Hanks feels role as dad in Extremely Loud

MANILA, Philippines - Tom Hanks stars as Thomas Schell, a devoted husband and father who was at the wrong place, at the wrong time during the fateful day of 9/11, in Warner Bros.’ life-affirming drama, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

The film is a story that unfolds from inside the young mind of Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), an inventive 11-year-old New Yorker whose discovery of a key in his deceased father’s belongings sets him off on an urgent search across the city for the lock it will open. A year after his father died in the World Trade Center on what Oskar calls “The Worst Day,” he is determined to keep his vital connection to the man who playfully cajoled him into confronting his wildest fears.

As a screen character, Thomas was a challenge because he is seen entirely through Oskar’s eyes, to the extent that much about his history and inner life remain mysterious — except for the parts that have made an impression on Oskar and especially Oskar’s memories of their very best times together, which remain indelibly immediate to him.

Tom was drawn to the way the script gets inside Oskar’s mind at a time when the power of logical facts to keep him grounded seems to have evaporated. “In the blink of an eye, the course of Oskar’s whole world changes, and he loses his only anchor,” Tom says.

In part, Tom drew on his own experiences as a father. “The emotional part of it for me was going back and remembering what it’s like to have an 11-year-old kid who is bubbling over with life,” he says.

While Tom believes Thomas was well aware that Oskar often showed signs of behavior akin to Asperger’s Syndrome, he also says Thomas readily accepted and even related to many of his son’s oddities and phobias, which made the two of them even closer. “I think Thomas wasn’t bothered at all by his son’s behaviors,” he says. “Instead, he looked for ways to build bridges over Oskar’s turbulence, over his constant questions, his flights of fancy and his fears. Yet because of that, when he’s gone, it magnifies the incredible loss for Oskar even more.”

Opening across the Philippines tomorrow, Feb. 29, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.