Tom Hanks has proven time and time again that he can dive into a role and portray just about anyone. In his latest role, the acting legend portrays Elvis’s former manager, Colonel Tom Parker.
Dave Morales spoke to Hanks about how he brought the legendary manager to life. “He said, I want to start this movie with Colonel Tom Parker saying I didn’t kill him,” said Hanks when describing how director Baz Luhrmann first approached him for the film.
Hanks was surprised by Luhrmann’s pitch saying “Whoa that is not the standard Elvis rise to glory motion picture that everybody has seen 100 million times.”
Hanks described the relationship between Elvis and Parker as “The diabolical genius relationship that these two men have in which they both achieve their greatest dreams, they both reached the rock of eternity. And if would not have happened were it not for Colonel Tom Parker.”
Tom Hanks – Elvis
Elvis Who…?
Surprisingly, Elvis’s music was not an influence on Hanks’ earlier years. His earliest memories of Elvis were “Just a guy in really bad, silly movies on tv.” “I don’t know if I ever paid to see an Elvis Presley movie unless I was in the back of a car and somebody was taking us to the drive-in,” said Hanks.
He explained that “The Beatles wiped away everything, everybody from Doris Day and including Elvis Presley. Prior to that, he was just a guy from back then who made movies and he never permeated my zeitgeist until he died.”
However, he goes on to say “Since then I’ve gone through a great education, the two Guralnick volumes of that biography is a stellar companion of why Elvis was who he was and also why the Colonel was who the Colonel was.”
Elvis – Tom Hanks
The highlight of the interview was when Hanks said that his favorite Elvis song was A little Less Conversation and even delighted the audience by singing a few bars.
Closing out the interview Hanks explained that he loved acting so much because “It’s being in an ensemble of an incredibly great group of people who are all a little better than you are so your game has to be raised just a little bit. When you’re in the midst of a scene and it’s going great, it’s timeless. Does it last a minute, does it last a day and a half, you really can’t tell.”
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