“SULLY” – A ROLE TOM HANKS CANNOT PASS UP

Press release

Three years ago, he played the real-life titular character “Captain Phillips” to critical acclaim and box-office success. Now, two-time Oscar-winner Tom Hanks portrays another true-to-life person – Captain Chesley Sullenberger, the hero of the so-called Miracle-on-the-Hudson landing – in Warner Bros. Pictures' “Sully.”

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

The Captain “Sully” the world has come to know in recent history began flying at the age of 14, “as soon as he was tall enough to see outside the cockpit of the plane,” quips Tom Hanks. The young pilot then attended the United States Air Force Academy and flew fighter jets in the service for five years, attaining the rank of captain, before taking the controls of a commercial airliner. “The life of a professional aviator,” the actor continues. “If he tallied it up, I think he’d have something like 20,000 hours as the guy in charge of the plane. That’s a lot of take-offs and landings, a lot of looking at gauges to see if anything is wrong, and a few hairy moments here and there in the course of a career.”

But nothing like what he faced in those 208 seconds that would come to represent the culmination of his life’s experiences. Pilots work hard to prepare for any circumstances they could face in the air, and suddenly Sully was faced with the challenge of his career. “A flock of geese got sucked into the engines and boom! he was essentially flying a powerless glider with 155 souls on board—his included. It’s a good thing he had those 20,000 hours of experience behind him,” Hanks offers.

The role of Sully was one the always-in-demand Hanks couldn’t turn down, despite having to postpone a well-earned break. “Sometimes you read something that is so stirring and at the same time so simple, such a perfect blend of behavior and procedure,” he reflects. “Now, I’m as competitive as the next actor, so I knew I wanted at least a shot at it, even though I’d been working pretty steadily for about six years. Sure I was beat but, not unlike a solid jolt of adrenaline, this role, Sully, Mr. Clint Eastwood…they all came along. I felt like I couldn’t pass up a chance at playing in this great double-header at the end of this long baseball season.”

Although the two had never worked together before, Eastwood says, “Tom was one of the first people we thought about for the part. But at the time he was just finishing a picture and we didn’t think we could get him. But he read the script and liked it and made himself available. And he was terrific, a consummate pro, and it was kind of effortless working with him.”

The filmmakers also appreciated what Hanks brought to the shoot when the cameras weren’t rolling. Offers Eastwood, “He has a great sense of humor, so that makes it fun. He’d be standing around waiting, sometimes in the rain, and still making the crew laugh.”

Despite his easygoing demeanor on set, Hanks admits that when playing a real person “you’re always intimidated. You say to yourself, ‘I’ll never sound like him, I’ll never look like him. Hopefully I can embody some aspect, capture some part of his personality, his characteristics, his gravitas, his charm,’ whomever the person may be. And then you go to work.”

The subject of Hanks’ portrayal had no qualms about the actor stepping into his shoes. “Besides the fact that they were making a movie, directed by such a gifted storyteller as Clint Eastwood, to then have Tom Hanks playing me…it’s a dream team,” says the real Captain Chesley Sullenberger. “I know Tom is someone who can transform himself, but the first time I saw a long-range shot of him in costume, with his hair colored? Wow. It was amazing.”

Opening across the Philippines on Thursday, Sept. 08 in IMAX and regular cinemas,“Sully” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

TOM HANKS IN “A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING”

Press release

Award-winning actor and filmmaker Tom Hanks stars in “A Hologram for the King” set in recession-ravaged 2010 as an American businessman named Alan Clay adapted from the book of the same title by acclaimed author Dave Eggers.

 

Photo courtesy of OctoArts Films

                Hanks’ role in the movie is a broke, depressed and freshly divorced man who arrives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to close what he hopes will be the deal of a lifetime. His mission: sell a state-ofthe-art holographic teleconferencing system to the Saudi government.  Adrift and alone in an unfamiliar land, Alan befriends taxi driver Yousef (Alexander Black), who chauffeurs him through the desert to the “King’s Metropolis of Economy and Trade,” a surreal ghost town of vacant skyscrapers and half-completed construction projects. Baffled by the bureaucratic reception he gets at the so-called “Welcome Center,” Alan struggles to figure out why his small IT support team is being forced to spend its days in a sweltering tent as it preps for the big presentation. Worse, because of the Saudi way of doing business, he’s unclear if the king will ever show up for the long-scheduled meeting.

                Clay arrives in Saudi Arabia without any prior knowledge of the place, other than his own cartoonish, stereotypical concept, according to Hanks.  “Though he’s not a happy guy, when Alan tries to sell the upbeat nature of the 3-D hologram and rally his team, he becomes this other guy, the former Alan Clay, a man with energy and vibrancy. That’s where the comedy comes from.” 

