Tom Hanks has admitted he’s unsure why no one mentions one of his favorite performances in 2002's Road to Perdition. The crime drama directed by Sam Mendes starred Hanks as mob enforcer Michael Sullivan.
Set during the Great Depression, the gangster movie saw him enacting vengeance against the man who killed his family. It won several awards, and starred some huge talent too, including Paul Newman, Jude Law, and Daniel Craig – but he thinks it isn’t considered one of his biggest movies.
"For one reason or another, no one references Road to Perdition, and that was an incredibly important movie for me to go through," the actor said on the ReelBlend podcast (H/T The Independent). "It was shot by Conrad Hall, and you have me in it, Don Moustache with a hat on it, but you also have two guys who turned out to be two of the biggest motion picture presences in the history of the industry with Jude Law and [Daniel] Craig. And I killed both of them."
While he’s unsure why he’s not asked about it more in interviews, Hanks thinks it could be a movie people revisit at some point. "People always say, 'What movies will they be talking about years from now?'," he added. "As a guy who watches Turner Classic Movies a lot, the more obscure and unknown a movie from the 1940s or 1950s the better, because I have no preconceived notions about it; I don’t know anything about it. When you watch those movies and it’s crackerjack and it’s incredibly moving, all I can think of is, 'I’m so glad this movie lasts forever, so I got a chance to revisit it now.' That might be the case with Road to Perdition."
Hanks’ latest role is as widower Otto Anderson in the movie A Man Called Otto, adapted from best-selling novel 'A Man Called Ove'. For our ranking of his work, check out our list of the best Tom Hanks movies.
