Filming a movie about a man who ends up alone and desolate on an island sounds like it might have been fun - kind of like an impromptu holiday, right? But Hanks describes the experience as 'exhausting'. First came the colossal weight gain: "I was 40lb over. Just horribly fat." Next, three months filming on the obscure Fijian island of Monuriki, home of little beyond the critically endangered crested iguana. Then he had a year to lose the excess weight and to cultivate the Crusoe-like beard for the latter half of the film. Finally, five stone lighter, he returned to Monuriki, only to be interrupted when a blister on Hanks's knee, untreated in the heat, turned septic. He had to go straight back to California into hospital to have it fixed up. Still, the film turned out to be a great success, so it can't have been all bad.
I love Stephen King and music festivals; I eat my toast upside down; I daydream about getting married probably a bit too much; and I wish every day for a pet sausage dog puppy (who never materialises – sob).
