Tom Hanks Responds to Daughter's Allegations of Abuse in Memoir
Tom Hanks has broken his silence after his daughter, E.A. Hanks, alleged that her mother, Samantha Lewes, was physically and emotionally abusive.
In her memoir, The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road, which was published in April, E.A. claimed that her mother struggled with mental health issues after her divorce from Tom was finalized in 1987. In the book, E.A. details being hit, shaken, and at times locked in closets. She claimed that Lewes let their home spiral into messiness, with the fridge often empty or filled with spoiled food, as she sat in bed reading the Bible.Speaking to Access Hollywood at the premiere of his new movie, The Phoenician Scheme, the veteran actor broke his silence regarding E.A.'s allegations. "It's a pride because she's been very open about what the process is," Tom said. 'I'm not surprised that my daughter had the wherewithal, as well as the curiosity, as well as, I'm going to say, perhaps, the 'shoot herself in the foot' kind of wherewithal in order to examine this thing that I think she was incredibly honest about."We all come from checked or cracked lives. She knows that, and she leans into absolutely everything of it,' he added, calling E.A. a "bold journalistic literary mind."
E.A., whose real name is Elizabeth Anne, eventually moved in with her father full-time at the age of 12, shortly after Tom married his second wife, Rita Wilson. Lewes, who was born Susan Dillingham, passed away in 2002. Hanks and Lewes share a son, Colin, in addition to E.A.Tom Hanks Responds to Daughter's Allegations of Abuse in Memoir first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 5, 2025
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
How to Root for a Merciless Man, According to Wes Anderson
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. The Manhattan hotel at which I'm interviewing Wes Anderson has striking views of Central Park out of its windows. Looming a little more ominously, however, is the Trump International Hotel and Tower, one of the president's many jutting edifices dotted around the globe. I wouldn't have noted it, except that Anderson's new film, The Phoenician Scheme, is about a tycoon with hands in many pots: arms dealing, manufacturing, large-scale infrastructure projects. In conceiving the character—a businessman named Zsa-zsa Korda (played by Benicio del Toro)—the director told me that he was thinking of a more old-fashioned type of European magnate, in the vein of Aristotle Onassis or Gianni Agnelli. But 'I think that everything's filtering in,' he allowed with a chuckle. 'We're all reading the same newspapers.' Anderson has (unfairly) earned a reputation as a maker of fidgety little cinematic dioramas, meticulously designed but hermetically sealed off from reality. But his work is clearly responsive to modern life: His previous feature, the staggering Asteroid City, was a charming dramedy about a space-age desert town encountering aliens that also managed to capture the feeling of people going into lockdown in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Anderson wrote Asteroid City while in quarantine, an experience that appears to have directly informed its sense of anxiety and claustrophobia. ('Your imagination is responding to whatever the stimuli in the world is,' he told me.) The Phoenician Scheme, by comparison, is light and zany, as Korda embarks upon a madcap dash across the globe to save his dwindling fortune. As I noted to him, it also obviously seems to prod at the preening foolishness of today's mega-rich land barons. [Read: Only Wes Anderson could adapt Roald Dahl this way] I worried he'd deflect the comment—Anderson often talks about his screenwriting process as somewhat mysterious, in which he moves among scenarios in ways that surprise even himself. But he noted the strange manner in which more serious subjects were intersecting with his otherwise delightfully wacky tale. Much of the film finds Korda in transit, typically by airplane—even after surviving multiple crashes caused by would-be assassins, which stokes growing anxiety over how many times he can make it out alive. Korda's steadfast preference for flight travel, however, is meant to reflect his social status; airplanes, Anderson said, have become the ultimate symbol of wealth and power: 'Now,' he observed, in reference to the $400 million aircraft recently gifted to Donald Trump, 'we've got a 747 coming in from Qatar.' If reality is 'filtering in' to The Phoenician Scheme, it's transformed through the usual bundle of Andersonian layers. The film is cold-bloodedly whimsical, asking the audience to root for a merciless man who endeavors, ever so incrementally, to understand some deeper human truths. It follows Korda and his estranged daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), a novitiate nun who insists on the immorality of her father's business interests, which starve and impoverish people worldwide. Korda professes disinterest in Liesl's concerns, but as he flies from country to country dodging assassination attempts and strong-arming fellow businessmen, Anderson allows his protagonist's heart to grow just the teeniest bit: 'My original impression of what I thought we were going to do was a ruthless, brutal, unkillable businessman who is just on his path, totally focused on his own mission and is going to do a lot of damage to not just the people around him, but the world at large, in his own interest,' he told me. Then he wrote the first scene and was surprised to find that it came out more farcical: a comical action set piece in which Korda's secretary is blown in half and Korda has to land a crashing plane by himself. 'I do feel a bit like you start writing a thing, you have your preconceptions,' Anderson said, 'and then it just starts to tell you what it wants to be.' The Phoenician Scheme thus became something funnier and stranger, in which Korda's cruelty is quietly moderated by his daughter and his unspoken fear of death. Every time he brushes close to expiration, Korda is zipped to a surreal, black-and-white netherworld where he's judged by otherworldly beings (including God, played by Bill Murray, wearing white robes and sporting a big beard). As he tries to convince other tycoons (played by other familiar members of the Anderson ensemble, such as Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright, and Mathieu Amalric) to help him finance an ambitious infrastructure proposal, Korda begins to tap into a sense of fellowship he'd otherwise been missing. As he does with Korda, Anderson introduces each of these competing captains of industry under absurd circumstances—such as at a high-stakes basketball game and during a dramatic nightclub shootout—that are befitting their characters. 'These tycoon-y character people, they're cartoons,' Anderson said. 'They always have eccentricities and peculiarities because they can do anything they want.' But his inspiration, beyond famous faces like Onassis or the legendary oil middleman Calouste Gulbenkian, was his own father-in-law: Fouad Malouf, a Lebanese engineer to whom the film is dedicated. This bore out in both Korda's professional interests and his attempt to build a relationship with Liesl: At one point near the end of his life, Malouf produced a series of shoeboxes from his closet of effects gathered throughout his career, and explained their contents to his daughter. The Phoenician Scheme repeats that shoebox imagery. With even his most outlandish stories, Anderson said, 'it just becomes more personal without even me intending it to.' The most fascinating challenge of the film, at least to me, was keeping the screwball energy high while otherwise heeding Anderson's specific style. Each set is carefully assembled, with the blocking of each shot perfectly aligned, and Anderson's rat-a-tat dialogue is delivered exactly as written. Still, there's a spontaneity to the storytelling and the world it's moving through. Anderson's locations reference real places, but they always feel exciting and new, never derivative. [Read: The beauty and sadness of Isle of Dogs] The director's particular approach—one that eschews on-set trailers, keeps all of the cast together (including dining communally and staying at the same hotel), and moves from scene to scene quite quickly—is unusual for larger-scale filmmaking. But Anderson is clearly cheered by the enthusiasm his performers have for the process, and how well the newer members of his family of players have taken to it. Michael Cera (who is fantastic as a fussy Norwegian tutor in Korda's employ) and Riz Ahmed (as Prince Farouk, the heir to the fictional nation of Phoenicia, which is vital to the plot) were Anderson's two big additions this time around, and the filmmaker said that both actors dove in with aplomb. And it shows—they fit comfortably among the Anderson stalwarts, capturing the archness typical of the director's characters. Del Toro's performance is the most crucial component to The Phoenician Scheme; it's the first Anderson movie centered on a single lead since The Grand Budapest Hotel, starring Ralph Fiennes. Del Toro had been in Anderson's head as Korda from the start, so much that he informed the actor of the idea while they were promoting their prior collaboration, 2021's The French Dispatch. Anderson remembered his pitch being vague to a comedic, overblown degree: 'I told him there's some Buñuel aspect to it.'' As I tried to describe Del Toro's on-screen presence to Anderson, I ended up referencing his 'whatever' (American for je ne sais quoi). Del Toro's early roles (in 