BONUS: Tom Hanks on ‘Progress’ and Characters Who Do What’s Right

18:48Ari Melber:And I think, ain't that how life goes on? Well, let's find out what happens. There's always something that we can do. And if we don't know what that is now. Wait, wait. And an option will make itself visible.

19:05Tom Hanks:It makes a lot of sense when you put it like that. And I think people definitely connect with that arc. I mean, that's why the classic stories work hundreds of years later and others don't. And we'll leave it to historians to decide where you fit in. But a lot of folks respond to that classicism and the way that it connects across boundaries. We live, as we know, in a world with tons of categories. But you've resonated in different countries and different generations and onward. Also, and we'd be remiss if we didn't get into this here, Tom, in hip hop. Do you know how big you and your work is in hip hop?

19:43Tom Hanks:I do not. You don't? No. This is not connecting for you?

19:48Ari Melber:Did I do something connected to hip hop?

19:50Tom Hanks:No. What you did is something connected to human condition. Which has been celebrated across a lot of songs, including by big artists. So I'm thrilled because you're everywhere. So if this is new to you, that's great. All right. This is Tom Hanks and hip hop. Take a look. Competition small. So I live big like Tom Hanks. Women like to watch. You got mail with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Like Tom Hanks. I earn a bank and cast you away. Captain Phillips. I'm in the water like a pirate. You gassed. I'm a hybrid. I'm in the league of my own. Tom Hanks. Good people going great places

20:54Tom Hanks:Like Jenny told Forrest Gump, run, run, run, run. The race for freedom ain't won, run, run, run. Wow. Killer Mike's the last one. The race for freedom ain't won, run, run. Holy cow. What do you think? Holy cow. Well,

21:09Ari Melber:having had my finger on the pulse of hip-hop, as Tom Hanks does, I think that what I get from that is that in the realm of hip-hop artistry, There is a leaning into an instinctive drive. There is there is a thing that there is I can't I don't want to overuse the word theme, but any kind of like true artistic creation is about examining some sort of mystery. And I would say that what those hip hop artists might be talking about is that same sort of faith. Hey, if you've got nothing else to do, run across the country and think about it. You know, if you got if you're in a certain kind of circumstance, approach the adversary like in Captain Phillips and said, hey, I thought you wanted it this way.

21:59Ari Melber:I thought this was the business that we're talking about, that there is. I'm going to say that maybe hip hop artists are not necessarily the type they're going to be celebrate being rocked back on their heels and not being sure of what to do, but instead just being the opposite. Well, let's lean into the feeling that is necessary here. Let's let's reel into a truth, even if we don't quite land on it as soon as we want to.

22:24Tom Hanks:And one of the most celebrated themes in hip hop is keeping it real. And there are those, as you know, I read you talk about this, who say, well, Forrest Gump was such a hit. It can't be great art. That's like over here. That's like a perception conversation to see. I mean, Frank Ocean, for example, there and Killer Mike, who's a very politically conscious artist. They're not saying, oh, Forrest Gump's not cool. It's not trendy. It's years later. And it's no keeping it real. If you grew up on that and it means something to you, they're weaving it in and putting it into their own art.

23:01Ari Melber:There might be something I think to the fact of is that like, let's just take Forrest because that's the one. You know, what, when do we make that? Ninety four? How many years is it? And that's coming up on. There's more than 30. I don't know. 30 years. Yeah. 30 years. But it ends up speaking in that way because Forrest Gump was told by everybody, you don't you don't belong here. You know, you are not what? Smart enough. Any of this stuff in order to be here. And I think that might be speaking to a segment of the population that is often told that you're not allowed in here. You're not supposed to be in here.

23:37Ari Melber:Go off. go off and be you know with uh with your own kind because nothing is going to translate between your life and mine or my life and yours and that's that is the antithesis of art and it's also the opposite of community and we ain't nothing unless we're a part of something bigger than ourselves which is which is our community yeah i mean i i love that movie like every like el

24:01Tom Hanks:You like to like for us. And and particularly because it is it's not overtly political. It's just steeped in American history. But it also makes you feel like what if you were there and what would you do? And the decency and the value structure shines through above the other things that we're told matter. Right. We're told by capitalism and society that other things matter. It was, of course, highly celebrated as well. I don't mean to suggest otherwise. we have you winning the Oscar for it. Let's take a look.

