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FROM MTV MOVIES: The first time Tom Hanks stepped behind the camera on a big-screen production, he captured a story set in the early 1960s, a period he had lived through as a preteen. But the particulars of "That Thing You Do!" — a rock band that rides a hit song to fame but can't follow through on their initial promise — couldn't have been further from Hanks' California childhood.

His second directorial effort, however, was inspired by events from his past, even if it does not seem so at first glance. In "Larry Crowne" — the upcoming comedy he also co-wrote and in which he stars with Julia Roberts — Hanks plays the title character, a guy fired from his job at a big-box retail store and forced to go back to college, where he meets a professor named Mercy Tainot (played by Roberts). But as Hanks told MTV News as part of our Summer Movie Preview week, he actually relates to his character's plight.

"My first years in college were much like Larry's," he told us. "I was in junior college because it was my only option — if I didn't enroll right after high school I would have had no path to any future. Two years in junior college became the jumping-off point for everything that came later and I think this was the same for others — not just kids out of high school, but guys back from Vietnam, wives going back to school after their kids were older, and folks who were looking to change their lives for the better."

Read the full story at MTV Movies!

Tags Larry Crowne, Summer Movie Preview, tom hanks