                In addition to emphasizing the book’s humor, Tykwer bolstered the romantic elements as he translated Eggers’ story from page to screen. “The longer I worked on the script, the more profound the love story became because it connects to this whole third-act decision where the movie becomes a more optimistic tale,” Tykwer says.  Alan is coaxed out of his funk by Zahra Hakem, an alluring, talented surgeon portrayed by London-born Sarita Choudhury. In her role as CIA Division Chief Saul Berenson’s long-suffering wife Mira on the Emmy-winning series “Homeland,” the half-Indian, half-English actress developed an avid following that included Hanks himself. “I remember seeing Sarita for the first time on ‘Homeland’ and thinking, ‘Alright, I don’t know who she is, but that  woman is riveting. I don’t know where she comes from but I can’t take my eyes off her.”

                In Hollywood’s finest black-comedy tradition, “A Hologram for the King delivers laughs spiked with bittersweet undertones. “We’ve made a crisis comedy that points the finger at the fact that our economic structure is falling apart and the apocalypse seems to be looming just around the corner,” Tykwer says. “We use comedy as a tool to embrace tragedy like a balloon you stick with a needle so it explodes and the energy that comes out is cheerful. Despite all of

Alan’s problems, I hope this movie cheers people up.”

                For Hanks, who’s earned iconic status and five Academy Award® nominations by playing regular, good-hearted Americans who triumph overhard luck circumstances, A Hologram for the King is the story of a man who stumbles upon an emotional and spiritual oasis after wandering in the desert. “Why make a movie about a guy where nothing ever works out for him? That might work fantastically as a piece of literature but as far as the cinema goes, the story requires this other thing — for want of a better word, let’s just call it hope.”      

                “A Hologram for the King” opens June 1 in cinemas from OctoArts Films International.

TOM HANKS IN “A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING”

Press release

AWARD-WINNING TOM HANKS STARS IN NOVEL-TO-MOVIE DRAMEDY “A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING”

Adapted from the novel by Dave Eggers, “A Hologram for the King,” starring Tom Hanks is set in a rising Saudi Arabian city, far from weary, recession-scarred America, a struggling businessman pursues a last-ditch attempt to stave off foreclosure, pay his daughter’s college tuition, and finally do something great. In A Hologram for the King, author Dave Eggers takes us around the world to show how one man fights to hold himself and his splintering family together in the face of the global economy’s gale-force winds. This taut, richly layered, and elegiac novel turned movie is a powerful evocation of our contemporary moment — and a moving story of how we got here.

                This latest Tom Hanks starrer is directed by Tom Tykwer who has solidly established himself as a young Spielberg for this well-endowed type of international co-productionalism that basically milks state funds on a global scale.  What Tykwer likes about “A Hologram for the King” Tykwer is its tacky surrealism, and he indulges in it. Tom Hanks is the fool in the dunes, but he gets a nice bath in the end, and even romance. When was the last time anyone thought of putting Hanks in a sex scene? That must have been Philadelphia, again. But then Saudi-Arabia is so strait-laced that even Everyman has an edge.

After Tom Hanks gave Dave Eggers' National Book Award-nominated novel A Hologram for the King a rave review on his Twitter feed in 2012, only one issue remained unresolved for the two-time Oscar-winning actor. "I was already a big fan of Dave Eggers' work, having read a bunch of his stuff including things he did with McSweeney's literary review," Hanks says. "Then I read A Hologram for the King in one sitting and my only question when I finished it was whether or not he wanted a movie made out of his book."

German filmmaker Tom Tykwer, who co-directed Hanks in the 2012 sci-fi epic “Cloud Atlas,” felt just as strongly about the source material. "A Hologram for the King hit a very particular nerve in me," Tykwer recalls. "It was the most contemporary novel I'd read in a very long time so I felt like it couldn't wait: this story had to be made into a movie. It's very much about now, yet it still it has the sense of a classic novel in that it's a book for all times. I found that to be a brilliant mix so I turned into this very pushy machine trying to put the movie together as fast as I could."

Tykwer, who had worked with author Eggers previously on a miniseries adaptation of the San Francisco-based author's novel “What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng,” arranged a meeting with Hanks and Eggers at a Los Angeles hotel. After pitching his ideas for the book's cinematic adaptation, Tykwer and Eggers came to a very un-Hollywood-like agreement. "Dave and I trust each other," the director explains. "I love that he offered to get rid of all the contract stuff and just write on some piece of paper 'I promise not to be an asshole' and then we would both sign it. We're very much on the same page when it comes to artistic exchange. Dave understands that once you let somebody take over your vision, you have to keep some distance."

Tykwer was equally excited about partnering once again with Hanks. "Working with Tom is liberating for a filmmaker because he's so open-minded to every moment and every situation," Tykwer says. "He's like a superintelligent child who comes into a room and says, 'Okay, what are our toys?' And then, 'Let's explore what we can do with them!' That's super inspiring because when you come up with a new idea, he picks it up really greedily and does something with it in a wonderfully playful way."

TOM HANKS STARS IN STEVEN SPIELBERG HELMER “BRIDGE OF SPIES”

Press release

 Based on historical events that happened during the Cold War era when an American U-2 spy jet was shot down in Soviet air space along with its pilot, the stirring thriller “Bridge of Spies” brings to life the crisis that raised tensions between the U.S. and the Soviets during such volatile times.

