THE LADYKILLERS
 Q&A with Tom Hanks		 Search all of phase9.tv






Before the Coen Brothers started rolling the cameras to capture Tom Hanks latest screen creation as the wonderfully named Goldthwait Higginson Dorr in THE LADYKILLERS, the actor had a full year to let the character “simmer in the pot,” as he describes it himself.

It’s a phrase which Dorr, a southern gentleman, a lover of the English language and a criminal, would have been proud of himself. And what’s more, it obviously paid off - Hanks serves up a feast of a performance, one which, if you’ll pardon the pun, he obviously enjoyed tucking into.
“Oh he was fun to play,” he says. “He’s so wordy, so verbose and it’s the kind of language that you don’t hear too often, but it’s great to be able to speak those words.”

Based on the 1955 Ealing classic which starred Alec Guinness and a young Peter Sellers in one of his first film roles, Hanks wasn’t interested in doing a re-make, but he was very keen to fulfil a long held ambition of working with Joel and Ethan Coen.
“It was ‘the Coens are interested in doing THE LADYKILLERS,” recalls Hanks. “‘The Coens? Oh OK, say that I’m dropping by....’ That’s what intrigued me.”

Somewhat surprisingly, he still hasn’t seen the original film. Once he’d agreed to take the part he felt that it was best to wait until filming was finished before he took a look at Guinness’s performance because, understandably, he didn’t want to be distracted. “I’ll get around to it one of these days,” he says.

The Coens have taken the skeleton of the story and made it very much their own. In the original, Professor Marcus (Guinness) rents a room from a dotty and naive old lady (played by a superb Katie Johnson) in the London suburbs and whilst he pretends to rehearse with his fellow musicians, is planning a robbery.

Hanks as Professor Higginson Dorr, PhD, is a charlatan who pretends to be on sabbatical from his university when he rents a room from the formidable widow Mrs Munsen (Irma P Hall) and then proceeds to recruit a band of misfit criminals to rob a casino conveniently close to Mrs Munsen’s house. But our criminal mastermind has not bargained for the inquisitive nature and powerful morals of Mrs Munsen.

Hanks, at 47, is arguably the best loved, most successful actor in the world. He has won two Oscars - the first, in 1993, for his moving performance as an Aids stricken lawyer in PHILADELPHIA and a second, a year later, for the title role in the remarkable FORREST GUMP.

He was also nominated for an Oscar for BIG, in which he played a young boy trapped in a man’s body, Steven Spielberg’s world war two epic SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and for CAST AWAY, playing the sole survivor of a plane crash washed up on a desert island.

Among numerous other memorable performances he has also starred in THE GREEN MILE, SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN, APOLLO 13, THE ROAD TO PERDITION and CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. He will soon be seen in THE TERMINAL, which saw him reunited with Spielberg for a third time.

Hanks lives in California with his wife of 16 years, the actress Rita Wilson. Together they developed and produced the hit comedy MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING. This interview was conducted during the recent Cannes Film Festival where THE LADYKILLERS featured in competition.

Continued on page 2


© 2012 PHASE9 ENTERTAINMENT

    Subscribe to the free PHASE9 Entertainment newsletter

 
PHASE9 ENTERTAINMENT  -  HOME
MOVIES  MUSIC  DVD  GAMES  COMPETITIONS  HOT PHOTOS  VIDEO STREAMS