Ron Howard, Tom Hanks talk ‘Inferno’ praising Irrfan Khan
A new Dan Brown inspired film is headed to theaters as Ron Howard will direct Tom Hanks in Inferno alongside Oscar winner Felicity Jones and Irrfan Khan. NDTV Movies reported that Hanks had praise for co-star Khan has an endearing personality and that he is beguiled by him.
“I’m just beguiled by his magic eyes. He has a physicality to him that is so specific and endearing,” Hanks said about his co-star at a recent Sony press event at Cancun, Mexico.
Hanks has yet to shoot scenes with Khan but he has nothing but praises towards his co-star.
“We’re a bit frustrated because I have a number of very huge scenes to work with Irrfan, but we haven’t gotten to them yet and as it is now, we’ve done, I don’t know, six or seven scenes with him and he’s only had one line to say. So, I wonder if he can actually string together more than a few phrases. I’m confident that he can, but will remain to be seen,” Hanks explained.
Howard assured fans that Irrfan has important scenes in the movie.
“We’ve done a few scenes where he does nothing but talk. Tom just hasn’t been in those yet,” he said, to which Hanks quipped, “Yeah, I call those, ‘days off’.”
Howard said Irrfan had specifically asked about Sims role when he first spoke to him.
“His value is his artistry. He’s a tremendous actor and I’ve been a fan for a long time. And when I spoke to him about the movie, he specifically asked about the role of Sims. Now, Irrfan does not fit the description of the character as written in the book, but his case for himself, his creative ideas about playing Sims completely won me over and he’s an absolute pleasure to work with and incredibly intelligent,” said Howard.
Hanks and Howard have previously worked together on The Da Vinci Code as well as Brown’s Angels and Demons. Jones stars as Dr. Sienna Brooks and also stars Ben Foster, Omar Sy and Sidse Babett Knudsen.
Inferno will land in theaters on October 14 this year.
