Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks Talk Coen Brothers Influence On ‘Bridge Of Spies’

*Updated December 2025

ShowBizCafe had a chance to ask Steven Spielberg and the cast about the Coen Brothers’ influence on the Cold War drama Bridge of Spies.

ShowBizCafe: This film has a very distinct Coen Brothers flair. I wanted to know how their style affected your direction and your acting?

Steven Spielberg: The Coen Brothers are not here to speak for themselves, so I am just going to hazard a guess that this was a genre that they were very compelled by from their early years as lovers of movies. I know that they reached out to us because they heard about the story and they expressed their interest.

When they reached out to us, they thought that we just had a treatment and didn’t even have a script yet. They were wondering if I wanted to meet with them. I let them know that we did have a wonderful script by Matt Charman, but I was going to go deep with all the characters, deeper with the story, and deeper with the research. They threw their hats in the ring. They really came to us and stepped on board because this was a genre that really piqued their interests. We are very lucky to have them.

Mark Rylance: Matt’s script?

Steven Spielberg: Yes. They made a huge contribution while always acknowledging the heavy lifting that Matt Charman did when he first found the story and put it all together in a manageable, very taut drama.

Mark Rylance: I took the job on the first script, which as Steven said was a wonderful job. It was absolutely fascinating to then see what the Coen Brothers’ imagination does to a script, working hand-in-hand with Steven. My image for it is going to a very good masseur and you feel all the blood and the energy going right to the fingertips. The core blood of the theme of the piece was now suddenly into all extremities and details of the story.

It was not a different story than what Matt had created. It was Matt’s body, but they just kind of really got the spine in place and massaged it. They clicked a few things and it felt even more alive and whole.

Alan Alda: Did they come up with that wonderful scene early on about “it’s not my guy?”

Steven Spielberg: Yes.

Alan Alda: Because that is such a great opening.

Tom Hanks: This is the second time I have been in anything that the Coens have done. I call them Joel and Ethan. Their dialogue scans, if you know what that means. It ends up devolving into almost a percussive give-and-take that is different than other motion picture dialogue in which there is mostly text as opposed to subtext.

There are a number of great examples of it throughout, but that first scene, which is essentially an insurance negotiation, is them to a tee. I don’t want to put too many roses on what they do, but there is a cadence that is individual to each character. The dialogue scans in a way. A lot of times you read a screenplay in which one very specific thing is happening in the scene and both characters sound the same after a while.

They just lock into an antagonist and protagonist thing. That never happens with this. It seems as though somebody is rocking back on their heels in a Coen Brothers scene while another person is making arguments you can’t even begin to imagine. I must say it is pretty cool when you get to wrap your heads around it.

Alan Alda: Did they add that “Would it help?” line?

Tom Hanks: That is a good question. I don’t know.

Steven Spielberg: Yes.

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