The Oscar-winning actor spent months on a remote Fijian island for his new movie Cast Away and far from being an idyllic experience it proved to be something of a nightmare for the 44-year old star.
Not only did he have to lose 55lb in weight for the role and spend weeks up to his neck in water, the shoot almost turned to tragedy when he caught a serious infection.
“Just before we left the island I had a little sore on my knee and something got inside there. We left Fiji on the Friday and by the Sunday my leg was twice its normal size,” explains Hanks, looking more than a little relieved to be in the urban surrounds of London.
“I had to go to the doctors and I thought I was going to get it cleaned and some antibiotics to take. The next thing I know there were five doctors running around in a panic trying to figure out what was inside my leg.
“I underwent surgery that night and was out for three weeks. We had to shut down the movie. I was very close to blood poisoning, which can kill you. If I’d really been a castaway on that island, doctors told me I would have been dead in five weeks.”
I really liked Cast Away, but I don’t think Tom Hanks did a very good job with his method acting a.k.a. losing weight for the role. He had a full year to do it. He had a special “Weight loss trainer” that is credited at the end.
There was a lot of press about the weight loss and Mr. Hanks got completely bored with endless questions about it in interviews. Just to give a little perspective to Tom Hanks’ 55 pound loss, Christian Bale lost a third of his normal body weight (63 pounds) for his role in The Machinist. Tom Hanks had gained extra weight for the first part of the movie and I think that he simply returned back to slightly below his normal weight.
Although method acting doesn’t usually refer to physical alterations in an actor’s apperance, weight loss and gaining for a role is often seen as a measurement of actor’s commitment to the role. Sadly, sometimes things go a bit wrong when people commit themselves too deeply. Requiem For A Dream star Jared Leto was diagnosed with gout after losing weight for a film role.
Body weight is one of those things that you can’t yet fix in the post.
Posted by api in Audiovisual instinct
