Last night I had the privilege of attending an interview with Tom Hanks at USC by NPR's David Greene discussing Hanx's recently-released collection of short stories, Uncommon Type.
I find it difficult to put into words what this evening meant to me. I honestly can't recall the moment my (figuratively and platonically speaking, please don't come after me, Rita Wilson) love affair with Tom Hanks started. I don't remember what movie it was that pushed me over the line from, "Hey, this guy makes pretty decent stuff," to, "This guy. This guy. He's my utter and absolute favorite." I don't know when it was that I realized the level of deep respect and admiration that I had for him as a performer and all-around human being. Nearly (although not all, as we have seen) every movie he's been in has been well-received. The man has never, ever found himself on the business end of a scandal or the front page of a tabloid. Until now, however, every impression I've gotten of him has been filtered through a movie lens or a journalist's pen.
Until now.
I spent the moments after I claimed my seat in the intimate Brovard Theatre fidgeting in my chair and nervously drumming my fingers on the autographed copy of Uncommon Type that was included in the ticket price. I waited impatiently through NPR CEO Jarl Mohn's curtain speech (which was considerably brief, bless him). Then the curtains parted and out stepped Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks, in the flesh, not on a movie screen, just fifty feet or so from where I was sitting. He was all in black, from his glasses frames to his slim-fitted pants to his creeper-style sneakers. I grinned and bounced in my seat like the starry-eyed fangirl I am, trying and failing to contain my excitement that my idol was a scant few yards from me, waving gratefully to the assembled audience and settling himself easily into an armless leather chair.
The conversation centered largely on the book, Hanks' first ("If you think you're here to hear about Tom Hanks' 'latest' book, you're nuts," he quipped). In one story, a young woman walks into a repair shop to have her typewriter serviced, and the shopkeeper promptly refuses to repair her machine and denounces it as nothing more than a toy, then sells her one of a finer quality. Hanks confessed that this was a somewhat autobiographical tale, but with the sex of the protagonist changed, because, as he put it, "Otherwise this book would be a collection of stories all about doofy guys my age."
There was a significant amount of time devoted to Hanks' own love of typewriters, and a collection which numbers over 200 at this point. He waxed poetic about how each machine is as individual as a fingerprint - an "a" that sits just slightly below each other letter on the line, or the tail of a "k" that is slightly bent on the hammer and as a result doesn't quite make it to the paper, every "flaw" another link in the chain of a typewriter's DNA. He spoke passionately about the potential immortality of a typed document, the actual stamping of letters in ink into the fiber of a piece of paper that would allow it to survive for hundreds of years under the correct conditions. He confessed to bringing one with him while traveling, feeling comforted in the constancy and reliability of a machine that was, in his words, "designed for one thing and one thing only."
At this, I couldn't help but smile and be reminded of one of the things that truly separates Hanks from other performers of his echelon - the ability to deliver moments of intense gravitas tempered by levity and make it look completely effortless. There was precious little time devoted to his film career - this was a book discussion, after all - but he did touch on the experience of promoting That Thing You Do! on a Japanese television show, having questions fed to him via a translator on an earpiece before being interrupted by a man dancing frantically across the set in a lobster costume. And yes, he actually got up and acted it out, and it was glorious. After this impromptu performance he draped himself back over his chair just a bit reminiscent of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. He also touched on his collaborations with Nora Ephron in Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail, and how Ephron was the very first person to have called him a writer via the ideas and contributions he'd submitted to the finished product. I couldn't help wondering if one of those inspirations was the latter film's character of Frank Novotny (Greg Kinnear), who has an obsession with typewriters that borders on unhealthy.
While on the subject of Hollywood, Greene cleared his throat uncomfortably and addressed the elephant in the room. "I hope you'll forgive me for asking this..." he began.
"I'm not going back to your hotel room with you," Hanks replied without missing a beat.
The audience erupted into laughter, and Greene himself looked relieved to have had some of the weight lifted from such a difficult subject. He then asked Hanks for his thoughts on the current scandal surrounding Harvey Weinstein, and just how many of Hollywood's higher-ups were guilty, and how many more staff and crew were complicit in knowing about it and failing to speak up. Hanks didn't hesitate in denouncing such behavior and vehemently denying his involvement in it, saying "I've been involved in sets where there were shenanigans — but not sexual predatory behavior. That's the difference." He descried sexual harassment and exploitation not only in the film industry, but in any environment as completely inexcusable. He went so far as to ask how many people in the audience had been subject to sexual harassment or assault of any kind. There was some hesitation before a murmur of applause rose up in the room - a bit less than I would have expected, and I suspect that many remained silent, but there were some standouts in the crowd of those emphatically clapping to signify their assent. I was one of them.
After a brief Q&A featuring questions submitted by NPR listeners (how did I miss this opportunity?), Greene closed the interview. Hanks stood, waved gratefully to the audience again, and acknowledged Greene for applause before stepping discreetly back behind the curtain. I'd love to tell you that at this point, I raced around to the back entrance to the theatre and waited an hour for Hanks to emerge so I could show him my handcrafted T-shirt and tell him all about the project. I wish I could. In truth, I spent the ensuing twenty minutes scarfing down an Italian sandwich (I'd missed dinner, and my husband, God bless him, stopped at Togo's) and dribbling mustard onto Hanks' forehead on the selfsame tee. Then we headed to the car, as we've got a little boy with the sniffles that we were anxious to get home to. I threw that shirt in the wash this morning hoping to get the stain out. For the record, I hate mustard, but I inhaled that sandwich anyway because I was hungry. And when I pulled the shirt out of the wash, that damn mustard stain was still there, marring Hanks' smirking face. A bit of gravitas and a bit of levity. I think Hanx would have appreciated that.
Some choice quotes from the night:
On America:
Hanks: "You can't make America great again, because America was always great."
On his speculated 2020 presidential run, which will sadly not happen:
Hanks: "I think being a politician would be like being on a press junket 24/7 for a movie nobody likes."
On writing:
Greene: "Did you write any of the stories from the book on a typewriter?"Hanks: "You can't write a book on a fucking typewriter."
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