During Sunday’s 77th Golden Globes, Oscar winner Tom Hanks was presented with the Cecil B. DeMille Award due to his “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment,” and also because he seems like a good dude. I take that back: he doesn’t seem like a good dude (he was in a Carly Rae Jepsen music video); he *is* a good dude. But for his next role, America’s dad wants to show he can play bad guys, too.
“My current plan is, I’m about to go to Australia to work with Baz Luhrmann… I’m playing Colonel Tom Parker, and silence all your stupid questions about why will I never play a bad guy,” he joked, referring to the Moulin Rogue director’s forthcoming Elvis Presley biopic, starring Austin Butler as the King and Hanks as his controlling manager, Col. Tom Parker. Not to “well, actually” Tom Hanks, but he has played a villain before: tech CEO (need I say more?) Eamon Bailey in The Circle, but if you saw The Circle, you were the only one. Still, his point about mostly playing well-meaning everyman types remains.
Hanks also addressed his scandal-free career. “It’s not an agenda, there’s no strategy to it,” he replied. “I worked briefly with Keanu [Reeves], he has a wonderful answer to this question: ‘How is it to be so well regarded?’ He says, ‘Well it’s preferable to the alternative,’ which is true. I’d rather be appreciated than loathed, but that’s just me.”
Hanks starred in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, one of the most loathed Best Picture nominees in recent memory (to say nothing of treacly Best Picture winner Forrest Gump), and we still appreciate him. He’s doing just fine.
(Via Variety)
