Tom Hanks rarely plays a villain in his movies, and he’s just told The New York Times why. The multiple Oscar-winning actor sat down for an interview to promote his recent Mr. Rodgers biopic, A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, where he revealed why his roles lean towards the heroic and the kind-hearted.
Whether as the voice of the always dependable Woody from Toy Story, the lovable bumpkin Forrest Gump, the noble prison guard Paul Edgecomb in The Green Mile, or even real-life heroes like Captain Richard Phillips or Mr. Rodgers himself, Hanks always serves as a kind face and a comforting voice even in the darkest of his films. Even his more intense roles, such as in Philadelphia and the Angels and Demons series, have him on the right side of the narrative, and it’s this penchant for playing the best of humanity that has earned him the nickname “America’s Sweetheart.”
However, he believes this image keeps him from seeking out a more antagonistic role. “I recognized in myself a long time ago that I don’t instill fear in anybody.” Hanks told the The New York Times earlier this week. “Now, that’s different than being nice, you know? I think I have a cache of mystery. But it’s not one of malevolence. It’s because I never get them, because bad guys, by and large, require some degree of malevolence that I don’t think I can fake.” It also hearkens to his tendency to star in true-story films, which usually serve to remind us of the good that people can do when pressed in extraordinary circumstances.
That isn’t to say that he’s never played a villainous role. He portrayed an assassin in 2002’s Road to Perdition, as well as unscrupulous roles in 2009’s Cloud Atlas and 2017’s The Circle. But these were few and far between, and were either merely one character Hanks played among several in the same film or simply forgotten, and most of them still held sympathetic qualities.
It would be interesting to see the long-running actor break typecasting in a major role, especially if it involved a twist of some kind. Imagine how shocking it would be if the next slasher villain turned out to be Tom Hanks, or if he was secretly the head of a major crime syndicate. On the other hand, Hanks says that he doesn’t have that element of danger to him, and there isn’t anything wrong with that. In the meantime, Hanks can be seen as America’s greatest neighbor in A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood.
Source: The New York Times
