There are few individuals who encapsulate the essence of Christmas as wholly as Tom Hanks does. He practically embodies all that\u2019s joyful and heartwarming in the world. It\u2019s peculiar, though, that his most notable venture into holiday films happens to be the visually unsettling experience of The Polar Express.<\/p>\n
Surprisingly, Tom Hanks was nearly poised to undertake every single role in Robert Zemeckis\u2019 motion-capture extravaganza. Ultimately, he took on seven characters in one of his standout animated works, which, in my opinion, feels like a bit of slacking. For those who grew up with it, The Polar Express ranks among the cherished Christmas classics, although its visual effects have aged about as gracefully as eggnog forgotten until New Year\u2019s. Yet, it could have been even more extreme for Hanks.<\/p>\n
He recounted to IGN: \u201cBob [Zemeckis] at one point suggested: \u2018You should play every role in this movie because then we could do it. You could play every role!\u2019 But I countered: \u2018Hold on. There are girls in this movie. Am I supposed to play every elf?\u2019 He responded: \u2018Yeah, it\u2019ll be great.'\u201d<\/p>\n
However, initial trials made it evident that this concept simply wasn\u2019t feasible. Hanks explained: \u201cThere\u2019s only so much that I can tackle as an actor, and during the test days, I portrayed five or six or seven roles in that span, and I said: \u2018Bob, I\u2019m worn out here.'\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanks managed to distinguish between his multiple roles through the costume process. A change in footwear helped him mentally transition into the different personas, whether a young boy or even Santa Claus himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a trick because, honestly, that\u2019s my job,\u201d expressed Hanks. \u201cMy job is to bring to life these other characters by envisioning who they are and developing a kind of physical understanding of their essence, and then sticking to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
For one of Hollywood\u2019s finest actors, The Polar Express held significance as a passion project. Hanks initially acquired the rights to the children\u2019s book in the \u201990s, with the stipulation that any adaptations wouldn\u2019t involve animation. Whoops!<\/p>\n
However, when Zemeckis stepped in with his groundbreaking motion-capture vision, it was an opportunity too intriguing to pass up. Many of today\u2019s major blockbusters utilize upgraded versions of the technology that Zemeckis was pioneering two decades ago. In The Polar Express, the outcome isn\u2019t consistently charming. In fact, it inadvertently veers into being one of the most bizarre horror flicks ever created. Nevertheless, our love for Christmas and Hanks outweighs concerns about his peculiar CGI appearance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are few individuals who encapsulate the essence of Christmas as wholly as Tom Hanks does. He practically embodies all\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":17550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[5404,886],"class_list":["post-17549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-the-polar-express","tag-tom-hanks"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}