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox/Amblin Entertainment

                Tom Hanks, known for his engaging characterization in blockbuster films such as “Saving Private Ryan,” “The Da Vinci Code,” “Angels and Demons,” “Forrest Gump” and “Castaway”  stars anew in the historical movie “Bridge of Spies” that tells of an extraordinary story of an unlikely hero set against the backdrop of a series of historic events. “Bridge of Spies” tells the story of James Donovan (Hanks), a Brooklyn lawyer who finds himself thrust into the center of the Cold War when the CIA sends him on the near-impossible task to negotiate the release of a captured American U-2 pilot. Screenwriters Matt Charman and three-time Academy Award winners Ethan Coen & Joel Coen have woven this remarkable experience in Donovan’s life into a story inspired by true events that captures the essence of a man who risked everything and vividly brings his personal journey to life.

                Directed by three-time Academy Award®-winning director Steven Spielberg and inspired by true events,  “Bridge of Spies” stars: two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks as James Donovan; three-time Tony Award® winner Mark Rylance as Rudolf Abel, a KGB agent defended by Donovan; Scott Shepherd as CIA operative Hoffman; Academy Award nominee Amy Ryan as James’ wife, Mary; Sebastian Koch as East German lawyer Vogel; and Academy Award nominee Alan Alda as Thomas Watters, a partner at Donovan’s law firm. The film is produced by Spielberg, Marc Platt and Kristie Macosko Krieger with Adam Somner, Daniel Lupi, Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King serving as executive producers.

                “Bridge of Spies” will open in cinemas (Phils.) this October 14 from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

TOM HANKS, THE PERFECT DAD IN “EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE”

Tom Hanks

Two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks stars as Thomas Schell, a devoted husband and father who was at the wrong place, at the wrong time during the fateful day of 9/11, in Warner Bros.' life-affirming drama, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.”

The film is a story that unfolds from inside the young mind of Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), an inventive eleven year-old New Yorker whose discovery of a key in his deceased father’s belongings sets him off on an urgent search across the city for the lock it will open. A year after his father died in the World Trade Center on what Oskar calls “The Worst Day,” he is determined to keep his vital connection to the man who playfully cajoled him into confronting his wildest fears. 

As a screen character, Thomas Schell was a challenge because he is seen entirely through Oskar’s eyes, to the extent that much about his history and inner life remain mysterious -- except for the parts that have made an impression on Oskar and especially Oskar’s memories of their very best times together, which remain indelibly immediate to him. 

To embody the essence of a father as captured in time by his young son, director Stephen Daldry thought early on of Tom Hanks. “We thought that in terms of Oskar’s memories of Thomas as the perfect dad...well, who else could that be but Tom Hanks?” recalls Daldry. “Tom took that responsibility to heart and created a real bond with child actor Thomas Horn that was evident to everybody on the set. They were absolutely charming together, which was great for me as a filmmaker, because they created this dynamic relationship and all I had to do was shoot it. It was an act of real dedication by an extraordinary actor and collaborator.”

Hanks was drawn to the way the script gets inside Oskar’s mind at a time when the power of logical facts to keep him grounded seems to have evaporated. “In the blink of an eye, the course of Oskar’s whole world changes, and he loses his only anchor,” Hanks says. “His father used to tell him that there are always clues and treasures to be found in the world. So when he finds his father’s key, it’s very interesting that Oskar devises his own elaborate hunt for what the key might mean, convinced it will somehow explain the unexplained to him. It becomes a very personal, intimate story of a kid trying to make sense in his own way of a nonsensical world.” 

He adds: “It was easiest thing in the world for me to want to do this – as soon as I read it, there was not even any question.” 

The actor says he gave a lot of consideration to the kind of father Thomas was to Oskar prior to his death. He also kept in mind that Thomas was himself a child of immigrants who took up the trade of jewelry as his only clear opportunity to support his family, even though he dreamed of being a scientist. “I think Thomas was someone who felt the real task in his life was to make sure that his very bright son became a well-rounded, content human being who might make the world a better place,” Hanks says. “Since Thomas himself grew up without a father, fathering Oskar was the most important thing to him. I think he loved inventing wild stories for Oskar, like the one he makes up about New York’s lost Sixth Borough, but he also very clearly designed these stories to get Oskar out in the world and help him feel safe there.”

In part, Hanks drew on his own experiences as a father. “The emotional part of it for me was going back and remembering what it’s like to have an 11-year-old kid who is bubbling over with life,” he says. 

While Hanks believes Thomas was well aware that Oskar often showed signs of behavior akin to Asperger’s Syndrome, he also says Thomas readily accepted and even related to many of his son’s oddities and phobias, which made the two of them even closer. “I think Thomas wasn’t bothered at all by his son’s behaviors,” he says. “Instead, he looked for ways to build bridges over Oskar’s turbulence, over his constant questions, his flights of fancy and his fears. Yet because of that, when he’s gone, it magnifies the incredible loss for Oskar even more.”

             “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.