LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Besides being Hollywood’s nicest star, Tom Hanks also boasts an impressive filmography, including ‘Forrest Gump’, ‘Saving Private Ryan’, ‘Sully’, and the ‘Toy Story’ series. ‘Sully’, Hanks and Clint Eastwood’s first collaboration, told the true story of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. However, Hanks compared Eastwood’s leadership style to wrangling animals.
Following his early Western acting career, Clint Eastwood is still directing movies at 93. His movies, notably those starring Hanks, have often centered on frightening real-life occurrences. Hanks played the pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who saved 155 lives after the 2009 Hudson River jet crash, in the true story ‘Sully: Miracle on the Hudson’.
‘He treats his actors like horses’
After ‘Sully’ came out, Hanks spoke about his experience working with Eastwood on ‘The Graham Norton Show’. “You certainly don’t want one of those Eastwood looks,” Hanks remarked. “He treats his actors like horses because when he did the 60s series Rawhide, the director would shout ‘Action!’ and all the horses bolted. So when he’s in charge, he says in a really quiet soft voice, ‘All right, go ahead,’ and instead of shouting ‘Cut!’ he says ‘That’s enough of that.’ It’s intimidating as hell!” as per The Guardian.
Hanks added that the real Sullenberger had an impact on set and even chastised Eastwood when he arrived 20 minutes late. “Sully was very particular about how we portrayed the procedure and the emotions,” the ‘Forrest Gump’ actor stated.
Speaking of the real-life Sully, Hanks added, “He pulled out this dog-eared, stapled and notated script that he had read. Post-its, stapled index cards all over it – I’m sure his wife had even written ‘No’ across it in lipstick! We went through every page and every moment, every beat had been commented on. He had opinions.”
‘You don’t want to look him in the eye too long’
In another interview on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’, Hanks described how it was working with the legend, Eastwood. He said, “It’s like, ‘Guess what, Mount Rushmore just came down from South Dakota’ and you’re working for him now.’ He’s so obviously the man when he comes on the set. You just want to please him. You don’t want to look him in the eye too long, because he gets that kinda, you know [does Clint Eastwood squint stare] and you don’t want to experience that,” as per Daily Express.
Hanks continued, “Well, here’s the deal – in other movies they make a big deal about ‘Action!’ Y’know, ‘Alright, start it up, get ready everybody we’re rolling, we’re rolling, we’re rolling…and everybody, stand by! AND… ACTION!’ That’s what most movies are like.” As per Hanks, Eastwood would silently lift his finger in a circle on Sully to indicate “rolling,” and everyone else on set would do the same.
The legendary actor went on to say, “And then he’s standing right next to you and he says, ‘Okay, go ahead.’ And then you do it and maybe he’ll say, ‘Just take that again. Just do it one more time.’ And then you do it and he says, ‘Alright that’s enough of that.”
Hanks once asked Eastwood about the context and the origin of the style. Eastwood replied that old film directors, who simply enjoyed the spotlight and the megaphones, would shout “action” when he was filming his early 1960s Western television series ‘Rawhide’ and portraying Rowdy Yates.
“So he and all the other cast members of Rawhide were on their horses and they were supposed to have a conversation and that whole build-up to ‘ACTION!’ would make the horses [freak out and buckle],” Hanks recalled. In order to prevent the horses from running away, Eastwood said one day in his inaudible manner, “Is there any way that you could just, y’know, tell us to ‘go’ instead of saying ‘action’ so the horses won’t flee?” And thus, Eastwood’s style of “action” was invented.