24:32Ari Melber:Oh, okay.

24:36Tom Hanks:The Oscar goes to Tom Hanks and Forrest Gump.

24:48I'm empowered to stand here thanks to the ensemble of actors, men and women who I shared the screen

24:55Ari Melber:with who in ways that they will never understand made me a better actor man I feel as though I'm standing on magic legs in a special effects process shot that is too unbelievable to imagine well yeah I mean that's a very private moment that plays out in front of 17 billion people around the world. So you got to survive that, man. You don't want to trip. You don't want to use the F word when you're up on stage like that. But I will tell you that there's, look, I don't remember that in all honesty.

25:34Tom Hanks:That's funny. So looking at that, you don't remember saying that. I don't recall saying any of that. So if this were a deposition, Tom, which is something we talked about.

25:41Ari Melber:I do not recall.

25:44Tom Hanks:You mean to tell me you don't remember winning that Oscar?

25:46Ari Melber:I do not recall. To the best of my ability, I do not recall. There's the deposition aspect. Amazing. Here in the legal state. You're ready. That's right. Welcome to the deposition with Ari Melver. Tonight, we'll be trying to go back to something that happened 34 years ago to our guest. But what that what that what I'm glad that I said there is that all of the all of the the great circus that goes into the make. And by the way, the making of Forrest Gump was old school filmmaking. We had a sort of cutting edge special effect of the zealiging of Forrest into all these historic things. But it was shot on location on film.

26:30Ari Melber:It was like it was old school and we had to deal with all sorts of physical realities. And I was empowered every day going to work in order to become make manifest this this character that was only on paper by everybody else that was in it. You know, we would I think one of the great things that happened in that was Bob Zemeckis, who is one of the one of the paradigms of directing that Bill Johnson in the novel is based on. one of me, his his ability to sit down before we shot a single frame and ask questions like, well, what do we think of this? Most people think that you read the script, you show up, you do it on the day and that's it.

27:13Ari Melber:Yeah. They don't know the deposition process, the discovery process. Who was he asking? How many people? All of us. He was asking me, Robin Wright, Michael T. Williamson, Sally Field and Gary Sinise. We were all in the same room. We were all able to talk about the entire movie that we were not in. And we were trying to suss out how Bubba and Forrest would deal with Vietnam, literally the war in Vietnam. And it was kind of like written as a comedy, Eric Roth, you know, who has no ego, who was there as well, who has no ego. And Gary and I And Michael T., we also said, look, there's something wrong with the Vietnam thing, because don't screw around with Vietnam.

28:02Ari Melber:You know, don't don't don't turn it into a minor key aspect of what this story is. And from that came our approach to it, which was very different from kind of like the Buck Privates version that that was in there. And so this part of the movie ended up having, I think, a substantial substantially greater weight because all of us, all of the cast and Bob and Eric were saying, are we examining this theme as strongly as we need to? And the answer was no. And we ended up coming up with a very different type of movie that was made by, yes, we all turned out to be diabolical geniuses. Well, you know, the joke was if it only made a hundred million dollars, we would have been geniuses.

28:46Ari Melber:But it made so it entered into this other kind of place that there must be something going on there. There must be some diabolical message that is hidden behind this. And all we do, I think, was we ended up capturing the story that just said, can you believe we're still here? Those of us who are still here.

29:02Tom Hanks:Yeah. And I'm curious whether that validation we showed the Oscar as well as what you just referred to affected you. It all opened you up to do different kinds of stuff and run with it, or that was already your approach?

29:14Ari Melber:Well, I'll tell you, it ends up screwing with you in some ways. Like there's a character called OKB in the, he's an actor. Well, he ruins that dinner. He is so full of himself, and he thinks that he's the greatest thing in the world. And I can tell you. Pebbles hitting other people's cars. Yeah, and asking, hey, man, what happened to that lousy movie you made, man? What's the deal with that? Did you not know that that was a frigging disaster? I have said that to people. because I had been burned by the white hot light of attention and credit. Attention comes and goes. Credit, you know, it can really only land for a little while.

