Tom Hanks has revealed in an interview that he would turn down the role as a gay lawyer in “Philadelphia” today.
Tom Hanks (65) has in an interview with the “New York Times Magazine” about one of his biggest roles that he wouldn’t play anymore nowadays. “Now could a straight man do what I did in ‘Philadelphia’? No, and rightly so,” Hanks said. In 1993, the Hollywood star played one of the main roles in said film directed by Jonathan Demme (1944-2017). Hanks won the 1994 Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of gay lawyer Andrew Beckett, who is being fired due to AIDS.
“One of the reasons people weren’t scared of this movie was because I played a gay man. We’re beyond that now,” Hanks explained in the interview. He doesn’t think “people would accept the inauthenticity of a straight man playing a gay man.” It is “no crime, no booing if anyone says that in the modern world of authenticity we can ask more of a film”.
Tom Hanks: ‘Da Vinci Code’ movies are ‘nonsense’
In the interview, Hanks also reckoned with another role of his and with it the “Da Vinci Code” films. In an interview, he described the film adaptations of Dan Brown’s (57) bestseller as “nonsense”. The Oscar winner played symbol researcher Robert Langdon in The Da Vinci Code (2006), Illuminati (2009) and Inferno (2016). For him, the films correspond to the true story just as little as the “James Bond” films correspond to the real world of espionage.
Today he sees it as a purely commercial venture. He has nothing against well-made, commercial entertainment. “But when we made the third film, we proved it wasn’t good commerce after all.” “Inferno” not only lagged behind its predecessors in terms of criticism, but also at the box office.
Hanks will soon be seen in “Elvis” (theatrical release: June 23). He plays Tom Parker, the manager of the titular singer. Austin Butler (30) plays the main role in the film.