May 21, 2012

Colin Hanks Bucks the Trend

by KJ Doughton | Published March 19, 2009

Colin Hanks is intrigued by my tape recorder. It’s an old, gray, brick-sized JC Penney model with only a cassette portal and five plastic buttons on top. Even the interview tape inside is a pre-used fossil, inscribed “Joe Satriani—Crystal Planet.”

“Let’s see that thing,” he insists, peering through the transparent plastic window and spotting the hand-scribed guitar-god label. “Let’s see if it still works. Is that one of Joe’s live concerts,” he asks with genuine, wide-eyed interested, “or just the album?”

I’m embarrassed. This is the son of Capt. John H. Miller. He’s the buddy of Jack Black. He’s Preston from Peter Jackson’s King Kong. His interview is worth more than a second-hand, taped-over music cassette. With red face and an ashamed, hangdog look, I tell him it’s just the album.

“Hey,” he exclaims with a sincere smile. “Recycling helps.”

Hanks and I are getting acquainted in a press room at Seattle’s hip W hotel. Our table is stocked with pitchers of lemon water. The occasion is 2008’s Seattle International Film Festival, where the son of Tom is promoting The Great Buck Howard, a surprisingly sweet, old-fashioned ode to the power of doing what one truly loves to do.

The film stars John Malkovich in full self-conscious, raging egomaniac mode as Buck Howard, a “mentalist” entertainer who performs magic tricks, croons Burt Bacharach tunes, and tells stale jokes. He tours old, dilapidated theaters in small towns, still milking his old-school rep with the few pockets of admirers who haven’t yet forgotten him.

Hanks plays Troy Gabel, Buck’s inexperienced (but already long-suffering) road manager. Troy is a law school dropout looking for true meaning in life. Does this impressionable, green showbiz newbie have the cajones to tell Buck that he’s all washed up? Or does Troy really have the right to squelch this survivor’s enthusiasm, however self-deluded it might be?

In person, Hanks radiates the same easygoing charm that his megastar father nearly invented. (In addition to being a producer on The Great Buck Howard, Hanks, Sr. also stars in a supporting role as Troy’s disapproving dad.) Behind glasses, his eyes appear soulful and patient. Hanks is unpretentious and thoughtful—a patient listener, even when he’s supposed to be the one answering questions. He often uses “circus” metaphors to describe his show business upbringing.

Hanks appears more relaxed and low-key than his father; it’s tough to envision him frantically chasing a flabby-jawed, furniture-eating canine, as did pop in Turner & Hooch. This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, his laid-back affability is a refreshing antidote to showboating co-stars. As Troy, he plays the straight man to Malkovich. As Preston in King Kong, he countered Jack Black’s perpetual mania. Hanks’ ability to act as a solid, supporting counterbalance to extreme subject matter served him well in the nihilistic, serial killer thriller Untraceable.

Was Buck Howard based on a real celebrity? How did finances appear for the movie? Is it challenging to create a sweet, character-driven comedy in the age of superhero epics and torture porn? After the “record” button is pushed on my prehistoric cassette recorder, Hanks reveals all of this and more in the following exchange of questions and answers.