29:52Ari Melber:And after that, you just have to get back and do the hard work. You don't get to carry any kind of like massive cachet. All you carry with you, I think, is a degree of countenance into your next job. But, you know, that type of stuff happens. And you think you're hot cheese, you know, for a while. And people treat you. like hot cheese for a while. And then guess what? This too shall pass any, any height that you feel like you've, uh, you've reached, you get up to the top and you're like, oh man, there's a whole other set of mountain peaks over. How long did that adjustment take you? Oh, if you're lucky, it takes six weeks, but if you're unlucky, it can, it can linger on for, you know, a couple of years because, you know, you don't have, you know, when I did, uh, when I did, but yeah, when I, I think my next movie, when did I make Bonfire of the Vanities?

30:44Ari Melber:You know, I can't remember that. That's the type of movie that everybody was going in it, hoping we were going to be making something fantastic. And at the end of the day, what's the best thing? Well, it's quite good. There's some good stuff in there, but it doesn't quite work there, does it? Great book. You like novels? Oh, well, Thomas Wolfe, those are the granddaddy of them all. Those things are, you know, those are You get into the flow of that and you're on a kayak ride and doing it on a wild river on all of his stuff.

31:16Tom Hanks:I want to go to what could be called your socially conscious historical or some people would call them political roles. Although there's this thing where if it's a big enough blockbuster, it's no longer a political movie.

31:29Ari Melber:Right. Which is funny.

31:30Tom Hanks:Yeah. But you put your shoulder into it and things have evolved. But at the time, many of these were considered bold choices or not always obvious career choices, although in hindsight, they might look different. So given that you are on the news, let's look at some of those types of political themed movies.

31:52Ari Melber:Politicians in the press, they trusted each other so they could go to the same dinner party and drink cocktails and tell jokes while there was a war raging in Vietnam. I don't know what we're talking about. John Coffey, you have been condemned to die in the electric chair by a jury of your peers, sentence imposed by a judge in good standing in this state. Wouldn't you be more comfortable in a research room?

32:14Ari Melber:No. Would it make you more comfortable? Let's spend a million on H.R. 118 and rebuild the school. Charlie, nobody gives a **** about a school in Pakistan. Afghanistan. now. Now, I think those are about process. Like what particularly in the Green Mile, the specifics of that, what goes into executing a person? What's the routine? What's the process there? What are all the protocols? What are the things that absolutely have to happen? The reality of, you know, being in public and AIDS during that period of time, many, many people were very uncomfortable being in the room with somebody who had AIDS.

32:55Ari Melber:Just take a look at Larry Kramer on the Phil Donahue show in which, you know, there were cameramen that would not show up to work that day because they didn't want to be in the same room with a homosexual that had AIDS. That's the nature of what the fear was. Those are not, I don't view them really as being, they weren't political choices behind them other than truthful exposés of how people are getting on at that one individual moment. Can I push you on that? Sure.

33:24Tom Hanks:I understand what you're saying because it's channeling something real. But several of those films, especially when we look at how many times you've taken whatever you want to call it, the Tom Hanks of it, or what some people call the star power, you've put it to help us understand that character who was marginalized at that time, or the lawyer who's being attacked because he is representing the unpopular accused. We were just talking about that walking in. Are those not in some sense also values choices, if not political?

33:55Ari Melber:I will say that they only are political choices in that. Let's be transparent about what this is. This is not there's not an editorial bent on trying to change anybody's mind. There's no saying you're wrong and I'm right. You better figure that out. Actually trying to make take the passion out of it and making a dispassionate examination of what it is. And if you if you've been fired from a job for one reason and one reason only that you have age, is that a right or a wrong thing? That's it. So let's discuss whether that is right and what is wrong. All of the other types of stuff you go like, for example, I mean, even on even on Captain Phillips.

