Demons that drove movie angel Tom Hanks

Here, SANDRO MONETTI looks at his route into movies, his amazing, enduring career and why he gatecrashed a Rome wedding.

The world’s favourite actor, Tom Hanks, is celebrating  25 years in films the best way he knows how – with another blockbuster.

This low-key superstar leaves the wild partying, drug snorting and paparazzi punching to others and instead quietly gets on with making hugely popular movies.

His latest release, Angels & Demons, looks certain to continue the run of success he started with Splash and continued with Big, Forrest Gump, Sleepless In Seattle, Toy Story, Saving Private Ryan and many more.

He has the Midas touch behind the camera too as executive producer of mega-hit movies Mamma Mia! and My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Two-time Oscar winner Tom makes it all look so easy, which is maybe his greatest acting achievement, for he says: “Appearances can be deceptive. Making movies is a hard and frustrating job.”

Away from the spotlight and the red carpets Tom works tirelessly on scripts, preparation and performance in a quest to make every project he tackles seem completely believable.

“Authenticity is the number one thing for me,” he says.

Tom, 52, was rewarded for all that toil with a career achievement award and tribute gala in New York a few nights ago where the big names in attendance indicated just how highly he is regarded.

Steven Spielberg, Bruce Springsteen and Julia Roberts were among a galaxy of stars who showed up to honour him.

“Tom is quintessentially America’s favourite son,” said Spielberg.

“He has the true gift of making you feel comfortable,” said Roberts.

However, a look at the years before people knew his name reveals a painful past and a desire to break out to a better life.

He is the product of a broken home who was often left to his own devices while his parents both worked long hours; father in a restaurant and mother at a hospital.

When his parents divorced and then remarried, he then bounced between a succession of step-amilies.

A shy and quiet child, he was picked on at school in Oakland, California and called “spaz” and “geek” by the bullies.

Looking for the attention and affection he wasn’t getting elsewhere, he signed up for school plays and grew to love the applause.

His first job was as a hotel bellman, carrying the bags for Cher and Sidney Poitier.

What he really wanted to do was train to become a astronaut but he didn’t have the maths qualifications to make that a possibility.

His other passion was acting and he set out to become a professional, taking on challenging stage roles in Shakespeare, Brecht and Chekhov.

Along the way he fell for actress Samantha Lewes and married her when he was 22 but they were to divorce a few years later.

Comedy gave him his big break when he was cast in the American sitcom Bosom Buddies as a man forced to dress as a woman so he could live in a budget all-female hotel on the set of that show he met the woman who would become his second wife, actress Rita Wilson.

Hanks tried to break into movies by auditioning for the starring role in 1983’s Risky Business only to get beaten to the part by Tom Cruise.

The next year he was given the lead in Splash by director Ron Howard who had been impressed by Hanks when he acted alongside him in an episode of Happy Days.

The movie about a man in love with a mermaid was a hit and moviegoers immediately took him to their hearts, as did the critics.

The love affair continued for years and was only seriously threatened in 2006 when Hanks starred in the slow-paced film version of best-selling Dan Brown book The Da Vinci Code, which received a critical drubbing.

Nevertheless, such was Tom’s popularity that the panned film still managed to make more than £500million worldwide.

Now Hanks is back in the action-packed sequel, Angels & Demons, as brainy hero Robert Langdon who this time battles to stop a bomb plot at the Vatican, and he really turned on the charm during filming in Rome to ensure the movie could be made without disruption.

Director Ron Howard wanted to shoot scenes at the Pantheon but the plan looked doomed because a wedding was due to take place at the same time but then Tom struck a deal to give everyone what they wanted.

“Tom took charge of the logistics of both the movie and the wedding,” said Howard.

“Thanks to him we were able to shoot takes between cars arriving for the ceremony and he showed his gratitude by walking the parents into the wedding. The bride even who took time to compliment his hairstyle.”

Where Hanks will be tomorrow is back at work as Woody the Cowboy in Toy Story 3: “It’s like I’ve been invited to a great party for a third time,” he says.

As he marks 25 years in movies there’s nothing to suggest Tom won’t still be a big star for another 25 years, which would be just fine with him: “I love what I do for a living. It’s the greatest job in the world.”

Angels & Demons is released in cinemas on May 14.