SAN FRANCISCO: Count Tom Hanks among the fans of the Coen brothers. “I’ve always said, ‘What are they up to?’ even though we had never really met. I would tell my agent to let me know if a script of theirs crosses the border,” Hanks told the San Francisco Chronicle in its Sunday editions.

Now Hanks has joined with Joel and Ethan Coen — who have made films such as ‘Fargo’ and ‘The Big Lebowski’ — for ‘The Ladykillers’, a loose remake of the 1955 comedy about a hapless gang of would-be robbers. It opens this week in the US.

For this film, Hanks was just one of the main actors, joining Irma P Hall as a landlady and Marlon Wayans as a gang member. “Ensemble movies are the most fun for an actor. After ‘Cast Away’, I said I never want to be the only guy in a movie again because I thought I was going to go nuts. It’s nice to have other actors around to bust up the monotony of just me, me, me all the time.” As for working with the Coens, Hanks said there was little

tension. “It’s very calm and there’s no panicking that goes on. I must say sometimes

the production office was so quiet when I came in, I wondered, ‘Is there a Jewish holiday or something?’” — AP