34:39Ari Melber:The reality is there's all these kind of like economic factors that go into the reasons that guys from Somalia are willing to go off and and kill people and try to take over the boats because they're starving to death. Now, right, wrong. No, let's just understand that this is the confines in which we are all trying to get by.

34:58Tom Hanks:Yeah. But does that empathy itself involve some worldview?

35:02Ari Melber:Yes, it does, which is essentially kind of like what, you know, what Spike Lee did with me. Hey, always do the right thing. What's the right thing? We have to get down to the sooner or later, all of this thing comes down to essentially an individual experience. That what does that what are the rights and expectations that individual have for the right thing to happen to them and the expectations of him to do the right thing as well? Aren't we all trying here to somehow create a more perfect union? Well, creating a more perfect union requires dispassion and inclusion and community. And that means you might live next door to somebody who celebrates different holidays from you.

35:48Ari Melber:All right. You're a big boy. You can figure that out. You can get by with that. Can't you? You can, because that's what goes into doing the right thing.

35:59Tom Hanks:Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. In real life. Well, real life ain't movies, are they? No, you're in demand. We had President Obama, you know, decorate you. Who I voted for. Yeah. And then you've spoken out also. We've got a little bit of you in sort of the real life in the Biden era. Yeah. Let's let's roll that.

36:21Ari Melber:OK. America is the home of the brave. It's why we keep getting up, no matter how many times we get knocked down. In the last few years, we've witnessed deep divisions and a troubling rancor in our land. But tonight, we ponder the United States of America. The election of 1876 ended with a compromise that ensured the continuation of racism and racist violence in our nation's culture and politics that has lasted to this day.

36:56Tom Hanks:Last big question, and then I'm hoping you'll play lightning round with it. OK, all right. The last big question is you are using your voice for a project. what do you hope we do from here at a time where you're speaking out telling people well there's a broader history we can at least learn the facts of that take with it what you will we can be engaged in civic life as we showed you there some people opt out while they're banning books and maybe movies what is on your mind at this juncture of where you hope we go to show how far we have come

37:32Ari Melber:I'm 66 years old. America was an extremely different place when I was a kid, racially. In 1964, when the Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan Show, you had to pass a test, a literacy test, in Louisiana in order to vote if the registrar did not know your name or did not know where you come from. And just in order to have the right to vote, you had to answer questions that came out of, were as confusing as something out of lateral thinking puzzles. We as America have have it is a slow process that we have been on in order to perform a more perfect union. But we are making progress. It is slow. It is incremental.

38:14Ari Melber:It is. I mean, we we've we saved the world from, you know, twin racist empires in the mid 19 in the mid 20th century with one hand tied behind my back because black Americans were not able to fight side by side with white Americans. we have we have experienced a countless kind of like two steps back I mean everything that you just said there that that look I it was written for me but I agreed with all of it it's like we have made fantastic progress we are getting closer and closer and closer to a perfection that we will never actually make but the American system and I think even in the choices that we all can make in whatever work that we do can can move us toward an inclusivity so that when I was a kid and we pledged allegiance to the flag, even I'm seven years old and I know it's not about the flag.

39:14Ari Melber:It's not about this thing. But when we had to put our hand over our hearts, the important part of that thing that was being instilled in the entire seventh grade, seventh, second grade classroom or fifth grade classroom was liberty and justice for all. And I knew at the time there was not liberty and justice for all. So I had faith that we were going to continue along the work and do it. And we all end up playing some brand of part in tell the truth when you have when you have to. And don't be dispassionate about it. And don't come up from it from a perspective of you are turning me into a victim.

39:49Ari Melber:Dude, we're all in this together. And all sorts of people have said this much, much better than I can. And I think I try to hint at it at all the work that I do, including the books I write.

40:00Tom Hanks:Well, I think that the novel and a lot of the work does more than hint at it. As you say, it's returning a little bit to where we started, which was, do you have a belief in things rather than the safe and weak pose of cynicism?

