Smash hit

I suppose it means having a mind that’s faster than your body. I suppose it means favouring words that are well-loved classic one-liners rather than anything you want to take a risk about.

It’s a big golden room. His eyes are too far away to see if they’re Asia blue or watery. He tells us that he didn’t have a close relationship with his father. “But he survived the Depression because of his reputation for honesty. I learnt something about morality from him.”

He likes to talk about morality. He likes to give quasi-political diatribes. But underneath the dryness there’s a real passion for the movie he’s just played. It’s as if he wants to keep everything in check, contained, compact. When someone asks, Is there a role in your career you would have loved to have played? There’s a long pause.

“God,” he says. “Cheap answer to a good question.” And the natural follow-up is, “If you were God what would you like to change?”

“I think we’d have to explore that over four or five hours. I couldn’t answer.”

I learn that there are lots of things that he answers with a metaphor, or a joke, or a cliche. He doesn’t like detail. But it’s a press conference. Detail isn’t necessary. When someone asks him, What are you most proud of? He says, “Maintaining a pulse, and still on the right side of the grass. And I consider that an achievement.”

An Italian-sounding journalist wants to take that on, wants to know what he wants to achieve. What is it that would make him take on a role after all this time?

He shrugs, “My salad dressing is out-grossing my films.”

There’s a peculiar tension because we don’t know if he’s seriously worried about that. Then he says, “That deserved a better laugh,” and everyone laughs politely.

A South American lady says with see-through charmlessness, “It’s wonderful to see you so energetic and youthful. How do you keep it up?”

There’s a cackling at the innuendo. We are all relieved because press conferences really are awful things. Newman rises above it and says, “I keep up energy with a race car which has 670 horse power.”

After a lot of praise for Tom Hanks who plays his adopted son in the movie, the good guy lost in the bad world, and praise for Mendes, someone slips in a “how come your marriage is still working out” question.

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