(Credits: Far Out / Universal Studios)
Wed 29 April 2026 6:20, UK
The best actors shouldn’t need to work too hard in order to understand their character’s mindset, but regardless of how prepared he was, Tom Hanks was still thrown into the deep end and left to suffer for his art in the name of authenticity.
Living proof that the finest thespians of a generation don’t have to be slavishly devoted to the method in order to rise to the top of their profession. Hanks became an icon based entirely on his affable personality and the consistent quality of his work, even if he has suffered an injury or two along the way when committing himself fully to a role.
That approach to acting is what makes moments like Saving Private Ryan stand out even more within his career. Hanks isn’t known for disappearing into roles through extreme preparation, but rather for grounding his characters in something recognisably human. When placed in an environment that intense, it meant his reactions didn’t need to be exaggerated or manufactured; they simply had to be honest.
It also highlights the unique pressure that comes with working under a director like Steven Spielberg. His insistence on realism doesn’t just shape the look of a film; it alters the mindset of everyone involved. By removing the usual comforts of a set and pushing his actors into physically and emotionally demanding situations, Spielberg created conditions where performances could emerge instinctively rather than being carefully constructed.
There was no chance for anyone being allowed to take it easy on the set of Steven Spielberg’s classic war drama Saving Private Ryan, though, with the filmmaker opting to shoot the majority of the film in sequence to plunge his cast and crew in at the deep end from day one. Not that there was any let-up from there, either, after the director captured dozens of setups per day to ensure respite wasn’t on the agenda.
As a result, that meant one of the first scenes captured for Saving Private Ryan was the D-Day landing, one of the most harrowing depictions of warfare in cinematic history, and one of the best scenes in Spielberg’s entire illustrious filmography. It was about as immersive and ear-shattering a way to open a feature as there’s ever been, and Hanks found himself caught up in the realism of it all.
Of course, the two-time Academy Award winner has a noted interest in World War II, but even at that, Saving Private Ryan took things to another level. “I’ve never even seen movies where guys threw up on the landing craft,” he admitted to Roger Ebert. That was before the soldiers had even touched down on the sand, and things only got more intense from there.
“The first day of shooting the D-Day sequences, I was in the back of the landing craft, and that ramp went down and I saw the first one, two, three, four rows of guys just getting blown to bits,” Hanks continued. “In my head, of course, I knew it was special effects, but I still wasn’t prepared for how tactile it was.”
Remembering to give a performance while synthetic blood and body parts were being tossed into the air within close proximity to him ensured that Hanks didn’t need much encouragement to act terrified, leaving the star to recall how “the air literally went pink, and the noise was deafening and there’s bits and pieces of stuff falling all on top of you, and it was horrifying.”
When it came to Saving Private Ryan, for Hanks, “All rules are off and nothing makes sense anymore.” That’s the horror of war in microcosm, and it’s very rarely been more vivid than it was in Spielberg’s film.
ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE 