Tom Hanks has one of the most glittering filmographies of any actor alive today, and the label of ‘Tom Hanks movie’ is as near to a sure thing as possible. The less said about those Dan Brown monstrosities, the better. Anyway, our point is that he’s one of the best actors on the planet.
But that doesn’t mean he’s immune to being a little starstruck when faced with a bona fide Hollywood legend, who has made some of the best movies ever. Star power is a hell of a thing, and Paul Newman had it more than most.
Hanks appeared on screen with Newman in the 2002 movie Road to Perdition, one of Hanks’ best thriller movies and certainly one of his darkest roles. It became Newman’s final theatrically released live-action feature. He worked in TV and in voice roles, including in Pixar’s Cars, until his death in 2008.
In Road to Perdition, Hanks plays a mob enforcer raised in violence by organized crime boss John Rooney (Newman). When asked by Entertainment Weekly about what it was like to work so closely with the Hollywood legend, Hanks offered just one word: “intimidating”.
Road to Perdition remains a fascinating movie and an outlier in any list of the best Tom Hanks movies. Hanks has explained why he doesn’t play bad guys, and this is one of the few examples of him breaking bad on screen – albeit in a more complex way than many of the best movie villains.
For more on one of our top movie stars, check out our Asteroid City review and then find out why Tom Hanks rejected one of the best rom-coms for an ironic reason. You can also learn that Tom Hanks’ best musical number is in a movie you’ve never seen. Thank us later for that one.ease date.