By SEAN DALY Special to the Daily Press
CHICAGO — Tom Hanks doesn’t particularly care for the movie star treatment. Especially when he’s working.
On location last spring for the new Mob drama “Road To Perdition,” the two-time Oscar winner had no entourage, no special caterer and no custom-built dressing room.
“He had the exact same trailer as everyone else,” says director Sam Mendes. “Most days you’d go in there at lunchtime and he’d be cooking his own chicken and rice and beans.”
But don’t call Hanks a master chef just yet.
“It has got to be crock pot sensibility or I can’t do it,” he laughs, during an early morning interview at The Ritz Carlton Hotel. No biggie. He is, after all, one of the most successful actors of this generation.
That’s why the Concord, Calif. native was honored last month with the American Film Institute’s 30th Life Achievement Award — at the ripe old age of 45.
“Tonight we’re calling it the Mid-life Achievement Award,” pal Steve Martin quipped during the cable-televised gala, playfully attributing much of Hanks’ success to his ability to weather the ups and downs of Hollywood.
“After ‘Forrest Gump’ failed to take in $600 million, Tom bounced right back with ‘Saving Private Ryan.’”
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. “Sleepless In Seattle,” “Big,” “Philadelphia” and “Cast Away” also were blockbusters, and remain staples at video stores across Canada. But Hanks is no less proud of what he calls his “clunkers,” movies like “Turner and Hooch” (”I can’t get enough of that Hoochie pooch”) and “Joe Versus The Volcano.”
“You know, two thirds of that is a fabulous movie,” he defends, sip-ping from a fresh brewed cup of coffee.
“There is a period of time in your career where you just can’t believe you are being asked to make any movie. So you think it’s impossible to say no.”
Dressed casually in blue jeans and a light green plaid button down shirt, Hanks says he had no second thoughts about signing on for “Road To Perdition,” which opens in theaters July 12. He is cast largely against type as Michael Sullivan, a 1930s Chicago hit man, who seeks revenge against the man who killed his wife and son.
The role nabbed Hanks for a cool $20 million and paired him for the first time with one of his big screen idols — Paul Newman. He describes their first meeting in early 2001 as “an out of body experience,” adding, “From now on the world is a different place for me because I’m on film with Paul Newman.”
Not surprisingly, there was no conflict or sense of competition between the two film icons, Newman shared.
“We respected each other’s territory. He pissed on his tree, I pissed on my tree, and then someone yelled ‘action.’”
Newman, 77, stars as Mob boss John Rooney, who becomes a sort of surrogate father to Hanks’ Sullivan. (Interesting footnote: Newman’s wife, actress Joanne Woodward played Hanks’ mother in the 1993 drama “Philadelphia.”) Hanks admits he had to pack on a few extra pounds to play a Midwestern meat and potatoes man. His secret? “I ate a lot,” he grins. “And I stopped paying attention to that Devil’s scale.”
This is not the first time Hanks had to manipulate his weight for a role. He gained almost 30 pounds for the baseball drama “A League of Their Own” — mostly with the help of a nearby ice cream shop — and another 50 pounds for the opening scenes of “Cast Away.” The real trick, he says, was getting back to his normal girth. “At meals I would eat a little chicken breast and maybe a scoop of rice. It’s all about portions; nothing was bigger than the palm of my hand.”
Still, Hanks insists no physical challenge comes close to the work involved in raising four children. He admits “it would be difficult to go off and make a movie and be away from my kids for five months and actually make my relationship with them better than it was.”
But things have gotten much better in recent years.
“My oldest son (actor Colin Hanks) is 24,” he tells the current issue of Time. “Throughout the vast majority of his youth and adolescence I did not have a clue as to how to be a father or a parent. I was at that point in my career where it was all about getting work.”
At the time, Colin and his sister Elizabeth, 20, lived with their mother, Hanks first wife, Samantha Lewes. (They were married for seven years before the actor tied the knot with actress Rita Wilson in 1988).
“With my younger kids (sons Chester, 11, and Truman, 6), now that I’m 45, it’s of paramount importance to me that I have much more concrete security and stability. I have much more ability to provide for them now. With my older kids I simply wasn’t able to do it.”
Remembers Colin: “I hated him when I was a kid, just like every kid (hates their father). But he’s my dad. He changed my diapers, yelled at me when I was in trouble, and wanted me to get good grades. But I respect what he’s done. Who wouldn’t.”
The younger Hanks says his father never pressured him to become an actor. In fact, he even steered clear of giving his son a helping hand.
“He never made any calls for me, not a single one, not even to help me an agent,” Colin says. “I never asked him for a single thing. I did everything on my own.”
So imagine Hanks’ pride when he showed up last summer in Los Angeles to watch Colin make his first leading man appearance in the teen comedy “Orange County.”
“It was like being stoned!” Hanks exclaims. “I was laughing and crying through the entire thing. Understand when he was 5 or 6 years-old I was doing ‘Bosom Buddies’ and he’d come down to Paramount studios and we’d have lunch and we’d hang out.”
“Now I’m driving back to Paramount and my son’s picture is on the side of the soundstage bigger than life and I'm watching him come down the press line... I was both giddy and sobbing with emotion at the same time.”
As for the rest of the Hanks clan — “I hope they get more exercise than I do and floss their teeth more often,” he smiles, pretending to dodge the question. “But if they all went into (acting), I think it would be a wonderful thing, provided that they love it.”
After all, a passion for the craft is what continues to drive Hanks nearly 22 years after earning just $800 for his big screen debut in the horror-thriller “He Knows You’re Alone.”
“I’m not in this for power or influence or cold, hard cash,” he says. “Although I have a little bit of all three.”
Does that leave anything left to accomplish in the “second half” of his career?
“I was hoping to come up with the Polio vaccine, but I heard this Dr. Salk guy found it first,” he laughs. “So all this is more than enough.” (Sean Daly is a Santa Monica-based writer and is president of Showtime Entertainment.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 8, 2002. Read the original PDF.