Now Dustin Hoffman has been in some great films: 'The Graduate', 'Tootsie' and erm 'Outbreak'. But Dustin says the best thing he's ever done is fart at Tom Cruise in 'Rainman' (and who can blame him for that), an improvisation that wasn't in the original script. He said: "It's just my favourite moment of any film I've ever done. That includes Shakespeare that I've done onstage, anything."
This made me laugh because it totally reminded me of one of Robert's favorite stories. Way back when he was promoting The Da Vinci Code, I saw an interview with Paul Bettany on Craig Ferguson (I think but wouldn't swear to it) where he relayed a story about making Tom Hanks fart. I thought it was the funniest thing and so shared the story with Robert - he about died and for some reason still thinks it's one of the funniest stories he's ever heard. Rather than retell it myself, I did a quick search and found a pretty faithful retelling from Paul himself (this is from a Jonathan Ross interview and if you think it's easy finding stuff on Tom Hanks farting on Paul Bettany, well... it actually was, kind of. I found this article at Paul's fan site):
JON: Now Tom Hanks is one of the few movie stars I have not met, I have not interviewed. I have no idea. What's he like as a man? What's he like to work with?
PAUL: He's very funny. Y'know, it was a little nerve-wracking to begin with because it was the first Paul Bettany movie he'd ever been in.
JON: I hope he was open and eager to learn from you.
PAUL: Exactly. I tried to put him at his ease. No, I was a bit nervous, and the first thing I had to do was a fight scene. And we rehearsed it, and then we went to shoot it. And I had to leap out at him from nowhere, and I didn't want to hurt him, so I kept giving him a sort of warning, going "Arrrrrrrrhhh!" like this. And he went, "You're making this really weird noise. Could you stop it?"
JON: That's a nice thing that you were doing.
PAUL: Right.
JON: 'Cause he's an older gentleman, and he's still--
PAUL: I'm trying to give him some warning so I don't hurt him. But I did what he said. I jumped out, surprised the shit out of him, ran him across the room, hit him up against this light, and then it fell over, and I smacked him in the stomach. And he let out the most ghastly fart that you've -- [laughter] No, seriously, it was like spppppplllzzzzt! And I'm supposed to carry on with this really sort of tense scene, and I whip my gun out, and I'm supposed to look like this scary monk. But I'm actually looking like this [confused face], thinking I don't know what the form is. I just made Tom Hanks fart. Do I blame myself? Do I laugh? I'm a coward, so of course I elected to ignore it.
JON: Well, I think that's the polite thing to do, actually.
PAUL: But I went up to him and I picked him up, and he was roaring with laughter. And he said, "You made me fart on your first take! That's fantastic! What are you gonna do on your second?" I'm not going into that.
Man, I can hear Robert's man-cackle in my head right now! :o)
