The Devil You Know
An Interview with Tom Hanks
By Antony Teofilo
Take three parts everyman and two parts underdog; whip into a frenzy of impossible circumstance. Toss ingredients into a pressure cooker, and let simmer ninety to one hundred and twenty minutes. Allow cover to blow off. Ladle out triumph over insurmountable odds. So goes the usual formula for a Tom Hanks vehicle.
ROAD TO PERDITION is a departure, of sorts, for Tom Hanks. While his performance as an Irish mob enforcer is brilliant in its stoic, statue-like stillness, there's still an aura of likeability to Michael Sullivan that is difficult to disbelieve. That's part of the point, though. Sullivan is a demon whose child has not yet picked sides, who can be saved from the fiery damnation that most assuredly awaits his father. As each step the Sullivans take leads them closer to the sanctuary of Perdition, Kansas, Michael Sullivan seems constantly on the cusp of transformation from fiend to father figure. For once, however, there is no earthly redemption for saving the soul of a child.
Do we really want Tom Hanks to be the bad guy? Can we ever accept him as the aggressor, the Avenging Angel of Death?
Watch ROAD TO PERDITION with an open mind, and you may decide it's better the devil you know, than the devil you don't.
PRESS: What about ROAD TO PERDITION intrigued you? Was it the idea of playing a bad-guy gangster?
HANKS: It wasn't the subject matter at all. It was the dynamic of the father and son, and the multiple variations on that. There was a surrogate father, there was a genuine father, there are two sons, one adopted, one not. The relationships go on and on. That was the most attractive thing about [this movie]. I knew with Sam [Mendes] directing, the gunplay, the organized crime angle, and the genre aspects of it were going to be secondary to the characters.
PRESS: Is this character really that much of a departure for you? While he is a cold-blooded killer, he's also a sensitive caring guy ...
HANKS: [Laughs] I just knew everyone was going to say that ... a contract killer with a heart of gold. [Laughs]
PRESS: But is this a departure for you?
HANKS: I can't make that judgment. I can only look at it and say if [the viewer] says it is a departure it is, and if it's not, it's not. By and large this is a retribution story because of what happens to the man's family. But take a look at the man's family. If this was the happiest household on the planet and I was coming home to play ball with the kids and reading them stories when they went to bed, I think it would be very different. [The Sullivan family] is a sad dysfunctional empty house that is built on some sort of rationale which is based on "Do not talk about anything that's going on." As soon as someone shoots someone else point-blank in the head, whatever [that character's] motivations are become incredibly checkered.
PRESS: If they're all killers, who do we have to root for in this movie?
HANKS: You're either involved in the story or you're not, regardless of what goes down among them. That's like saying, "Who cares about what goes on in the life of a longshoreman? They're just lowlifes and crooks." Well, turns out [that story is] ON THE WATERFRONT.
PRESS: As a father of sons, was there something in this movie that really resonated with you?
HANKS: I think that's why I took to the movie the way I did. I've got four kids, I've got three sons, I come from a family of three sons. We had very different relationships with my Dad, and all my kids have very different perspectives in looking at me as a Dad. There's a line from, is it DEATH OF A SALESMAN? "The relationship between fathers and sons is just the damnedest thing in the world."
ANTONY: As a member of a generation several times removed from the one portrayed in this movie, I was struck by the acute silence between a father and his family that was the norm. Can you comment a bit on the challenges of telling a story without speaking?
HANKS: It's the best acting there is. It ends up being fairly cinematic. This is a movie that was made literally with the same technology that the silents were made with. There's maybe seven seconds of computer-generated [scenery]. There are no blue screens or anything like that. It's all Conrad Hall's lighting and Sam's sensibilities. On stories that are well told, you find yourself taking out all the shoe leather that explains things. The audiences are smart, they're light years ahead of you. They understand deep complexities that you think they'll never get.
I just saw the movie for the first time last night. I always thought, "Are they really going to believe that this newsguy Maguire is going to find them that easily?" [Visually,] it's taken care of. As far as the lack of dialogue goes, unless you've got Chekhov or David Self writing the screenplay for you, it never fails to startle you as to how much can be incorporated in performance by taking out the line, and relying on the shots and cinematography and the points of view.
ANTONY: Do you think CAST AWAY was good preparation for this kind of role?
HANKS: Oh, indeed! CAST AWAY was a silent movie.
PRESS: Is doing this kind of role a risk in any way?
HANKS: The risks are inherent in whatever [project you're making]. FORREST GUMP was a ridiculous risk. Every movie that comes out, the monetary aspect of it is so huge, and there's so much pressure, they're all a magnificent huge risk anyway. The [silent] storytelling part of it, that's just part of the fun.
PRESS: What's your favorite part of what you do?
HANKS: Look, it's a wonderful job! You get to go off and do these pretend things. At three o'clock in the morning in the middle of February, it can be a drag. We had fake snow on the ground, and we had fake rain. Then it started to snow and freeze up naturally. So, it's really snowing, through the fake rain, on to the fake snow, and it's three-thirty in the morning and everybody's miserable, and you can think, "Why are we doing this?"
But since A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN, I always think, "I can't believe they're going to let me do this in a movie. I never thought I'd get to do this."
PRESS: What's your creative relationship with Steven Spielberg like?
HANKS: [Steven and I] went through a metaphysical experience making SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. That was a life-altering thing for the two of us, for everybody involved. The nature of CATCH ME IFYOU CAN, well, you become part of this coterie that Steven has amassed. Steven makes movies the way John Ford did. He has all the artisans, the art director, the cinematographer ... everybody finishes his sentences for him. It goes very fast. A lot of stuff is unsaid. Once the understanding of the story [is established] he goes off and makes these things with a minimum amount of production screenings, scouting, etc. So when you come on the set, he trusts that you've done your job the same way he trusts that the art director [has done his job]. All you do is play for four or five takes once the camera's rolling, and then you move on. It's an express train.
PRESS: Do you hope your children will follow in your footsteps?
HANKS: My dad was in the restaurant business, and he couldn't fathom why I wouldn't want to go down and become the assistant manager of the Jack in the Box down the street. As he said, "Any knothead could be an assistant manager in six months." I said, "Well, Dad, number one, thanks for the praise, and number two, I have never heard you talk about how you enjoy what you do for a living." If my kids follow me, it's all based on their passion and desire, and they have to love it better than anything else.
PRESS: Are there ever days when you think Jack in the Box might not have been so bad?
HANKS: Jack in the Box, no. But there are days when I see the guys who deliver Coca-Cola in the trucks. With a job like that, you know when you start, when you're done, so that might not be so bad.
ANTONY: I'm told that for this movie, you became a rather diligent student of Irish dance, but I didn't see you dance at all in the movie.
HANKS: I had five lessons, but then word came down that Paul has no rhythm. [Laughs}
PRESS: Were you intimidated in working with Paul Newman at all?
HANKS: He's much more relaxed than you'd think he's going to be. He's much more lean than you'd think it's possible to be, his eyes are bluer than you'd think it's possible to be. He's truly the most easygoing fellow. He knows how it works. He knows that the concentration comes at this [particular] time, and you shouldn't let anything get in the way of that. He's always giving me radical left-wing newspapers. He's a good guy.
So ends my own Road to Perdition, loyal readers.
I hope you've enjoyed an in-depth look at an interesting movie as much as I enjoyed bringing it to you. I hope to see you all on the road again soon, though I'd much prefer we meet, say, at the crossroads, than anywhere close to Perdition.
Safe travels to you all until then.
Antony Teofilo
Read The Previous "On The Road To Perdition Column"
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