NEW YORK — It isn't as if Tom Hankshad to direct Larry Crowne, an amiable recession-themed morale booster opening Friday.

NEW YORK — It isn't as if Tom Hankshad to direct Larry Crowne, an amiable recession-themed morale booster opening Friday.

Not with paydays that have been estimated as high as $49 million a film, a laundry list of coveted acting jobs in upcoming titles (including the 9/11 drama Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) and a production company, Playtone, that boasts an enviable hit-to-miss ratio among its movies (Mamma Mia!) and miniseries (HBO's John Adams).
What is left to prove for the onetime cross-dressing star of the oh-so-'80s sitcom Bosom Buddies after scoring two Oscars in a row for 1993's Philadelphia and 1994's Forrest Gump? That's on top of maintaining the best career box-office tally of any actor, a cool $4 billion and counting.
STORY: Read the review of 'Larry Crowne'
PHOTOS: See Hanks in action
Besides, he already has shown himself to be fully capable of calling the shots with his directing debut, That Thing You Do!, the 1996 toe-tapping ode to '60s pop dreams that launched such barely knowns as Liv Tyler, Charlize Theron, Steve Zahn and Giovanni Ribisi. Plus, there's that off-the-charts likability factor, which comes in handy as a critic-proof shield against occasional stumbles (2004's Ladykillers remake and that Da Vinci Code hair-don't in 2006).
"It's really personal," says Hanks, explaining in part why it took 15 years before he tried directing again. "It's like you're possessed by a demon. It's such a personal fun club that you join while doing it. After That Thing You Do! came out, I kept wishing we were still doing it. But it required a huge amount of affection for what the story was, and personal things take a long time to do."
He might be turning 55 on July 9 and have recently become a grandfather for the first time, thanks to actor son Colin.
But just like his downsized and divorced middle-ager in Larry Crowne, who discovers a world of unexpected opportunities after losing his job at a Walmart-ish store and enrolling in a junior college, he isn't about to rest on his laurels and stop challenging himself.
Settling into a booth in an empty restaurant on the panoramic 35th floor of the Mandarin Oriental for a cup of tea, Hanks exhibits few signs of wear and tear as his globe-spanning promo tour winds down. Smiling even when a waiter tries to serve his order to a companion, he seems energized from the experience of donning multiple hats for Larry Crowne.
Besides the summery straw fedora at his side, they include leading man, co-writer, producer, securer of financing and the lucky fellow who gets to lock lips with the girl. In this case, it's the Pretty Woman herself and Charlie Wilson's War cohort Julia Roberts, whose bitter, boozy burnout of a speech teacher could probably rival Cameron Diaz's delinquent instructor if not for the arrival of Larry Crowne into her classroom.
To boldly explore new characters
"I wanted to play a guy who has the rug pulled out from underneath him," Hanks says of the script he wrote with Nia Vardalos, whose sleeper smash My Big Fat Greek Wedding put Playtone on the map in 2002.
"That's kind of the way it started. Not a highfalutin guy, not one of those fall from grace movies where he is a real-estate magnate or in politics. I just wanted a guy who thought he had risen to the top level of what a guy like him could be, with no college, out of the Navy, working in retail. What if that guy experiences the great firing?"
Those who know their Tom lore, however, might suspect an ulterior motive in his going behind the camera a second time. Namely, an opportunity to hang with the helmsman of the USS Enterprise, Mr. Sulu himself, otherwise known as George Takei of Star Trek.
Hanks doesn't just laugh but brays loudly at the suggestion.
"There is a lot of weight that goes on with that show and the cultural zeitgeist that I carry around in my head," says the unabashed Trekker, who, despite what it says on the Internet Movie Database trivia section under his name, never was offered a part in 1996's Star Trek: First Contact.
"It's not unlike the Rolling Stones, where you tick off moments in your life when you happened to meet the members. Same thing with Star Trek. At one point or another, I have met the members of the original Star Trek cast. I wanted my brush with greatness."
His co-stars suggest there is another reason behind his need to direct: the pleasure Hanks derives from working with others and the pride he takes from running a cheery set.
"He's having fun most of the time," says comic Cedric the Entertainer, who plays Lamar, Larry's best buddy and next-door neighbor, whose lottery winnings allow him to indulge his dream of running a yard sale 24/7. "Although it could be just in his own mind, which concerns me."
Even his directorial style aims to please. "Tom is really well-prepared," Cedric adds. "He knows what shots he wants, but he likes to give the actors enough room to decide what it is you want to do with the character." He is particularly amused by the catchphrase employed by Hanks whenever he is fine with a take: "What is wrong with that?" Meaning, says Cedric, "It's time to move on."
Roberts says she found her experience on Larry Crowne to be "a joyous group effort" and relished the little details that defined her character, from the frozen margaritas she churns in the blender the minute she arrives home to how she sings along to Gilbert & Sullivan's Poor Little Buttercup in her car to drown out the GPS directions.
"I'll tell you that Tom loves his job," she says. "He loves the process of making movies. He loves being joyous and happy. He takes creating a happy environment very seriously, and he knows that showing appreciation is the way to get the best out of people."
Not that he was shy about being the boss. As Roberts, a mother of three, says, "He has four kids, so he knows how to let people know there is a better approach."
But if there was one lesson he took from his first time at bat with That Thing You Do!, it was not to micromanage. "I thought certain decisions were so overpoweringly important that if I didn't make them and enforce them, the movie would be less good. I should have had faith in the alliances I had made artistically."
Someone with Hanks' level of success could hardly be categorized as an underdog. Especially when he not only possesses access to Mick Jagger, but also to the crew of a certain starship.
Heck, even though he based Larry Crowne on his own two years spent studying theater at Chabot, a community college in Hayward, Calif., before enrolling in California State University in Sacramento, he never got a degree. Instead, "I got an offer to go off and do the thing I was studying to do."
No good weekend for release
Yet here he is, pitting his relatively low-budget romantic comedy (or, as Hanks prefers, "an authentic comedy with romance") against the metal-crunching, mayhem-filled 3-D behemoth known as Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which is executive-produced by pal Steven Spielberg, no less.
Add marketing to his hat collection, too. "When you are possessing a movie as much as we are on this, with the name in five places, then you start having those meetings," Hanks says. "Like, when do you release a movie? The truth is, there is no such thing as a safe weekend. Every weekend, a big movie comes out, and it usually has somebody with a secret identity and/or robots from outer space."
But at least the July Fourth weekend offers an extra day to attract those who like their entertainment populated by humans, not robot warriors. The closest Larry Crowne comes to explosive action is when its gang of fuel-efficient scooter riders turns a corner in unison on a neighborhood street.
Though some critics have been taken aback by just how outright square and old-fashioned nice-guy Larry and his movie feel, one senses that this is exactly the effect that Hanks was hoping to achieve.
He is proud that Larry is not tempted to pursue his free-spirited classmate, Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who decides to adopt the stodgy newbie, untuck his old-man polo shirts and provide much-needed friendship.
"There are a couple assumptions that people make, such as he obviously is going to sleep with the young girl," he says. "I say, 'No, that is creepy, and he would not go for that.' Besides, that is a totally different kind of movie that everyone else is already making."
He knows what early viewers are whispering about behind his back.
"Oh, people will say it's a feel-good movie," Hanks says. "Nah. Instead, the economy came along and made it possible to plumb a little deeper. He has lost what he had, but he has gained enough."