‘I guess I really am a nice guy’ - Hanks

Jan 11 2008 by Rob Driscoll, Western Mail

He may be dubbed the King of Clean but Tom Hanks is about to reveal a different side as a playboy politician. Rob Driscoll finds out how the Hollywood star prepared for the role

IF Tom Hanks wanted to bury his eternal Mr Nice Guy image, there are worse ways of going about it than his latest movie, in which he plays a skirt-chasing, coke-snorting playboy politician with a penchant for the decadent high life.

There’s even a scene early on in Charlie Wilson’s War where he shares a jacuzzi with several naked Las Vegas showgirls and a pile of white powder – and just for good measure, he flashes his backside at the camera too.

Yet somehow, such “bad boy” moments are unlikely to tarnish Hanks’ reputation as Hollywood’s King of Clean. After all, not even playing a ruthless gangland hitman in Road to Perdition changed the way the world perceives the double Oscar-winning star – as everybody’s favourite big-screen buddy.

“I’m in an interesting position there with the nice guy thing,” muses 51-year-old Hanks. “And the problem is that I co-operate. I get up in the morning and I guess I’m nice to people. But that means if I play a guy who shoots someone in the head, and then machine guns everyone else in the movie, everybody still says, ‘Yeah, but he’s still such a nice guy.’

“Same if I play an executioner, and it’ll be the same now that I’m playing a guy who f**** everyone he can, goes to bed drunk every night and snorts coke!”

Maybe it’s little wonder that Hanks jumped at the chance to play the less-than-spotless but real-life title role in Charlie Wilson’s War, a hot political satire that has grossed $40m in America since its release in late December.

Directed by the legendary Mike Nichols (of The Graduate and Catch 22 fame), and scripted by The West Wing’s creator Aaron Sorkin, the movie tells the remarkable true tale of how Democrat congressman Wilson helped finance and equip Afghan rebels in their fight against the invading Soviet army in the 1980s. With his extraordinary wheeler-dealing, the flamboyant Wilson pushed US funding for the Afghan resistance from $5m to $1b a year, and facilitated a morale-crushing defeat for the Russian forces.

The film, which co-stars Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman, is one of a number of recent releases examining US policy-making and the war on terror, following the likes of Rendition, Lions for Lambs, and In the Valley of Elah.

None of those have been a smash hit, however, whereas Charlie Wilson’s War has become the must-see movie of the season for America’s chattering classes, while also grabbing five Golden Globe nominations, including one for Hanks’s performance.

One reason for the film’s success must be its snappy, sophisticated sheen – and maybe the fact that certain events have been altered and glamorised for the screen. There’s nothing preachy or “educational” about this particular recent history lesson, and while Charlie Wilson may be seen as something of a hero in political terms, he’s no angel.

“Charlie may have lived his life in a certain way, but to give him his due, he severed the Achilles’ heel of the Soviet Union,” says Hanks. “At the same time, you can be sure that there will be editorials written blaming Charlie for the war in Iraq.”

To prepare for the role, Hanks met up with the real, 74-year-old Charlie Wilson to discuss everything from politics to his often outrageous personality.

“Charlie proved an invaluable consultant,” says Hanks. “I said to him, ‘OK, you’ve got a guy running against you for your seat in Congress. You’ve been investigated for doing drugs. You’re known as a ladies’ man. You’re notorious for your drinking, your carousing and your partying. What do you say in the campaign against the guy who wants to get Good Time Charlie?’

“He replied, ‘The opposition could say whatever he wanted to say about me, but we passed more Medicare Bills, we took care of our veterans better than anyone else, and we brought home this Bill and that Bill.’

“Charlie was the consummate politician, but he was never hypocritical about his behaviour.”

Right now, Hanks is enjoying the fruits of success in a career that goes up and up. It helps that his last major outing, The Da Vinci Code, took more than $250m at the box office, no matter how cruel the reviews, while he and director Ron Howard will re-unite for another Dan Brown adaptation, Angels and Demons.

Otherwise, Hanks isn’t in a hurry to make any more big projects just yet.

“Right now I am in my child-raising years,” he explains. “I’d like to direct again, but I can’t, because that would take me away from my kids, and that would be inexcusable.”

The kids – by his second wife, actress-producer Rita Wilson – are sons Chester, seven, and two-year-old Truman.

“I have to work as an actor, but if you choose carefully sometimes a job for an actor can be a vacation. You can set up home in some place new, with the whole family.”

It is rumoured, meanwhile, that Hanks will become the highest-paid actor in Hollywood history when he starts work on Angels and Demons. Put that to him, and he’ll strongly deny the case.

“I make a lot of money, I’m a wealthy man, and I’ve made good deals on some films,” he admits. “But it’s never been important to me on some sort of hierarchy or hit list. Eventually, I’m going to make so many films that don’t do so well. When that happens, I’ll be begging them just to show up.”

Charlie Wilson’s War opens today