It looks like “America’s Dad” Tom Hanks is taking a stand as a proud “NepoDad.” In a new interview with the British newspaper, The Sun the Oscarwinning star of castaway and Captain Phillips addressed the fact that allfour of his adult children are part of the entertainment industry. “Look, thisis a family business,” Hanks remarked during an interview about his latestfilm, A Man Called Otto , in which his younger son, Truman Hanks, plays ayounger version of his character in flashbacks. “This is what we’ve been doingforever … it’s what all our kids grew up in.”
“If we were a plumbing supply business or if we ran the florist shop down thestreet, the whole family would be putting in time at some point, even if itwere just inventory at the end of the year,” Hanks continued. “The thing thatdoesn’t change — no matter what your last name is — is whether it works ornot.”
Watch Tom Hanks ‘s interview with The Sun ** below**
Hanks’s comments follow a blockbuster New York magazine story devoted to> the “nepo baby” conversation that’s playing out both in and outside of> Hollywood as a plethora of celebrity offspring are pursuing their own> careers as actors and filmmakers. It’s a debate that sits at the nexus of> privilege and opportunity, and has already generated a wide variety of> reactions from a wide variety of “nepo babies,” from Kate Hudson and Allison> Williams to Jamie Lee Curtis and Lily-Rose Depp.
Speaking with Yahoo Entertainment last year, Schuyler Fisk and Jake Hoffman —whose famous parents are Sissy Spacek and Dustin Hoffman respectively —addressed the subject as well. “For me, the biggest advantage was growing uparound movies sets, and that environment where we saw our parents working andpassionately invested in their projects,” Fisk said. “I never really thoughtabout the negatives until I started doing projects. Obviously people areinterested about what you’re going to be like based on your parents, so theywere like: ‘Aren’t you worried about being compared to your mom? ‘ And Ithought, ‘Maybe I am now, because everyone else is!'”
Story continues
“A lot of people assume that being the child of somebody well-known means youwon’t have that dilemma, and that’s half-true,” Hoffman added. “Ultimately, Ithink it’s a disadvantage, not an advantage or at least it was for me. Iwasn’t a prodigy and I had to learn that getting into rooms before you’reready doesn’t really help you.”
The 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards in 2020 saw, from left, the extended Hanksfamily: Samantha Bryant, Colin Hanks, Rita Wilson, Tom Hanks, Elizabeth AnnHanks, Chet Hanks, and Truman Hanks. (Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
In the case of the extended Hanks family, Tom Hanks has two children — Colin,45 and Elizabeth, 40 — with his first wife, Samantha Lewes (who died in 2002),and two children, Chet, 32, and Truman, 27, with current spouse, Rita Wilson.Colin and Elizabeth made their first onscreen appearances when they were stillyoung, and while Colin continues to act, his sister balances occasionalperformances with a career as an author and journalist. Meanwhile, Chet hasfamously pursued a music career, while also appearing in TV shows like_Empire_ and Shameless and Truman has held various crew positions on suchmovies as Black Widow and West Side Story directed by his father’sfrequent collaborator, Steven Spielberg.
“They’re all very creative, and they’re all involved in some brand ofstorytelling,” Hanks told The Sun about his children’s various creativepursuits, emphasizing that their last name alone isn’t enough to guaranteesuccess. “That’s the issue anytime any of us go off and try to tell a freshstory or create something that has a beginning, a middle and an end. Itdoesn’t matter what our last names are: we have to do the work in order tomake that a true and authentic experience for the audience. And that’s a muchbigger task than worrying about whether anyone’s going to try to scathe us ornot.”
A Man Called Otto is playing in theaters now