Actor Tom Hanks said the real draw for him to reprise his role as fictional symbologist Robert Langdon in the film adaptation of Dan Brown’s thriller “Inferno” was the chance to be “the smartest guy in the room.”
“You give me the right amount of verbiage and just enough time to do the right amount of research, and I can convince you that I may be the smartest guy in the room,” the actor said with a laugh to reporters on Thursday.
“The gift that Dan Brown gave me as an actor is to play a guy who’s always curious, who’s always opinionated and who’s always searching for an answer.”
Hanks joined cast members including Felicity Jones and Irrfan Khan, director Ron Howard and author Brown at a news conference for the film in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio.
Hanks and Howard previously brought Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” and “Angels and Demons” to life in hit blockbuster films.
Sony Pictures’ “Inferno,” due in theaters on Oct. 28, follows Langdon as he wakes up in Florence with amnesia and has to decipher clues to stop a plague being released by an elusive billionaire who tries to tackle overpopulation