40:12Ari Melber:Well, I take a look at like the things that are going around in the world. I had this great in exchange once. I was sitting there. I was sitting there and said, the Queen of England. As one does. As one finds oneself, you know, in certain motion pictures that make no sense. And I was sitting there and asked to a lady and she had a tiara and she was a big one. And I was asking her about, you know, she was working with a worldwide democratic foundation that was currently in Egypt at the time of the Arab Spring. And I said, wow, well, you are working with people who have had no real choice in who their elected leaders were for about 5 ,000 years.

40:57Ari Melber:And she says, that's not the point, she said to me in her English accent. She said, what they don't know how to do is change leaders. They don't know how to remove, they've never had experience removing their leaders from office through any process other than death. And here we are in the United States of America in the world, and we're seeing this yet again, this kind of like rise of that brand of leadership in countries that are not really, I think, abasing their credo on let's form a more perfect union.

41:33Tom Hanks:Right. No, and that's a threat when people want to switch systems on us. I want to do a lightning round.

41:40Ari Melber:Did that actually answer a question that you asked? I think so. Or was that me pontificating? No, I think it did. And I want to go. But that's the exchange that I can get by asking questions like, how did you do what you do? And how did you end up doing this? Right. Garner is a good conversation.

41:55Tom Hanks:These will definitely have answers. You can go in a word or a sentence.

41:59Ari Melber:If I do enough, am I going to win a set of American Tourist or luggage? Or maybe some Ari Melber, the beat coffee cup, if any of those exist. You get to take the set home.

42:09Tom Hanks:Oh, that's great. Okay. In a word or a sentence, you can always pass if you need to, but in a word or a sentence, acting or directing?

42:16Ari Melber:Oh, acting. The hardest part of acting is? The battle of self-consciousness, knowing what you look like and what you sound like. The hardest part of writing fiction is? The bleeding for three hours at a time at your keyboard. The performance you'd most like a do-over is?

42:37Tom Hanks:Oh.

42:42Tom Hanks:Not a one. Okay.

42:46Ari Melber:I did the - You cocky bastard. I did the least acting in. Oh, that doesn't exist. All of them are gut-wrenching changes. Most underappreciated film you've been in? that would that's the I will I'm going to have to say a movie called Cloud Atlas. The line people repeat back to you most. They scream Wilson at me. They do scream run for us run. They let's just go through it. They scream a brace for impact. They say it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Isn't it Tom? They scream. There's no crying in baseball. What else do they scream? Hooch. They earn this. They say that Wilson. They They say that.

43:36Ari Melber:Hey, Tom. Hey, Tommy, we have a problem. They say that a lot.

43:40Tom Hanks:The person who should play Tom Hanks in a biopic.

43:47Ari Melber:Because of deep fake technology and A.I., I believe I can play myself. But would it be you if it was a deep fake?

43:57Tom Hanks:I don't know.

43:57Ari Melber:But even if I'm dead and gone, my intellectual property rights will be in place and I'll still get paid. In a word or a sentence, Josh Baskin from Big. Oh, the transition from child to man. Woody. The most unblemished character of any that I've ever played. His passion is right there on his skin. Forrest Gump. Oh, my. The absolute embodiment of nothing more important than common sense.

44:41Tom Hanks:And these last ones are part of our summit series because there are people who might like to learn from your path. OK. When they start saying you're great, that's when you've got to forget everything.

44:55Ari Melber:You, that's when you have to understand I am but an ignorant shell and I have nothing but stuff to learn yet. Best advice you've gotten? Show up on time, know the text, and have an idea. Failure to you means? Gross. You don't learn anything by succeeding. You only learn from getting your butt kicked. Success to you means? Fleeting. All glory is fleeting. And reaching the summit means. You have to climb back down and make that route safely.

45:34Tom Hanks:Tom Hanks, thank you so much. The debut novel is the making of another motion picture masterpiece. It's excellent. It's out now. Thank you, Ari. Subscribe to MSNOW Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access, ad-free listening and bonus content to all of MSNOW's original podcasts, including the chart-topping series The Best People with Nicole Wallace, Why Is This Happening, Maine Justice, and more. Plus new episodes of all your favorite MSNOW shows ad-free. And ad-free listening to all of Rachel Maddow's original series including Rachel Maddow Presents Burn Order. Subscribe to MSNOW Premium on Apple Podcasts.