Thursday, May 28, 2009

Tom Hanks on Acting

Teresa Nord found an interesting idea from Tom Hanks in an interview he gave about Angels and Demons.

"Anyways, his trick is to find out how his character is alone in the world and think about that as much as he can. "

she describes it more, but you know, bad blogger etiquette to just lift it :)

4 comments:

teresa said...

Hey Alonso,
Sweet! Thanks for the mention.
I'm glad you found that as interesting as I did.. I thought it was just an awesome interview. :)

Ratul Sarna said...

Hey Alonso!
How's it going? Thanx as always for the great thought provoking posts.

I saw the interview but I don't think I fully grasped this point of Tom Hanks. Does he mean that he thinks and thinks about the notion that he's alone in this world? Or does he mean that he thinks about who his character is as a lonely person?

I hope I didn't confuse you :D

Thanx again

Alonso said...

Hey Ratul, how are things? What ever happened with the Steven Gregory thing?

It's funny, I watched the video and didn't actually find the part where he talks about it. At 33 minutes he mentions it, but not as in depth as Teresa's notes. From her notes I interpret it that every person on the planet has felt lonely at sometime, so Tom figures out what it is that makes his character lonely and enters the character's mind through that, so Tom's able to give an intimate performance because he understands where the characters emotions come from, and the audience is able to respond because they can empathize with the feeling of loneliness as well.

other notes I gathered from it:


27 minutes
our job as actors is to come up with the motivation for any individual moment, our job is to find a reason to move to the window or get into the car or whatever
how do we help bring out what the director wants in the scene

33 I think all the great stories are about loneliness and the search for something.

40 what's the difference between all the preparation and giving yourself to the moment. Equipos status between complete concentration and relaxation, by the time I get to the set I've done all the work I can possibly do about the beats I'll be playing and everything so that on the set I can be totally relaxed about getting the beats I need.
When Tom did Splash he was best when he was talking, when he did Apollo 13 he was as riveting when he wasn't because he was really deeply listening to the other things in the scene

Ratul Sarna said...

Hey!
Thanx a lot for the explanation and the other notes. :)
The Stephen Gregory thing is on a hold from some time because he's very busy. I hope we get back to it soon.