Here’s where 2000’s survival drama Cast Away was shot. Tom Hanks first became famous in the 1980s for comedic roles in the likes of Splash, Big, and The Money Pit. Following the epic failure of 1990’s The Bonfire Of The Vanities, he would move towards more dramatic roles. He won acclaim for Philadelphia, Forrest Gump and Saving Private Ryan, in addition to appearing in the occasional lighthearted romp like You’ve Got Mail or voicing Woody in the Toy Story franchise.

Tom Hanks’ CV is pretty varied and can range from the goofiest comedy to the darkest drama. He also unexpectedly spawned a comic icon in the form of David S. Pumpkins after appearing as the bizarre character in a Saturday Night Live skit. While the sketch itself was funny, the animated spinoff The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special proved it was probably best to leave the character alone.

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Tom Hanks originated the concept of Cast Away himself, which found his FedEx employee stranded on a remote island in the South Pacific after his plane crashes, leaving him the only survivor. The movie was directed by Robert Zemeckis (Back To The Future) and found Hanks going full method, gaining weight to play the character during his initial stranding before the story jumps four years to find his physique more lean and wiry. The production shut down for a year to allow Hanks time to lose this weight, while Zemeckis switched his focus to ghost story What Lies Beneath.

Even though Hanks’ character Chuck has a somewhat miserable time on the island in Cast Away – including some wince-inducing self-dentistry – the location itself is beautiful. That’s because it was mostly shot on the uninhabited Monu-Riki island in Fiji, which became a tourism spot after the film’s release. Cast Away also filmed near Red Square in Russia for the opening sequence where Chuck gives local FedEx employees there a lecture on the importance of time. The final scene where he finally delivers the package and comes to a literal crossroads in his life was shot in the town of Canadian in Texas.

Cast Away also did some filming at the Brownstone Street backlot at Universal Studios, where was also used in the likes of Bruce Almighty and Home Alone 2: Lost In New York. While the movie has no connection with the eventual show, the original pitch for Lost was as a Cast Away-style TV series, which morphed over time into the famous ABC show.

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Padraig Cotter
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It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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