Tom Hanks recently got candid and opened up about forgetting his lines during his new Off-Broadway play, This world of tomorrow.
On the Monday, November 3 episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the 69-year-old American actor and filmmaker appeared to be promoting his show, This world of tomorrow, which he also co-wrote with James Glossman.
While talking about his Off-Broadway show, Hanks told the host that he forgot his lines while previewing the show.
He explained, “I actually disappeared the other night,” and joked that his co-stars Kelli O’Hara and Ruben Santiago-Hudson “all just look at me and say, ‘Come on, man. I’ve learned my lines, haven’t you learned yours?”
Colbert asked him how the experience felt different when he wrote the play, to which the two-time Oscar-winning actor replied, “Yeah, it is. No. 1, because they’re going to have a really hard time firing me if I screw up.”
Hanks went on to state that co-writing the play with Glossman has been “a pleasure and a joy”, but it is also “the scariest situation I’ve ever been in.”
“The huge difference between film and stage is that in film the director is the governor of the story. He can change it, don’t say it, don’t say it, say it instead. The scene, if it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage. The writers are the final arbiters of what’s being said,” Saving Private Ryan star explained.
