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Tom Hanks: Being the President is 'one of the crappiest jobs' in the world (exclusive)


Tom Hanks has said Oprah Winfrey has what it takes to run for President against Donald Trump in 2020. This comes with a warning though, saying he considers the Presidency “one of the crappiest jobs you could possibly have in the world”.

“Oprah, I think, wakes up in the morning and wonders how to make the world a better place,” Hanks explains to Yahoo Movies while promoting his new film The Post.

“There’s nothing wrong with the President of the United States having that be their ethos.”

“It might be the circumstance that the job of President is not one that requires an awful lot of legislative moxie” (AP)
“It might be the circumstance that the job of President is not one that requires an awful lot of legislative moxie” (AP)

“Anybody can become President of the United States. And in that case, well, Oprah could as well. The reason for wanting to do it? Anybody who runs for President give up an awful lot of their life, and I think it’s one of the crappiest jobs you could possibly have in the world, unless you are hellbent on bringing along some degree of change that you think is right.”

Oprah’s unofficial Presidential campaign began after the actress and talk show host proclaimed “I want all the girls watching here, now, to know that a new day is on the horizon!” during her stirring speech at the 2018 Golden Globes.

Oprah Winfrey Golden Globes speech: Cecile B. DeMille Award winner
Oprah Winfrey Golden Globes speech: Cecile B. DeMille Award winner

The hashtag #Oprah2020 began trending on Twitter almost immediately after her speech, and Hanks thinks she’s qualified to run in two years’ time. Not everyone agrees.

Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane said he found the idea of a reality show star running against a talk show host “troublingly dystopian”, but Hanks begs to differ saying that Trump has changed US politics forever.

“It might be the circumstance that the job of President is not one that requires an awful lot of legislative moxie or an understanding of the give and take of a place like Capitol Hill,” Hanks adds.

“It may just come down to guidance, inclusion, leadership… let’s find that from whatever source we can. And if it turns out ‘oh, wait a minute’, people have already felt like that’s the case, then we have someone who is President of the United States right now that came from completely outside the political norm. So it’s not a matter of ‘is it good or is it bad?’ It just is.”

Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in ‘The Post’ (eOne)
Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in ‘The Post’ (eOne)

Two-time Oscar-winner Tom Hanks returns to cinemas this week as pioneering newspaper editor Ben Bradlee in Steven Spielberg’s The Post. Hanks stars, for the first time in his career, opposite Meryl Streep – who has more Oscar nominations that she can remember – and Spielberg’s period thriller is a dramatic retelling of the Pentagon Papers leak.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon attempted to restrain the Washington Post and the New York Times from publishing excerpts from the papers – a government report into the Vietnam war that exposed decades of cover ups by the American administration – but was overruled by the Supreme Court.

Hanks and Streep are superb, and the parallels between 2017 and 1971 and the struggle to retain the freedom of the press couldn’t be more on the nose.

Watch our full interview with The Post star Tom Hanks below.


The Post arrives in UK cinemas Friday, 19 January.

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