules somewhat, absolutely break them if we can, in order to do something that’s different from everything else on the market.

You were once quoted as saying you’ve done 20 movies, but only five are good. Care to elaborate?

Pretty good average, don’t you think? I was in France once, and a journalist asked, “Why don’t you make more interesting films with more interesting directors? Why don’t you work with somebody like the Coen brothers?” And I said, “Well, I made a movie with the Coen brothers. It’s called The Lady Killers.” “Oh, but not that kind of Coen brothers film, another kind of Coen brothers film.” But that was actually a joke when I said that, because I’ve actually made 30 films now and seven are good. So as long as the numbers are going up…

Will Larry Crowne translate to Asian audiences?

The particulars of a mortgage and losing one’s home, I don’t know if that translates at all. But I think what can is the relative joy, or excitement or pleasure you can get by throwing yourself into a new environment — I don’t know if reinvention is something in the psyche of other societies, it seems to be what the American Dream is all about, packing up and starting all over again.

But whatever culture you’re from, I would imagine you can understand that Larry is better off because he rides that scooter to college, and meets a girl like Talia who changes his hair and alters his clothes in a good way. I would trust that cinema is enough of a worldwide language to translate to any audience. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just the opposite, and we’ve made a horrible, horrible mistake. (Laughter)

On the red carpet on Orchard Road for ScreenSingapore’s final premiere night.

What would happen if you lost your job and your house?

I would have one huge advantage over Larry: I would have my brat kids to take care of me. That’s one thing we avoided: Larry having kids. We had him in the Navy 20 years, no kids. That’s a very different type of movie.

If I lost everything, I’d have to have my kids take care of me. Or at least feed me. I have four of ‘em, so that’s at least four meals a week.