Tom Hanks says it was “so easy” reconnecting with Robin Wright on the set of their new film Here.
Speaking on the red carpet of the movie’s world premiere at AFI Fest in Los Angeles on Friday, Oct. 25, Hanks, 68, opened up about what it was like to once again work with his Forrest Gump costar — along with director Robert Zemeckis — 30 years after the film’s 1994 release.
“Everybody was [saying], ‘Oh, what was it like, the reunion?’ ” Hanks recalled of seeing Wright, 58, on set again after so many years. “You know what it was? It was like, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ ”
“We just picked up right where we left off,” Hanks continued. “I’m going to say we love each other because we’re so easy with each other. It was a luxury to be able to come in and get the same conversations we’ve been having for the last 30 years after a moment of, ‘Hey, this kooky look, do you believe this? Can you believe this? Look at this, look at this.’ ”
Hanks has been candid about how he and Wright immediately clicked when they came back together for Here, years after shooting Forrest Gump, in which the pair played childhood friends who marry by the end of the movie.
In an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Here, Wright said that working with Hanks and Zemeckis, 72, came easily, adding, “Working with people you know and you’re compatible with, there’s nothing like that.”
“We all know each other so well,” Hanks chimed in. “We could put our heads together and know exactly what we wanted to try different.”
According to a synopsis, Here is about “multiple families and a special place they inhabit. The story travels through generations, capturing the most relatable of human experiences.”
The film, which also stars Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly and Michelle Dockery, is a “tale of love, loss, laughter and life, all of which happen right Here,” the synopsis adds.
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For Hanks, the film’s themes — including the passage of time and how families connect across generations — rang true.
“I think that oddly enough, the theme of the first one, Forrest Gump, was how to, it was about that what we had been through, right? Because there was so much,” Hanks said at Friday’s premiere. “There was Vietnam and the ’60s and ’70s, we had gotten here. Look what we had been through.”
“[Here] is about look what we go through. It almost takes out the past tense. What do we go through in order to get to here?” he continued. “We’re talking about, because there’s Native Americans in this thing. There’s people who lived hundreds of years ago in this place and they did not know they were living in the past. They didn’t have our perspective of who they are, what they went through.”
“They were just dealing with the absolute most modern times, most modern technology, the most current version of what was going on,” the actor added. “They didn’t realize that they were going to be antiquated by the time we got around by the year 2024. None of us do.”
Here is in theaters Nov. 1.