Tom Hanks on GREYHOUND’s Relevance, Premiering on Apple TV+ and More

The new Sony Pictures film GREYHOUND is a a tension-filled war thriller anchored by the phenomenal Tom Hanks, who also adapted the script.

Desde Hollywood had the pleasure of participating in a recent virtual press conference with the Academy Award winning actor, and you can read some of the highlights below.

The movie, directed by Aaron Schneider, it also stars Stephen Graham, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Elisabeth Shue.

GREYHOUND is now streaming, exclusively on Apple TV+.

On how him and his wife Rita Wilson are doing right now.

As the canaries in the coal mine for the COVID-19 experience, we had about 10 days of very uncomfortable symptoms. We were isolated in order to keep an eye on ourselves, because if any number of things went wrong with us, we would have needed expert medical care, but we didn’t. I guess we were model recoverers from COVID-19. But we were also isolated so that we would not give it to anybody else. Since then we’ve been doing the same isolating and social distancing that is being asked of the world. So, we are fine.

On picking this book to adapt, after being part of many World War II projects.

I think one of the reasons that I took to C.S. Forester’s book “The Good Shepherd” is because I had a familiarity with all things Navy based on growing up so close to the Naval Air Station in Alameda. When I lived in Alameda, when I was a young kid and the Vietnam War was going on, I’m gonna say more than half of my classmates had their fathers in the Navy. They were all serving on the Coral Sea and the Enterprise and the Hornet — they all served on a lot of aircraft carriers.

At about Page 3, I realized that this was an entire story told through the mental perspective of its protagonist. Ernie Krause is not the captain that you would anticipate being in charge of the safety of all these ships. Not long after that, I had a very, very strong mental image of the DNA of the story, and how it could possibly be a screenplay. As a selfish actor, I want to play great roles.

On why this story is so relevant today.

When we shot it, no one anticipated we’d be releasing it at the time of a worldwide conflagration that has as mysterious a solution as World War II did. COVID-19, no one knows how long it’s going to go on, no one knows who’s going to die because of it. Everybody has something that they can do, and you don’t have to go very far to see the correlations and similarities to the war years.

On filming at just a couple of locations.

Three if you count the hotel lobby where Elisabeth Shue and I exchange Christmas gifts, for one day.
We shot on a set in Baton Rouge, and we shot onboard the USS Kidd that is usually sitting on the Mississippi River there. This movie was made on a rocking gimbal of a set that was the bridge and the deck of the ship code-named Greyhound and on the actual iron steel decks of the USS Kidd, which is an actual Fletcher-class destroyer that might be the only authentically preserved destroyer in America.

All of the (other) ships that appear were taken from reference photographs that were then repurposed and rebuilt by the expertise of our technicians inside computers and whatnot. The (ocean) here was water that was taken from reference footage, which sounds something like it’s unique. It’s not. It’s how all movies are made now.

On the movie being released on Apple TV+.

We are all heartbroken that this movie is not playing in cinemas. It broke our hearts when we realized that we were going to have to either wait for X number of months before we would have to fight in order to get screens in the midst of this huge glut of movies. So Apple TV+ comes along as a savior and a gem and offers us the opportunity to have the movie out. The great advantage is, the entire world can see the movie at the same time. The heartbreak is that 800 people don’t get to go into a theater as strangers, watch “Greyhound” and come out 88 minutes later with something in common. There’s no substitute. There’s no grander alternative than that because that’s why we are all here.

GREYHOUND is now streaming, exclusively on Apple TV+.

Early in World War II, an inexperienced U.S. Navy captain must lead an Allied convoy being stalked by Nazi U-boat wolfpacks.