1990s cult films such as The Usual Suspects and Excess Baggage) smacked of knockoff Marlon Brando: all movement, mumbling charm, and giddy chaos. But with time, the actor has learned to communicate decades of regret and the darkest emotional headspace with barely a flicker of his face. That's the power of his presence, or, as Anderson agreed, his 'whatever.' This isn't the first time Anderson wrote with an actor in mind. As we spoke, he mentioned the late Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums. Hackman's character, Royal Tenenbaum, is another intense father figure who, like Korda, is both brilliant and terrible. But Anderson scripted him two decades ago, before he became a parent. I asked him if the intervening years had changed his investigations into the sins of fatherhood, and he nodded. 'Tenenbaums was completely from the point of view of looking up at the old man,' he said. Now, at age 56, the director is practically Korda's age; he also has a daughter, as do Del Toro and Anderson's frequent story collaborator Roman Coppola: 'I guess we're coming at it from the father's point of view, but, I will say, with a bit of the perspective of still thinking about our own fathers.' The Phoenician Scheme strikes that balance: It's wiser, and it has the looser silliness that comes with middle age—but it's looking up at those imposing father figures, tycoons or no, with awe and fear all the same. Article originally published at The Atlantic
USA Today
4 hours ago
- USA Today
This girl is on fire 🔥
This girl is on fire 🔥 The "John Wick" universe has some new blood. Ana de Armas makes a strong pitch as Hollywood's top action heroine in "Wick" spinoff "Ballerina" – and she gets strong backup from the hitman himself, Keanu Reeves. The franchise return is the latest major summer movie to check out at the cinemas, though if you're in the mood for something quirkier, there's Wes Anderson's comedy "The Phoenician Scheme" with Benicio del Toro and Mia Threapleton. And if you're looking for something to stream at home, here comes a third season of Netflix's soapy dramedy "Ginny & Georgia." Now on to the good stuff: See a fiery Ana de Armas unleashed in 'John Wick' spinoff 'Ballerina' Ever since her criminally short but movie-stealing scene in the last James Bond outing "No Time to Die," action-movie fans have been waiting for Ana de Armas to be unleashed in a full two-hour film. That time is now, fam: She kicks, punches, shoots and stabs with gusto in "Ballerina," a "John Wick" side adventure that focuses on a dancer/assassin (de Armas) who goes after the cult that murdered her dad. It's a strong effort that conjures the neo-noir feel of the other "Wick" flicks with different kinds of fight scenes and an engaging new lead character. (Peep my ★★★½ review.) I sat down with de Armas at CinemaCon, the convention of theater owners, to chat about working with Reeves again on "Ballerina," yearning for more action in her career and how they crafted her character's fights to her disadvantages. 'She gets tired and she's overwhelmed and they keep coming at her. And the only thing that keeps her going is the motivation that she has," says de Armas, who also pays tribute to "Ballerina" co-star Lance Reddick. Introduce yourself to Mia Threapleton's talents in 'The Phoenician Scheme' Benicio del Toro is a delight as a global arms dealer everyone's trying to kill in the Wes Anderson comedy "The Phoenician Scheme" but so is newcomer Mia Threapleton as the guy's estranged, pipe-smoking nun daughter. Here's a fun fact: She's Kate Winslet's kid. She told my bud Patrick Ryan that she dreamed of being a marine biologist ('I feel far more at home under the water than floating on top of it") but seeing Jodie Foster in "Bugsy Malone" sold her on acting. 'I remember thinking, 'This person is amazing!' I wanted to be her,' Threapleton says. "The Phoenician Scheme" is a solid entry in Anderson's signature oeuvre, and a new movie means an update to our ranking of Anderson's weird and wonderful films. Stream Season 3 of Netflix's soapy 'Ginny & Georgia' Are you like me and need to catch up on Netflix's "Ginny & Georgia"? (My bad, got waylaid by the superb "Department Q"!) My colleague Erin Jensen wrote up a guide to what you need to know about the main characters in Season 3 and what you should remember about Season 2. Arrested matriarch Georgia Miller (Brianne Howey) has apparently killed two husbands and framed her son's abusive dad for embezzlement in order to protect her beloved children, so obviously I need to get on that. If you're looking for more streaming shows, TV critic Kelly Lawler has a roundup of everything premiering this weekend. Even more goodness to check out!
USA Today
5 hours ago
- USA Today
Mia Threapleton is Kate Winslet's daughter. Now she's Wes Anderson's latest star.
