Colin Hanks on The Good Guys, Mad Men, and Comparing Himself to Dad

I have to ask you about your time on Mad Men as Father Gil. There are several levels to that character -- the good intentions, the slight repression, his prodding of Peggy. How did you figure him out?

The interesting thing is you sort of do as much work as you possibly can. You memorize your lines, you have conversations with the writers. I had conversations with Matthew Weiner about how he sort of fits in and, again, "What's the story here?" The interesting thing with Father Gil was the amount of stuff that people brought to the character that we didn't necessarily really have to do. There was a great freedom with that. I mean, we had our A's, B's, and C's that we needed to hit, very specific moments.

I don't know if it's people's own issues with priests or the way that their brains start coming up with different ideas for what the show might be when they're watching it and sort of playing along with the show. "Oh, now this is going to happen!" There's a lot of stuff that people brought to the party on their own. When the show was on, the first question was, "Is he going to sleep with Peggy?" It was really interesting to see people's reactions to what was going on because I don't believe we gave any serious indication that that was going to happen. The real thing that was going was that Father Gil was trying to fight for her soul -- was trying to save her soul. (Laughs.) That's really what it was. That's not to say he wasn't a repressed individual and he might've had some physical attraction to Peggy. There's always that stuff there, like, "Oh, of course, Father Gil would like to be with Peggy, of course." But Father Gil knew exactly what was going on with Peggy and Peggy refused to admit it to him. That's what the real relationship was.

The challenge for me was trying to deliver this dialogue that was a conversation I would never have with anyone. Saying things like, "Hell is a very real place, and if you don't confess...," you know, those kinds of things. These very philosophical -- well, actually, not philosophical, but theological conversations that I frankly don't have with people. That was the main challenge. Everything else, I thought it was so well-written, the cat and mouse game. What was interesting was that everyone took it as such a sexual thing. That's not to say that I don't like that people thought it was a sexual thing. It was interesting to see people's reactions. I was just trying to not screw up! I was and still am a huge fan of the show. I didn't want to be a weak link, or one of those characters where you go, "I can't wait for this storyline to be over." That was really sort of my biggest fear. I just wanted to the best job I could.

I think our suspicions about Father Gil's sexual undertones were allayed when, after all this build-up surrounding his character, we finally see him in a private moment, and he's jamming on a Peter, Paul and Mary song.

Well, yeah. It was a song about the Lord! Which was interesting. The thing that I really did like about him, he did represent the world changing -- the same as everyone else does on that show. There are some characters on that show that are steeped in the past, and there are characters that are representative of the future. Even though he was involved in arguably the oldest of the professions, so to speak, the church, he still represented the youth and moving forward and, for lack of a better term, evolving. There were certain things that were very traditional in his beliefs, but he was trying to change the way the message was told. I wanted to be the smoking, drinking ad guy! I got a suit, but it was the wrong kind of suit.

You mentioned John Malkovich earlier. I notice you've worked with two totemic actors -- Malkovich, in The Great Buck Howard, and Jane Fonda, in the Broadway play 33 Variations. Can you talk about working with these two -- and I'm picking a word specific to them -- fierce presences?

It's interesting. More than anything, you instantly see them as human beings. John was and is an extremely nice, fun guy to work with and to be around. He's got a great sense of humor and could talk about any billion different things. Very friendly. That's not to say he doesn't scare the bejesus out of other people. And he scared the bejesus out of me at first. And then I said, "Oh, this is like a normal guy." Jane Fonda is no different. With Jane, I think the thing that was so interesting with her is she was so excited and nervous to be on Broadway, as was I. The only difference -- and this is coming from her mouth -- "I haven't done Broadway since Kennedy was president!" She was nervous just like I was nervous. It was different, yet it was similar. When you see these performers who are sort of larger than life and have their own, I don't know, mystique about them, you see they're just like normal people. Really refreshing.

Lastly, you have two films coming up that could mark a departure for you. Lucky is a kooky serial killer movie, and High School is a seemingly off-kilter movie. Could this be the beginning of... a dark period? A blue period?

Lucky is a black comedy, but it's really a comedy. And High School is just a stoner comedy! They're just comedies, supposed to be funny. I would love for a little bit of a blue period, but comedies seem to be the only things they want to make that they want me to be in. I take the best of what's given to me, and those things are funny. With High School, what was interesting I was no longer the kid. I was the assistant principal. That made me laugh. With Lucky, the thing that was enjoyable about that was that this woman discovers her husband is a serial killer. It was fun to play with those kinds of things, to mess with people's minds a little bit. To do something a little different, but also funny, enjoyable and... "Oh, what a sweet guy! Can't believe he's a killer." That's fun, sort of messing with people's minds a little bit.

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