unpopularblargh
Member
Via The New York Times:
On Harvey Weinstein:
On Hollywood and Silicon Valley's issues with misogyny and sexism:
On Trump:
On the future of America:
On the removal of Confederate statues:
Tom Hanks, still a totally all around swell guy. There's much more at the link above.
On playing "darker" roles:
”It's not a matter of not willing to get dark," he says. ”Look, I played an executioner in a movie. Then the journalist says, ‘Yeah, but you were a nice executioner.' It wasn't fun to play a guy whose job it is to put everybody to death. In ‘Road to Perdition,' I played a guy who shot people in the head. And you know what they say? ‘Yeah, but you shot him in the head for all the right reasons.' I'm not interested to play a guy who is some version of ‘Before I kill you, Mr. Bond, would you like a tour of my installation?' I like stories in which everybody makes sense, so you can hear their different motivations and understand them, as opposed to ‘When this elixir goes in the Gotham City water structure, then the city will be mine!'
On Harvey Weinstein:
”I've never worked with Harvey," Mr. Hanks says, after a long pause. ”But, aah, it all just sort of fits, doesn't it?"
Why did Hollywood help shelter him, if everyone knew about the decades of abusive behavior?
”Well, that's a really good question and isn't it part and parcel to all of society somehow, that people in power get away with this?" he says. ”Look, I don't want to rag on Harvey but so obviously something went down there. You can't buy, ‘Oh, well, I grew up in the '60s and '70s and so therefore. ..." I did, too. So I think it's like, well, what do you want from this position of power? I know all kinds of people that just love hitting on, or making the lives of underlings some degree of miserable, because they can."
They think their achievements entitle them, he says, noting: ”Somebody great said this, either Winston Churchill, Immanuel Kant or Oprah: ‘When you become rich and powerful, you become more of what you already are.'
On Hollywood and Silicon Valley's issues with misogyny and sexism:
”Look, I think one of the greatest television shows in the history of television was ‘Mad Men' because it had absolutely no nostalgia or affection for its period," Mr. Hanks says. ”Those people were screwed up and cruel and mean. And, ‘Hey, wait, that's going on today? Shouldn't we be on this?' Is it surprising? No. Is it tragic? Yes. And can you believe it's happening? I can't quite believe that" — here Mr. Hanks uses an expletive — ”still goes on."
(When I ask about Cam Newton's gender faux pas, Mr. Hanks is more sympathetic. ”Now I've done that," he says. ”I'm not so far away from ‘Hey, Maureen, how you doing, sweetie?' ‘Well, look sweetheart.' ‘Aw, doll baby, I don't know how to answer that.' I could have done that in a moment. What's wrong with having there be a requirement to learn more rules of the workplace?")
On Trump:
Mr. Hanks says he just listened to the NPR show in which a former producer of ”The Apprentice" admitted that the show made the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, which was falling apart and, as Mr. Hanks says, ”stank," look glossy in an effort to sell the image of Trump, the successful businessman.
”At the time, who cares?" he says. ”It's just a show about a guy. But in retrospect, that is what the official record is of a public figure that holds sway. Making this stuff up is dangerous, man. It's an absolute, total falsehood."
On the future of America:
”Let me just read you one thing," he says, getting up to go into the other room and coming back with ”April 1865: The Month That Saved America," a book by Jay Winik about the closing weeks of the Civil War: ”‘And where abolitionists preached slavery as a violation against the higher law, Southerners angrily countered with their own version of the deity, that it was sanctioned by the Constitution. In the vortex of this debate, once the battle lines were sharply drawn, moderate ground everywhere became hostage to the passions of the two sides. Reason itself had become suspect; mutual tolerance was seen as treachery. Vitriol overcame accommodation. And the slavery issue would not just fade away."'
He looks up. ”Somehow, sometime in the last 20 years of our generation, that's re-emerged. So, yes, this is the calm before the storm."
On the removal of Confederate statues:
”Look, if I'm black and I live in a town and every day I have to walk past a monument to someone who died in a battle in order to keep my grandparents and my great-grandparents illiterate slaves, I got a problem with that statue," he says. ”I would say if you want to be on the safe side, take them all down. Put them in some other place where people can see them, in a museum somewhere."
Tom Hanks, still a totally all around swell guy. There's much more at the link above.