Tom Hanks’ new film Here is a voyage into the fragility of where we live, who we are, and what’s it all about. For the iconic actor, it’s also one of his greatest achievements to date.
Tasked with making a link between Tom Hanks and singer/songwriter Morrissey, most struggle to find any sensible synergy. It’s true enough that the brilliant actor is a huge fan of The Smiths, with the pair having met and chatted about film, philosophy and, one may presume, daffodils… but that’s about it, surely?
Apparently not, if Hanks’ new film Here is to be slid into the lyrics of The Smiths’ track Rubber Ring, which heralds, “The passing of time, and all of its sickening crimes, is making me sad again.”
It’s not Morrissey’s finest lyric, by a long stretch, but it does mark perfectly Hanks’ latest film, directed by Bob Zemeckis (of Back to the Future and Forrest Gump fame). Set in the same corner of a front room, the beautifully shot film plots events in a small, seemingly insignificant space – from the impossibly long period before the house was built, with prehistoric creatures, wars and medieval life, giving way to the 50 years husband and wife Richard (Hanks) and Margaret (Robin Wright Reilly) have lived in their house, located in Perth Amboy, in New Jersey.
“What really struck me about this is the fragility of everything we are,” says Hanks. “Even when you’ve built walls, paid a mortgage, invested half a century of yourself into a space that is unequivocally yours, and feels like it will be forever, you realise you are merely a custodian or something that wasn’t yours beforehand and very quickly won’t be again.
“That’s the magic of being alive and being on this planet,” he continues. “We live under God’s light and we are given the solidity of everything we build around us, but we all move away, we all move on.”
The 68-year-old is an international treasure, with a curriculum vitae of work that barely needs an introduction. Across four decades he’s an actor who, for the most part, seeks humanity out of normality. There are no superhero characters, no gun-yielding rooftop-scaling assassins – Hanks just inhabits the sort of people we all relate to.
Unusually then for one of his movies, the seam of CGI is rich in Here – and it needs to be, given this is a story documented across so many years.
“The technology behind using old photographs, renderings, and the addition of motion was unreal. It was like looking at me from 40 years ago.”
Hanks says getting the basis for which CGI magic could be woven was difficult.“To get to that point though we had our work cut out. We ended up using everything to pull off the look: censures, girdles, even packing tape to hold our necks in place.”
The result is something truly special, and while the film almost certainly won’t tear up the box office like some of the actor’s biggest hits – The Da Vinci Code, Big, Cast Away and The Polar Express included in their number – there is a notion that this is arguably one of the most special.
“I’ve been exploring new ideas through faith recently, and this whole idea of what comes next and, I guess, what came before,” he says.
“The fact we don’t know the answers feels like a curse and a credit, all at once. It’s a mystery that shouldn’t be solved while we are here, and thankfully I think the older you get the more at peace you become with the reality of who you are, what you’ve done, and your whole place in the grand scheme of things.
“The fact this film is a time machine on the smallest piece of land you can probably imagine, is somewhat perfect for me.”
Hanks’ dedication to religion began when he was young. “The major religion I was exposed to in the first 10 years of my life was Catholicism. My stepmother became a Mormon. My aunt, whom I lived with for a long time, was a Nazarene, and in high school, all my friends were Jews. For years I went to Wednesday-night Bible studies, so I had this peripatetic overview of various faiths, and the one thing I got from that was the intellectual pursuit involved. There was a lot of great stuff to think about.”
In adulthood though, the actor converted to Greek Orthodox Christianity when marrying Rita Wilson. The couple have now been together for over 35 years and have two grown-up children.
“When I converted to Greek Orthodox Christianity it felt right; it became a home for my beliefs. I think faith, for me, is really about grounding myself, finding gratitude and striving to be better. When I was younger, I went through a phase where I was almost God-fearing. I think I was just trying to figure it all out back then. Now, I focus more on compassion, humility and kindness in my daily life, and I always look at the bigger picture.”
That bigger pitch, in a professional sense, sees Tom Hanks as a titan of modern cinema, yet with it a humble philanthropist, a producer, a director, a writer, and an all-round thoroughly nice chap… not to mention a winner of two Oscars and eight Golden Globes.
“The good news for me is I regularly forget what age I am,” he laughs. “I still feel the same as I did at 40, at 35.
“After 25, a birthday is just a reason to get together with friends, have a few drinks – nothing going to change.”
That’s not strictly true, because Hanks continues to change and evolve – even on a physical scale, he has practised yoga for the past few years, is arguably in the shape of his life, and admits to praying harder than ever.
“I have peace and happiness in my life, and many of the worries I experienced when I was young have ebbed away; but I guess because of that you tend to pray with more purpose than before. It feels like you’ve striven so long for something and you’ve finally got it, so you don’t want it to go.
“Of course it will one day, just like the scenario in the film Here, but for as long as you can, you want to hold on to whatever it is you’re holding onto, and with it, seek to wake up every morning with the intention of making the world a better place.”
Watch the Here trailer, now in cinemas.
Paul Dargan
