Why Tom Hanks will never play a real bad guy

Tom Hanks (63) has more than ninety acting roles to his name, but one type of character you will not soon see him play: the villain. The actor admits that in an interview with The New York Times. “I’m just not scared.”

Tom Hanks is a friendly man, as witnessed by numerous stories about the man. In 2008, for example, he met a bride and her father in Rome who had difficulty accessing the church due to the recording of ‘Angels & Demons’ and offered to spontaneously accompany them to the altar. Or that time in 2015, when he came across some Girl Scouts and not only bought cookies himself but also offered passers-by a selfie when they would buy a box. And the actor is aware of his kindness, he admits to The New York Times.

“I acknowledge that I have the ability to seduce a room, to seduce a group of people – and I have used that very often. It started when I was very young as a kind of self-defense mechanism, but it also became manipulative, because I did not realize that I was so good at it.” He continues, “I am not evil. I’m not mysterious. You will never get angry with me or anything. I do not enter a room and then fully dominate them, but I will try to seduce them in one way or another.”

Cowardice

And that has advantages and disadvantages, he admits. “I always felt it was better to overcome the moment than to drive on a certain idea. Then I came to a meeting and they said, “I understand you have a problem with the rewriting.” And then I answered, “No, no, we’ll make sure it works.” That was cowardice. And that was me trying to seduce that person on the other side of the room. And then they get the idea: “Oh, he has no problem with it, he makes sure it works, what a nice guy to work with!”

That kindness also means that Tom will never play the bad guy, he says. “I realized a long time ago that I am not frightening anyone. And I don’t play bad guys, because I never get those roles. Bad guys require a certain level of malice that I don’t think I can fake.”