Kylie Lang: This is why Tom Hanks is called ‘the nicest guy in Hollywood’

Regardless of whether or not he wins Best Supporting Actor at Monday’s Oscars, Tom Hanks deserves a gold statuette simply for being one of the few class acts in Hollywood, writes Kylie Lang.

I’ve decided to work remotely for the next few months, and will be filing stories from random Gold Coast restaurants.

Tom Hanks is bound to walk into one of them.

Not that I’ve become a stalker, but I feel an unusual compulsion to meet him.

Unusual because I’ve interviewed many celebrities over the years, from the late and incredibly great David Bowie to Imran Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan and former international cricketer.

I’ve sat beside Tom Selleck and his moustache in Elio’s restaurant in New York, and chatted with Seal in Sydney after the finale of The Voice.

Enough name dropping. My point is that I’m not fazed by famous people. They’re just people, after all, and we all bleed the same.

But there’s something about Tom Hanks. He just seems so nice. No pomposity, no pretension.

Not for Hanks the callous dismissiveness of fans that I once witnessed at an airport when a Brisbane Broncos “great” shooed away two little kids who politely approached him for an autograph.

Tom Hanks with wife Rita Wilson on the red carpet. Picture: Getty

Hanks is a cut above, and regardless of whether or not he wins Best Supporting Actor at Monday’s Oscars, he deserves a gold statuette for being a class act.

The 63-year-old American arrived on the Goldie two weeks ago, for the filming of Baz Luhrmann’s biopic about Elvis Presley, and he’s quickly made a marvellous impression.

He popped into Bon Bon bar at Mermaid Beach on Monday and two young diners asked him to be in a photo.

Hanks said “of course” and suggested “a fun photo” instead of a standard happy snap, so they all threw their hands in the air.

Diner Micah Warzywak said Hanks was “so down-to-earth and such a kind-hearted, fun man to be around”.

Then there was the Academy Award winner’s cheerful interaction with staff at Mavis’ Kitchen & Cabins at Mount Warning on Sunday, and a selfie with a starstruck beachgoer who couldn’t believe her luck.

How hard is it to be nice?

Actor Tom Hanks at Bonita Bonita & Bon Bon Bar, Mermaid Beach, on Monday. Photo: Instagram / @micahwarz

Not very, but I suspect that the more famous you are, the more difficult it might be.

Strangers always wanting a piece of you would personally drive me crackers.

It’s said to be a big part of why Harry and Meghan have moved to Canada for a quieter life out of the Royal spotlight.

It’s also why George Clooney has sought to protect his privacy when staying at his home on the shore of Lake Como in Italy. Anyone caught within 100 metres of Villa Oleandra faces a council fine of up to €500 ($820). I get it.

Tom Hanks, however, seems to have a bigger dose of patience than most.

My friend Dean McCarthy, who covers glittering red-carpet galas in the US, says “there’s a reason they call him the nicest guy in Hollywood”.

“He’s energetic, friendly and you feel like you’ve known him your whole life,” McCarthy said when I interviewed him for the Sunday Mail last year.

It’s a fair bet that Hanks’s upbringing has contributed to his emotional intelligence.

His mum, a hospital worker, and his dad, an itinerant cook, split when he was four.

By the age of 10, Hanks had lived in 10 different houses.

Tom Hanks stars as Mister Rogers in TriStar Pictures' A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

He struggled to make friends at school, telling Rolling Stone magazine: “I was a geek, a spaz. I was horribly, painfully, terribly shy. At the same time, I was the guy who’d yell out funny captions during filmstrips. But I didn’t get into trouble. I was always a good kid and pretty responsible.”

I would argue also that his career choices have deepened his empathy.

In one of his earliest films, Nothing in Common, he played a young man alienated from his father. This proved a turning point, Hanks said later, leading him to other roles that caused him to “focus on people’s relationships”.

His work became “less pretentiously fake”.

Consider the widower and loving single dad in Sleepless in Seattle, the gay lawyer with HIV/AIDS who sues for workplace discrimination in Philadelphia, and the gentle soul bullied because of disability in Forrest Gump.

In his latest film now showing in Australia, A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, Hanks plays Fred Rogers, the much-loved host of a children’s TV show

A journalist assigned to interview Rogers can’t believe his kindness is genuine and sets out to prove his nice persona is an act. He fails.

A case of art imitating life?

I’ll report back, from the Gold Coast.