If he and Banderas had been filmed passionately entangled, the hoopla over movie star Tom Hanks snogging another man on screen would have overshadowed the movie’s message of compassion and empathy. However he felt that, in order to reach a mainstream audience, care had to be taken in how Andrew was presented. Hanks was respectful of Kramer’s position. In fact, I did not for one second believe he was gay. "I couldn't tell you anything about him – his beliefs, his likes and dislikes, his feelings. “The Hanks character is an utter cipher," Kramer said. One of the loudest fault-finders was gay rights activist Larry Kramer, who described Philadelphia as “legally, medically, and politically inaccurate”. The Beckett character was attacked in some quarters as two-dimensional and desexualised, with the decision to cut a scene in which Beckett and Miguel cuddle in bed attracting criticism (Demme said it just didn’t work dramatically). Philadelphia was not universally beloved among the gay community. It was much more simple than I thought it was.” I had to be educated, to literally know what the virus does to you…It was a substantial eye-opener. “I didn’t know many people with Aids,” said Hanks. And, besides, the Miller character had to be funny.
However, he also had to convey the painful fact that Miller was supposed to be an insider.Ĭasting an African-American would mean the story was told from the perspective of two outsiders – a gay man and a member of a racial minority. He had always wanted to work with the Oscar-winning Washington and was mindful of not burning bridges. The actor called Demme out of the blue several days later. Washington was immediately drawn to the character of Joe Miller – a somewhat shifty lawyer who journeys from committed homophobe to Andrew’s passionate advocate in court. Washington enquired what Saxon was reading. But then Demme’s co-producer, Edward Saxon, found himself seated close to Denzel Washington on a flight from New York to Los Angeles. The plan was to cast a comic white actor in the Robin Williams or Bill Murray vein someone who would have the viewers’s trust from the outset. The case was settled in 1996, with the defendants acknowledging Philadelphia had been “inspired in part” by Bowers experiences.
Indeed, the family of one Aids suffer, Geoffrey Bowers, would later sue the producers of Philadelphia, claiming that their late son’s story had been ripped off beat for beat. The story was far from implausible, as several lawyers been jettisoned in just such circumstances. But Beckett, even as he is dying, isn’t lying down and sues his former employer for workplace discrimination and wrongful dismissal. The official reason for the firing is that he’s a sloppy employee. Hank’s character is sacked by his high-powered law firm after a senior partner spots a tell-tale lesion on his forehead (a instant giveaway of Aids in the Eighties and early Nineties). That is, to average Americans who regarded homosexuality as, at best, unnatural, at worst, mortally sinful, and whose terror of Aids was eclipsed only by their lack of understanding of the condition. To do so, he felt had to craft a movie that would appeal “to the malls”.