Tom Hanks wants you to know he's sometimes a nightmare on movie sets

Even America's dad Tom Hanks has days where he isn't everyone's favorite nice guy.

The Oscar winner admitted that he could be a nightmare on movie sets while promoting his debut novel The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece, centered on the production of a multimillion-dollar superhero movie and filled with an eclectic group of characters, including an egotistical actor who disrupts filming.

"I have pulled every single one of those moments of behavior myself on a set," Hanks told BBC. "Not everybody is at their best every single day on a motion picture set. I've had tough days trying to be a professional when my life has been falling apart in more ways than one and the requirement for me that day is to be funny, charming and loving — and it's the last way I feel."

Brendon Thorne/Getty Images Tom Hanks

There's one onset "cardinal sin" he will never commit, though: tardiness. "What cannot occur on a motion picture is that someone cannot monkey around with the timing or the length of the shoot or the budget," Hanks said. "That is a cardinal sin in the motion picture business. You will be amazed at how many people know that they can get away with it, and are told they can get away with it, because they are carrying the movie on their shoulders."

The veteran film actor's reputation as Hollywood's favorite good guy is why Elvis filmmaker Baz Luhrmann had him on the shortlist to portray Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's controversial talent manager, in the 2022 biopic after all.

"The gargantuan size and complexity of Parker would define the air for Elvis to be internal and spiritual," Luhrmann told EW last year. "Without that, it would be hard to reflect Elvis against it. And I went, 'I bet Tom Hanks would be into a playing a dark note on his instrument that no one could see coming.'"

But even then, "You can see Colonel Parker as despicable, but when it's Tom, he's such an incredible actor, that he can justify everything and he's not playing a bad guy in his mind," star Austin Butler added. "He's so justified that it made me have to double down and question, 'Wait, maybe he's right in this moment. You seem right.' That was amazing because you still see the twinkle in his eyes."

Hanx, Tinseltown's favorite good guy and occasional onset tyrant.

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