CANNES, FRANCE: Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson had an "altercation" with a staffer on the red carpet at the Cannes film festival on Tuesday night, May 23, multiple reports claimed. However, the rumors were shot down after Rita explained to her fans on Instagram that their overwrought expressions were a result of them trying to have a discussion with a member of staff at the event.
"This is called I can't hear you," she said. A body language expert claimed that although the couple might appear to be animated at the moment, they were just trying to communicate clearly.
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'The din around them made it difficult'
"As anyone who is hearing-impaired knows, the facial expressions you pull when you’re struggling to hear someone speak can often mimic signals of anger or irritation," body language expert Judi James told The Mirror. "Which is why I’m going to call this red carpet body language out in favor of Tom and Rita’s explanation."
She continued, "Both are leaning forward towards the red carpet manager here and it seems the din around them made it difficult to hear their directions. Tom’s deeply-etched frown and the way his eyes stare at the man’s face suggest he is trying to listen intently rather than be threatening. We tend to wince when we want to show we’re deafened by surrounding noise and our eyes can fall on the lips of the person we’re trying to hear in an attempt to lip-read."
"Tom jerks his right thumb backward, which would fit with the fact that he was asking if they should join the line-up behind them. In another shot, he is pointing forward, as though checking. Rita appears to be pointing directly at the guy, which might have suggested anger, except her hand is palm-up and the finger is crooked, which would suggest ‘can I just check?’. Only her lower jaw-jut might suggest impatience," James pointed out.
"The body language does look dramatic from a man known as the nicest man in Hollywood but there is a bigger clue in another pic that seems to confirm their version of events when Hanks is actually cupping his ear, which is a sure sign of a problem hearing what is being said," she added. "The contrast with the couple’s very stretched and rigid-looking showtime smiles as they pose up for the press a few moments later looks stark but I’d definitely give Tom the benefit of the doubt here, otherwise we’d be calling the well-documented niceness out as a sham."
Cannes staffer speaks out
Hanks was apparently missing for a photoshoot for his new film 'Asteroid City'. Cannes Red Carpet manager Vincent Chapalain, who has worked for the prestigious film event for a decade, spoke out after the incident. While it did appear he was involved in a heated exchange with the top movie stars, he insisted that this was not the case.
"They simply asked me if they should return to the start of the carpet with the rest of the film crew (I am not security)," he tweeted. "And with the cries of photographers, they needed to speak loudly."
