Tom Hanks is no stranger to working with Hollywood greats, but when he made a movie with Clint Eastwood, Hanks said we was treated like a horse, in a good way.
Tom Hanks is a man of many talents, and is undoubtedly one of the best actors of his generation, starring in some of the best movies of all time. But even for him, working on a Clint Eastwood movie was a pretty terrifying, unique experience.
In fact, Hanks even thinks that Clint Eastwood was treating him like a horse while on the set of the Eastwood-directed film Sully: Miracle on the Hudson. Speaking on The Graham Norton show back in 2016, Hanks explained his bizarre comparison.
“He treats his actors like horses. Because when he doing Rawhide [in the 1960s]… a Western, he had all these old directors who made a big deal about yelling “action! We’re rolling, all right, stand by everybody ready, action!” And every time they would do that the horses [Clint Eastwood] were on would bolt. So when you’re in a Clint Eastwood movie you don’t even know the camera is rolling and you just hear over your shoulder, “All right, go ahead,” [in a very quiet voice].”
Eastwood’s quiet demeanour, which he learned on the set of his old Westerns so as not to scare the horses, is clearly something he stuck with. But, though it sounds nice and gentle, Hanks actually explained that it was “intimidating as hell.”
Perhaps that’s the voice, or perhaps it’s simply a side-effect of working under the watchful eye of a Hollywood legend. The Western movie veteran is known for his rigidity and rules, especially when it comes to directing, and it appears that reputation is justified.
The movie that the pair worked on together, Sully, is one of Clint Eastwood’s better new movies and also stands as one of the best Tom Hanks movies of recent times too.