Mia Threapleton is Kate Winslet's daughter. Now she's Wes Anderson's latest star. Show Caption Hide Caption 'The Phoenician Scheme' trailer: Benicio del Toro is a wanted man Benicio del Toro plays an industrialist with plenty of rivals and a plan to build a grand project in Wes Anderson's "The Phoenician Scheme." Mia Threapleton knows she'll be a Halloween costume. It's something she's been told often since signing on for a starring role in 'The Phoenician Scheme' (in theaters nationwide June 6), the quirky new offering from director Wes Anderson. His idiosyncratic characters have become frequent fodder for spooky season, and Threapleton's pipe-puffing, smoky-eyed novitiate Liesl is destined to join their dress-up ranks. Every time someone says that, 'it just feels more and more bizarre,' says Threapleton, 24, the daughter of Kate Winslet and filmmaker Jim Threapleton. The chance to create a new Anderson character 'still feels surreal. Every day, I seem to be waking up and just thinking, 'Oh, my God, how is this happening?' ' 'Phoenician Scheme' follows Liesl as she's plucked from the convent by her estranged father, Zsa-zsa (Benicio del Toro), to help him get his affairs in order after a near-death experience. The comedy is perfectly tailored to Threapleton, who shares her mom's self-deprecating charm and delightful wit. Here's what to know about the rising star: Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox Mia Threapleton initially wanted to be a marine biologist As a young kid obsessed with whales and docuseries 'The Blue Planet,' Threapleton dreamed for many years of becoming a marine biologist. 'I feel far more at home under the water than floating on top of it – sadly, I don't have gills,' Threapleton quips. 'I still love the natural world. And then at some point, I realized that I'm horrifyingly dyslexic and can't do quick math, so I don't think that's quite going to go the way I planned.' How Jodie Foster sparked her love of acting Growing up, Threapleton recalls putting on shows in her garden and playing a lion in an after-school drama club at age 7. She adored Anderson's movies 'Moonrise Kingdom' and 'Fantastic Mr. Fox,' although it was seeing a young Jodie Foster in gangster musical 'Bugsy Malone' that inspired her to become an actress. 'I remember thinking, 'This person is amazing!' I wanted to be her,' Threapleton says. Eventually, at 15, she started signing up to casting sites, sending her information 'out into the ether' for open calls and auditions. Her parents were initially unaware: 'I didn't actually tell them I'd done that,' Threapleton says. 'That wasn't a conscious decision, I just kind of forgot to tell them – as you do!' She made her major film debut in the dystopian drama 'Shadows' At 13, Threapleton made a brief cameo in 2014's 'A Little Chaos' alongside her mom. But it was the 2020 post-apocalyptic thriller 'Shadows,' after she graduated high school, that marked her first professional acting role. 'I was so relieved to not be in school anymore, so when I was done, I threw myself into wanting to audition,' Threapleton says. 'It was the first-ever full film script that I had seen properly and I just inhaled it into my brain.' The audition process lasted for a couple of weeks before she learned she got the part: 'I was carrying laundry downstairs when my phone rang. I just sat on the floor – I couldn't believe I'd done that.' Mia Threapleton also made a movie with famous mom Kate Winslet The up-and-comer has worked steadily ever since, with roles in Apple TV+ series 'The Buccaneers' and Starz's 'Dangerous Liaisons.' She also starred in the British TV film 'I Am Ruth' with her mom and brother Joe Anders (whose dad is Sam Mendes). Winslet won best actress at the British Academy Television Awards (BAFTA) for the mother-daughter drama, which tackles how social media harms mental health. On the set, 'I did learn that my mum and I are extremely different when it comes to the ways that we prepare and the things we find useful,' Threapleton says. 'I mean, we've got different brains; we're different people. It was a really fascinating experience and an incredibly intense experience at the same time, just because of the subject matter.' There's one major misconception about being Kate Winslet's daughter Despite being the daughter of an Oscar-winning A-lister, Threapleton insists that her childhood was normal: filled with 'running around in fields, getting really dirty knees and making pillow forts.' 'It does seem like this misconception that people have,' Threapleton says. 'I really didn't go to film sets as a kid – I could count on one and a half hands the amount of times that I did. My mum really kept it very separate: Home was home and work was work. The analogy that feels most accurate is that it would've felt like a lawyer taking their child into a courtroom.' Now, 'I'm really grateful I didn't have those experiences as a kid because it meant that in the few opportunities that I have had to do work, I've learned an awful lot. And that's all just happened through my own experiences of doing those things.' She hopes Wes Anderson asks her back after 'Phoenician Scheme' One of Threapleton's favorite recent films is 'Anatomy of a Fall,' and she's itching to work with Sandra Hüller next. She has not yet had a conversation about reuniting with Anderson, now that she's part of his troupe. 'I'm just taking every day one day at a time,' Threapleton says. 'I didn't think this was going to happen for me. I had so many different backup plans: Could I be a photographer? A painter? A sound engineer? What could I do that's still creative if this doesn't work? So I'm just letting it all wash around me right now.'
