You'd think a film in which Tom Hanks kills Daniel Craig and Jude Law would be talked about more
Tom Hanks has been in some of the biggest and most-loved movies ever made.
Big,
Toy Story,
Saving Private Ryan,
Forrest Gump,
Cast Away... it is a long list (here's his
top 25 according to the Guardian). And he's won two Oscars, for
Philadelphia, 1993, and
Forrest Gump 1994, and been nominated for Best Actor an additional three times. His most recent nomination, for Best Supporting Actor, was in 2020 for his role of Fred Rogers in
A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood.
Given his long list of credits, it probably isn't that surprising that some of his roles get mentioned less than others.
For Hanks,
Road to Perdition is one of his best, and he doesn't think the 2002 gangster film gets talked about enough.
He told the ReelBlend podcast: "For one reason or another, no one references
Road to Perdition, and that was an incredibly important movie for me to go through."
He continued: “It was shot by Conrad Hall, and you have me in it, ‘Don Moustache’ with a hat on it, but you also have two guys who turned out to be two of the biggest motion picture presences in the history of the industry with Jude Law and [Daniel] Craig."
Hanks added: “And I killed both of them.”
Road to Perdition, adapted from Max Allan Collins’ graphic novel by screenwriter David Self and directed by Sam Mendes, follows Hanks as mob enforcer Michael Sullivan, whose son witnesses a murder that sets his father on a path of redemption.
Hanks concluded: “People always say, ‘What movies will they be talking about years from now?’
“As a guy who watches Turner Classic Movies a lot, the more obscure and unknown a movie from 1940s or 1950s the better, because I have no preconceived notions about it; I don’t know anything about it.
“When you watch those movies and it’s crackerjack and it’s incredibly moving, all I can think of is, ‘I’m so glad this movie lasts forever, so I got a chance to revisit it now.’ That might be the case with
Road to Perdition.”
Hanks can currently be seen in
A Man Called Otto.
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