From the beginning, Luhrmann had Hanks on his shortlist.
“Without that, it would be hard to reflect Elvis against it.
Luhrmann’s instinct was right.
Hugh Stewart/Warner Bros.
Within 30 minutes of their first meeting, Hanks was hooked.
“We ended up talking for well over an hour,” Hanks recalls.
“Baz said, ‘There would’ve been no Colonel Tom Parker without Elvis.
Warner Bros. Pictures
And there certainly would’ve been no Elvis without Colonel Tom Parker.’
“Because I don’t know what Colonel Tom Parker looks like.
I don’t know what he sounds like.
I’ve never seen a photograph of him.
That’s the standard trope that goes along with Colonel Tom Parker.”
“Why include the Colonel in all of this?”
“One reason is because the Elvis story has become a trope.
Everybody’s very familiar with it.
Luhrmann similarly saw the dynamic as one on a grand scale that defied any simple construct of villainy.
But the more I read about the Colonel, it was about the sell overwhelming the other side.”
“The Colonel is like Falstaff with a chainsaw.
Because Shakespearean villains are never just a bad guy.
Colonel Tom Parker absolutely did diabolical things.
But he also did extraordinarily genius things.
So everything is a paradox and a coin flip.
That’s what makes him so delicious.”
That convinced him this would be an opportunity to truly disappear into a different kind of role.
Because what you get from that is a suit of armor.”
You seem right.'
That was amazing because you still see the twinkle in his eyes.”
Hanks immersed himself in research about who the Colonel really was.
“I had a different layer of expectations.”
One was a 1956 radio interview that basically contains Parker’s master plan for Presley’s career.
“The question was, ‘Why are we still talking about Elvis Presley?'”
“And the Colonel says, ‘Because of me.
Because I made Elvis Presley.
I always kept Elvis Presley where he was.
“What he did was keep Elvis alive,” Luhrmann explains of how he saw Parker’s mindset.
Hanks says Luhrmann’s approach to the work also helped push him to new heights.
As opposed to the more methodical camera coverage Hanks is accustomed to, Luhrmann is more free-wheeling.
“It’s possible to be driven mad by it,” the actor says.
“But having seen the movie, I notice something profoundly different every time.
It was never a well-organized hand of poker.
It was craps, roll the dice and see what you get and just keep going.”
“They made some of the most brilliant moves in the history of show business,” he reflects.
