Colin answers his calling

He is tall and slender with neatly cropped dark hair, a boyish grin and glasses — just the kind of guy-next-door persona that allows the actor to walk the streets and not always get noticed.

But study his features more closely and the resemblance to his famous film star father becomes evident. Indeed, The Sunday Times of London once wrote of Colin Hanks that his “lost-puppy eyes'' confirm he is Tom Hanks' son.

At 6-foot-1, he said, he is taller than his father, but as he points out, “he weighs more than me''.

Over the years, Oscar-winning Tom Hanks has perfected his everyman persona in films such as Sleepless in Seattle and Saving Private Ryan.

And it is that same screen quality that his eldest son exudes as he pursues his own acting career. He appears opposite Diane Lane in Untraceable.

And recently, The Great Buck Howard, a comedy that stars John Malkovich and Hanks, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

“He didn't want me to be an actor,'' Hanks said when asked what advice his father gave him. “He wanted me to find out what I was passionate about.

"And it just so happened that it was acting, to which he said, ‘OK, well, you could do it as an actor. I feel you have the ability to do so.' But he stressed that it really needed to be something I wanted to be and was passionate about.''

The son harbours no illusions about where his acting career is in relation to his father's.

“He's been on top of Everest now for a long time,'' Hanks said, then quipped: “I may be at the lower base camp of Machu Picchu. We might both be climbing mountains, but they are very different peaks.''

But Colin Hanks is no wet-behind-the-ears performer.
In Untraceable, Lane and Hanks play FBI agents Jennifer Marsh and Griffin Dowd, who go in pursuit of a tech-savvy internet predator who tortures and kills his victims on a website.

Appealing personality

Director Gregory Hoblit said casting Hanks was tricky because he wanted the agent to embody a certain innocence that would allow the audience to react with, “Oh, no! Don't do that to him!'' when the killer begins stalking the FBI agents.

“Colin is a walking, talking personality,'' Hoblit said. “He can take a fairly pedestrian dialogue, inasmuch as it's there, and give it a little colour and life and do it well.''

The director noted: “He's kind of at that gawky age — tall and slender. I think he is very appealing. He's probably an actor who will get more interesting as he gets older and his face gets more interesting.

There's no question he has talent. Look at the films he's made over the past few years. He looks like he's 14.''

In The Great Buck Howard, which is written and directed by Sean McGinly, Hanks plays a recent law school dropout who answers an advertisement to be road manager for a celebrity performer, thinking this will be the big break that will get him into the entertainment industry.

Instead, he discovers he has signed on to work for Buck Howard (Malkovich), a has-been magician trying to revitalise his career. Tom Hanks, who produced the film, plays Colin Hanks' on-screen father.

“I don't really want to build it up too much,'' Colin Hanks said of the pairing. “We're in two scenes. I want to keep everyone's expectations down. He plays my father. That's obviously part of what makes the film memorable for me.''

Although he might be considered part of Hollywood royalty, Colin Hanks points out that he was raised in Sacramento, California. His late mother, Samantha Lewes, divorced Tom Hanks in 1987.

“I grew up like a lot of kids,'' Hanks said. “I'm a child of divorce, which is obviously not a great thing. That's not to say I didn't see a lot of my father.''

He points out that his father wasn't always rich and famous.
“When I was a little baby, he would carry me down to the bank and cash unemployment cheques.

I was 15 or 16 years old by the time he started to become sort of the premiere guy. At that point, I'm not saying he wasn't a well-known guy. He was.

But it wasn't until I was sort of halfway through my adolescent teenage revolt that all of a sudden things really exploded for him.''

Hanks said he would hang out with his father on film shoots during summer holidays. The son worked as a production assistant on the set of his father's 1995 film, Apollo 13, and in 1996 he had a cameo in his father's directorial debut, That Thing You Do.

In 1999, he landed a regular role as Alex Whitman on the WB's teen sci-fi series Roswell. His big break, though, came when he starred in the 2002 film Orange County.

His more recent films include Peter Jackson's King Kong, the crime thriller Alone With Her and the comedy Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny.

On getting career breaks, Hanks said being the son of Tom Hanks can only get you so far. “It might get you a little more attention,'' he said. “It might get you a meeting. But they're not going to give you a job.''

Said Hoblit: “Colin is a very self-contained guy. He lives in New York. He never refers to his father except when someone brings it up. I know they spend holidays together. I don't get any sense of anger or envy. He is carving out his own world.''

Occasionally, Hanks said, people will recognise him as he walks down the street but that usually comes after one of his films comes out. “There is a cycle for this stuff,'' he said. “I might get recognised for about two weeks, and then I'll fade into people's memories.''