Tom Hanks Defends The Da Vinci Code

Posted on May 15, 2006

The Catholic Church has told its members not to see it. A Catholic Bishop wants to sue over the film. Opus Dei, the secretive Catholic society that is a prime villain in the film demanded that Ron Howard change the script to portray them more favorably (he refused). Now, Tom Hanks is speaking out in defense of the film.

Da Vinci Code star Tom Hanks has said the film of Dan Brown's controversial best-seller is just "a good story" that should not be taken too seriously.... "If you are going to take any sort of movie at face value, particularly a huge-budget motion picture like this, you'd be making a very big mistake."
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Leading figures in the Catholic Church have called for a boycott of the film, which they claim is blasphemous and an attack on their faith. Author Brown's book includes a tale that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and had children, a secret bloodline that has been covered up by the Catholic Church. But Hanks, who plays a Harvard professor in Ron Howard's film, said the film was "a lot of fun", likening it to a "scavenger hunt". "We always knew there would be a segment of society that would not want this movie to be shown," he said. But he claimed that it "never hurts" for a film to provoke "dialogue" about religious issues and history.

The film opens nationwide on Friday, May 19, 2006. We can't wait!

TOM HANKS