Tom Hanks: "America Is Experiencing An Pandemic Of Loneliness"

Tom Hanks returns to the big screen this January 12 as the protagonist of A Grumpy Neighbor, a film directed by Marc Forster and based on Fredrick Backman’s emotional Swedish novel A man called Ove.

The story centers on Otto Anderson, a grumpy, isolated widower with staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse, who gives everyone in his neighborhood a hard time, while watching them like a hawk.

However, everything changes in his embittered life with the arrival of a new family in the neighborhood. “What interests me about this man is the battle he is waging against loneliness. That anger with whom he does not do the right thing and I understand it; I can be like that myself sometimes. But if I look further, I see the big drama that he is dealing with and it breaks my heart. He believes that he has already done everything he had to do, he does not want to continue, he has no hope or faith in the future. And that’s a terrible way to live,” he said. Tom Hanks about her character in a recent interview with frames.

The actor assures that the tape makes great sense after the pandemic. “America is experiencing an Pandemic of loneliness, which is not the same as wanting to be alone. For me being alone is healthy, we all have moments to isolate ourselves and we feel good that way. But I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about loneliness. Rita (Wilson, his wife) and I agreed that this is something that should be addressed in a film. Right now I would like to see a hero, I don’t care if he is Luke Skywalkerro Hombre de Hierrothat he is part of something bigger than himself, and that’s why I like this story”, adds the actor who in this comedy shares roles with the Mexican actress Mariana Treviño in the role of the Latina neighbor who comes to ‘alter’ the life of this neighbor with his particular family.

“I have seen him prepare every day like a theater actor before going on stage, reviewing his dialogues, doing exercises. We met for the first time in a restaurant. As soon as he saw me he got up, called my name and hugged me along with his wife, Rita Wilson (both producers of the film). I thought: into what wonderful hands I have fallen”, says the Mexican comedian whom we recently saw as the protagonist in the remake of the series ‘100 days to fall in love’.

The luxury of choosing

Tom Hanks’ beginnings were in the eighties and in comedy, but his career took a surprising turn when he played an AIDS-stricken lawyer in the movie Philadelphia, a role that earned him his first Oscar. “I started out as the loud guy at the auditions, the funny one. That’s what they wanted at the time and I felt very lucky. A good comedy is worth its weight in gold and it’s hard to do. A lot of people think it’s funny and you know what? Which is not. And they think they’re making a funny movie and it turns out they’re not.

But I don’t choose a drama over a comedy or the other way around, because both exist everywhere. Even if you make a movie that deals with tremendous drama, there’s going to be some humor in it, because that’s how life works. Something terrible can happen and immediately after something wonderful happens. There are funny things in Castaway (2000). There were moments on the set where we said, let’s improvise this a bit. It worked and ended up being part of the film”, reveals the actor to Fotogramas.