The phrase “write what you know” has always been, at best, a loose construct. At one end of the spectrum you have C. S. Lewis, a man who pieced together the Narnia books from fragments of an upbringing filled with religion and travel and war and ancient epics. On the other, you have Tom Hanks, a World War II–obsessed typewriter collector who caught the coronavirus and makes films for a living, who has just written a novel about a World War II–obsessed typewriter collector who makes films for a living in the age of the coronavirus. Both approaches are equally valid, although one does sound slightly easier.
This book—The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece—has been coming for a while. In 2017, Hanks published Uncommon Type, a resoundingly lovely short-story collection that hinted at a writer straining for a broader canvas. But even earlier, in interviews and podcast appearances stretching back almost a decade, Hanks has grown increasingly preoccupied with the idea that most people—journalists in particular—don’t understand the reality of life on a film set. It isn’t about agents and managers, he has said. It’s mainly about learning how to convincingly waddle away from a table after getting up, so that your head stays in the frame.
