Nice Guy Tom Hanks

Jan 5, 2008, 11:30 GMT

Tom Hanks - © Lee Roth / RothStock / PR Photos

Tom Hanks loves his 'Mr. Nice Guy' reputation.

The 'Castaway' actor - who can soon be seen starring as playboy US congressman Charlie Wilson in 'Charlie Wilson's War' - is widely regarded as one of the nicest men in Hollywood, but insists he doesn't mind the label even though he knows it will stick with him forever.

He said: "I'm in an interesting position there with the nice guy thing and the problem is that I co-operate. But that is who I am.

"But it also means that if I play a guy who shoots someone in the head and then machineguns everyone else in the movie, everybody still says, 'Yeah, but he's such a nice guy!'

"Same if I play an executioner and it'll be the same now that I'm playing a guy who is f***ing everyone he can, going to bed drunk every night and snorting coke. People are still going to say that I'm a nice guy."

Tom, 51, also said he is planning to give his directing career a rest to concentrate on raising his two sons, seven-year-old Chester and two-year-old Truman, with his second wife Rita Wilson.

He said: "I have had success with directing 'Band of Brothers' and 'That Thing You Do!' but right now I am in my child-raising years. I'd like to direct again, but I can't. It would take me away from my children and that would be inexcusable.

"I have to work as an actor, but, if you choose carefully, sometimes a job for an actor can be a vacation with the whole family."

Tom also has two adult children, 30-year-old Colin and Elizabeth, 25, from his relationship with his first wife Samantha Lewes.

(C) BANG Media International