Tom Hanks was thrilled to learn the stories about Clint Eastwood’s one-take directing techniques were true as the two movie icons teamed up for Sully.
The Dirty Harry star has a reputation for working quickly and demanding his actors and actresses know their lines and can perform on command, and Hanks was impressed with the speed at which his director works.
“I know how movies are made, so when I see them and what Clint has done with a minimum amount of fuss, and yet at the same time with every cinematic trick that exists, it’s quite astounding just from the point of view of a fan of making movies,” the Forrest Gump star tells WENN.
“I made (sic) a survey of people who’ve worked with Clint and said, ‘So what’s the deal? Are the stories of one take true? Do you not know sometimes when the camera is rolling?’ And they all said, and rightly so, there’s not a lot of takes but there’s a lot of coverage, which means you have seven, eight, nine, maybe more opportunities to do what you want to do in a scene.”
“To back that up, I never felt as though we left something on the table with the time that we were shooting it. I felt, because he moves so fast, we were able to go on and find other aspects of the scenes that came out only because we had that momentum.”
And the experience of working with Eastwood on the real-life drama about Captain ‘Sully’ Sullenberger’s 2009 ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ plane landing was worth Hanks cancelling a much-needed break.
“I was planning a vacation and showbusiness got in the way,” he jokes. “I knew that I was tired and had in my head a period of non-activity. But, as par for the case, something comes along… The fact is, I read the screenplay in 17 minutes and I was infected with the bug of imagining the story. Once that happens, you’re doomed.”
