Tom Hanks reveals acting advice he received for the first time while filming ‘A Man Called Otto’

Tom Hanks has shared an acting tip he received for the first time in his career while filming A Man Called Otto.

Directed by Marc Forster (World War Z, Monster’s Ball), the comedy-drama stars Hanks as retired widower Otto Anderson who has withdrawn from the world due to grief.

Speaking on the ReelBlend podcast (January 13), Hanks explained how he had his reservations about a certain scene. “I won’t tell you what scene it is in the movie, but it’s Otto by himself at his house,” the actor said.

“We’d set it up and we knew what it was, and we knew how it went. And in the back of my head, I was thinking, ‘I don’t think we’ve earned this moment in our movie yet. I think this is too presentational. It’s too on the nose. There’s no subtext to it. It’s only text.’ And I’m thinking, ‘This scene is fake.’”

After sitting down with Forster, Hanks said the director had the same problem with the scene because it “seemed so fake”.

“And I said, ‘You are saying what is in my head!” Hanks added. “He says, ‘So can we take all the fake stuff out of this and do it less fake?’ I said, ‘Marc Forster, you are the first director I have ever worked with who has sit down on a set with me and said, ‘Please make this less fake.’’

“They usually want the absolute opposite. ‘Can you turn the fakeness up a little bit on this? You know, Tom, I know it’s very realistic, but this is a movie, and it needs to be a little bit more fake.’”

A Man Called Otto is the second film adaptation of the 2012 novel A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, following a 2015 Swedish film of the same name.

Hanks’ will next star in Wes Anderson’s comedy-drama Asteroid City, alongside Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody and Margot Robbie. The film is scheduled to be released on June 23, 2023.

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