As Charlie Wilson, cuddly Oscar winner Tom Hanks jets around the world carrying out a huge covert operation to evict invading Russians from Afghanistan. In London, on Wednesday night, the mission was a little less hush-hush as the everyman megastar took to the red carpet for the premiere of Mike Nichols’ true-life flick Charlie Wilson's War.
Rocking up inexplicably wearing an Aston Villa scarf at Leicester Square’s Empire, the man who would be Big held court on his lonesome without co-stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julia Roberts. Supporting player Ken Stott did show up though, which was nice.
Hanks, however, was up to the task describing his “great affinity with the city London”, while expertly dodging queries about the Golden Globes, the Writers Strike and that Villa scarf like the great politician he plays.
As for said Congressman, how did Hanks feel about portraying such a caddish, lady-loving, Scotch-swigging defender of freedom?
“That’s the great thing about being an actor,” he says. “You play a character you have a little bit in common with or absolutely nothing in common with. I’ve been in hot tubs with naked ladies, but they were my baby daughter and my wife.
“Charlie was actually around quite a bit. He was there in Morocco and he was also on the set and he never had any qualms about how we should portray him, he just said ‘Don’t worry about showing me doing anything bad, because chances are I did it.”
Claiming “I’ve never been a playboy - I’ve never had a taste for the life,” Hank is hopeful for the success of his latest movie, even if he is unwilling to divulge his chances of grabbing a third Oscar for the role.
“Y’know, making movies is like building an airplane,” he says in typical politician-style round-the-houses, avoid-the-bloody-question manner. “You go in and you pound the rivets and hopefully you have fun doing it and hopefully at the end it’ll fly.”
As for the matter of the current struggle to gain control over ’s corridors of power, Hanks is still undecided who he’s backing, but he does know that he would change the election process if he could.
“I wish we did it like you guys do it here. Y’know, somebody says I quit and you have an election like three days later. We have to live with this for another ten months.”
Charlie Wilson’s War is released on Friday, January 10, 2008.