Tom Hanks tackles a broad range of ages in his latest movie, and he has some mixed feelings about it all.
The 68-year-old actor takes on the role of Richard Young in Robert Zemeckis’s new film, Here, which is based on Richard McGuire’s 2014 graphic novel.
Here follows the events that happen on a single piece of land and explores the lives of the people living there over more than a century.
Hanks stars alongside Robin Wright, with the two actors portraying both the older and younger versions of their characters, Richard and Margaret Young.
“The single perspective never changes, but everything around it does,” Zemeckis shared with Vanity Fair.
“It’s actually never been done before. There are similar scenes in very early silent movies, before the language of montage was invented. But other than that, yeah, it was a risky venture.”
The movie combines traditional makeup effects and digital de-aging technology to show the characters at different points in their lives.
As for Hanks, who famously won his first Oscar when he was 37, he doesn’t have much interest in going back to his 30s anytime soon.
When asked by Entertainment Tonight if there was a particular age he enjoyed playing most in the film, he admitted, ‘the hardest for us was when we were playing 35’.
“That time when your metabolism stops, gravity starts tearing you down, your bones start wearing off”, he explained. “You stand differently.”
The Toy Story actor added that he feels he’s actually in ‘better shape now’ than he was in his 30s.
Reflecting on why he found the age of 35 challenging, he shared: “You know why? Because my kids are grown up, I’m getting decent exercise, and I can eat right.”
“You can’t do that when you’re 35. Life is such a burden!”
Though he mentioned to People that ‘it’s good to look young again’, he clarified that it isn’t all that great to actually be young again.
“It was kooky,” Hanks added.
“That was like the gimmicky kind of aspect of it, because you could do that with regular makeup if you want to do that.”
“But because we have this other super fast-filter computer that happened right then and there, we don’t have to wait for the post-production process to view [ourselves as young].”
He also reflected on the emotional and physical challenges of portraying characters in their mid-30s, describing the complexities: “Look, I’m 68. The much more difficult part that was both physical and spiritual emotionally is when Richard and Margaret are 35 and 42 — when the aging process just begins to kick in and you no longer are able to spring up off a couch. And you’re not yet to a place where life slows down completely.”
