by Murtada Elfadl
When I woke up this morning I didn’t know that Tom Hanks was going to make me cry before I finished my morning coffee. I made the mistake of reading the NY Times profile of him from last week so early while my emotions were still in a daze. Or maybe that’s just the power of Hanks. Ostensibly an interview to promote A Beautiful Day in The Neighborhood, the profile ends up becoming a treatise on what a nice guy Hanks is. As if we had any doubts.
Just the other day on the podcast I was questioning whether any press interviews or media could add anything that we didn’t know already to the very unmysterious Hanks. The trick this profile pulls off is giving up that illusion early on. The writer knows Hanks is nice, the reader knows Hanks is nice so she proceeds to list the many nice things he has done over the years. However the part that really got to me is his simple advise about expectations between parents and children:
“Somewhere along the line, I figured out, the only thing really, I think, eventually a parent can do is say I love you, there’s nothing you can do wrong, you cannot hurt my feelings, I hope you will forgive me on occasion, and what do you need me to do? You offer up that to them. I will do anything I can possibly do in order to keep you safe. That’s it. Offer that up and then just love them.”
The writer admits that he made her cry. So did I. I immediately wanted to call my mother.
Interestingly this writer, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, also profiled Bradley Cooper around this time last year. However that interview ended up being about how Cooper doesn't want to be interviewed and was the start of his cagey campaigning for Oscar that netted no major wins for A Star is Born (2018). These big media profiles still matter. The tone this time is very different, we will have to see how much that affects Oscar. One thing I’m sure of is that having niceness and geniality celebrated in such a big way is duly needed and appreciated.
Have you seen Beautiful Day yet? Has a celebrity profile ever brought tears to your eyes?
Tuesday, November 26, 2019 at 5:03PM 
