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For His Naval Epic ‘Greyhound,’ Tom Hanks Cast America’s Last World War II Destroyer

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Tom Hanks’ new World War II thriller ‘Greyhound’ is one of the most authentic portrayals of naval warfare since 2003’s Napoleonic Wars epic ‘Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World.’
Tom Hanks’ new World War II thriller Greyhound is the most authentic film portrayal of naval warfare since 2003’s Napoleonic Wars epic Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World.
There’s a good reason for that authenticity. America’s last surviving World War II destroyer, the former USS Kidd, plays a starring role.
Greyhound’s plot is simple. It’s early 1942. Hanks plays Captain Krause, the skipper of the fictional U. S. Navy destroyer USS Keeling. Krause and his crew lead an American-Canadian-British escort force shepherding a convoy from North America to Britain.
A wolfpack of German U-boats stalks the convoy.
And that’s it. Greyhound is 90 minutes of high tension and cold, sea-soaked, bloody realism.
Hanks faithfully adapted the script from C. S. Forester’s 1955 classic novel The Good Shepherd. Director Aaron Schneider and editors Mark Czyzewski and Sidney Wolinsky keep Hanks, his crew and Keeling in the center of almost every shot.
If Greyhound looks and feels real, it’s because Hanks and company shot many scenes aboard the 376-foot Kidd at her museum on the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge. For some shots, director Schneider swapped out Kidd with a reproduction of the ship’s bridge, mounted on moving gimbals.
The other ships in the movie are digital recreations of real-life vessels.

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