It’s no secret that Tom Hanks is one of the best-paid actors around. The latest news coming out of the Angels & Demons press junket is that Hanks picked up a paycheck somewhere in the neighborhood of $29 to 49 million for the DaVinci Code sequel/prequel.

Hanks has made many people in Hollywood huge sums of money, and it seems justified that Tom would get the biggest paychecks for his services. He’s one of the few actors who gets to negotiate back-end deals, meaning that on certain films, Hanks could not only gather a paycheck just for signing on, but he could also get a percentage of the gross. The only other actors I’ve ever heard of getting that deal are Tom Cruise, Will Smith and Brad Pitt.

In any case, $49 million is an enormous sum of money for one film in which Tom is basically running around Rome. This little piece of information was mentioned in passing by a guy interviewing Tom for The Telegraph. Tom does not confirm any numbers, of course. He knows better.

What lucky charms, asks one Japanese journalist, does Mr Hanks take with him on set. ‘Lady, most mornings I go to work before the sun has come up,’ he laughs. ‘I’m lucky if I’m wearing both my shoes.’

He is dressed in a black suit and open-neck white shirt, and sporting a pair of rimless glasses. He leaps to his feet when I’m shown into the room and pumps my hand warmly. He is bigger than you would think (6ft 1in), and somewhat puffier, with flicks of grey above his familiar, protruding ears. ‘Hey, how are ya doing?’ he says, ‘Do you mind if I finish my lunch?’

It is his voice that makes him so unmistakably Tom Hanks. Goofy, but masterful; loud, yet full of cadence, it is the voice of a cartoon character and an orator all at once. Like him, it is both imposing and reassuring.

‘From my experience,’ says Daniel Craig, who worked with Hanks on Road to Perdition, ‘the more famous people are, the nicer they tend to be. Tom’s main cause on set is to put everyone at their ease. He’s full of fun and he makes everybody feel comfortable.’

So why did he sign up for a second installment? ‘Well, hey, I’m not stupid,’ he drawls. Having earned $25 million for Da Vinci, Hanks’s rumoured pay packet of between $29 million and $49 million for Angels & Demons makes him the highest-paid actor in Hollywood. In the past, he has admitted to being very canny with money. For both Forrest Gump and Saving Private Ryan, he deferred his salary in return for a percentage of the box office. The $70 million he finally collected for Forrest Gump remains the highest combination of fees and profits in Hollywood history.

‘I’m certainly not in it for the business,’ Hanks grins when I ask him why, at 52, he has opted to work harder than ever. ‘I mean, it’s not like I need the job. I guess, if the truth be told, I didn’t want to be at the mercy of the marketplace. I don’t want to have to wait for the phone to ring to say, “You now get to create something.” As an actor I am always waiting for my luck to run out. Now, I’m very lucky that, as yet, that hasn’t happened, but I’m very aware that, any time now, the marketplace could say, “That’s it, we’re done with you.” If I am producing, I can create something every day and it’s a darn sight more fun than woodworking or building a stereo.’

In the past, Hanks has described himself as, deep down, a loner. ‘Everybody has something that chews them up and, for me, that thing was always loneliness. The cinema has the power to make you not feel lonely, even when you are. As a young man, even if I was going to see a play or a film by myself, I didn’t feel like I was alone. There was something that was unfolding up there that brought me into it. And I recognised that. For those two hours, it made me feel like I belonged to something really good.’

The mention of any of his four children (he has two sons, Chester, 10, and Truman, four, with Rita Wilson) makes Hanks puff up with pride. As far as he is concerned, his family is where he ends and begins. In fact, it is his responsibilities as a father, he says, that prevent him from returning to his first love, the theatre. ‘I’m not in a position where I can disappear to Broadway for 35 weeks,’ he explains. ‘My commitment to my family has to come first.’

Those who know [Tom and Rita] say that they are the perfect match; she teases him, he worships her. ‘There’s no question that Rita is his strength,’ Mike Nichols says. ‘Together, they are as open, friendly, helpful and full of love as it’s possible to be.’ It is Hanks’s rock-solid private life that feeds into his enduring Everyman appeal. ‘His interpretation of family life is reassuringly retro,’ his great friend and neighbour Steven Spielberg says. ‘It’s swimming-pools, barbecues, talk about the PTA and taking videos of the kids.’

[From The Telegraph]

Ha, Tom still sees himself as a loner. When you’re making $49 million a film, you can buy as many best friends as you want! No, really, I actually have no problems with Hanks picking up enormous paychecks. He’s one of the few actors that I truly think deserves the money. He always comes across as a genuinely nice guy, and he shouldn’t be penalized for being a smart businessman.

Here’s Tom at the “Angels & Demons” Rome premiere yesterday. Images thanks to Fame Pictures .