BY ANDREW BENISEK ‘17
If you have ever lost your starting spot, been cut from a team, or were not casted for a starring role; then you have something in common with A-List Celebrity, Tom Hanks, whose tie to Cleveland came about as result of failure. After a successful lead role in his college production, he was confident he could be casted for the lead role in the next play that came into Sacramento. To his surprise, he did not land the role. Hanks, disappointed and longing to be in a production, shipped himself across the country to participate in the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Cleveland. Like many students, entrepreneurs, and professionals, Tom Hanks found his haven of opportunity in Cleveland, which is what brought him back to northeast Ohio last Friday afternoon.
With the filming industry on the rise in Cleveland, there was no better person to speak with 900 students eager for a career in production than Tom Hanks, a man who undoubtedly was given his start in Cleveland. Hanks was brought in by The Greater Cleveland Film Commission, the group that helps to bring large scale filming productions to Cleveland by lobbying for tax incentives and reaching out to production companies, to be a keynote speaker at their Friday night fundraiser. However they sponsored a Q&A in the morning at Cuyahoga County Community College’s Metropolitan Campus. Hanks was interviewed by St. Joseph Academy senior, Jonae Williams, who was given a list of pre-submitted questions from the audience, among whom was Mr. Buzzelli, Fr. Ross Pribyl, and 15 students from the film and animation class.
Based on the accounts of our students and faculty in attendance, the event was very casual and humorous, jumping from conversations about his past roles, hobbies, and opinion on the role of television. When asked about his role as Woody in “Toy Story” he said doing voice overs are torture, more specifically, “hell on earth.” He also reflected on his extensive typewriter collection. Hanks’s love for
his typewriters stuck with Fr. Pribyl, who said, “He really appreciated the ‘artistic’ aspect of a typewritten letter: how a key imprints a design into the paper and how the ink saturates the paper fibers so that the letter could be read hundreds of years from now.”
Overall Tom Hanks was very well received by the audience and served as a great example for perseverance, determination, and the power of Cleveland to the aspiring students in the audience.
