In "Cast Away", Tom Hanks plays a man stranded on a desert island. Sound familiar? Not so, says director Robert Zemeckis. "We can't get away from the Crusoe reference, but I do think that the things being explored in that story are of that time and the ones in this film are of ours."
During his time on the island Hanks changes from well-fed office worker to emaciated wild man. "The only solution was to shut the movie down and give Tom the time to transform his body," says Zemeckis. "The reaction from the studio was stunned silence. But the bigger problem was how could we secure an A-list crew that would work for a short period of time and then all get back together again after a break?"
The answer was to make another movie ("What Lies Beneath") while Hanks took several months away from the production to lose weight. "The hardest thing about it was the time," he says. "I had to start in October to look thin in February. The constant vigilance of watching what you ate and two hours spent in the gym was exhausting."
The time spent filming was also tough on Hanks, who spends much of the film alone on screen. "Initially, it was fun. But then, it became exhausting, as I had no time away from the camera. Being the sole focus of the film did wear me down after a while."
