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Tom Hanks jokes about ‘The Post' co-star Meryl Streep calling her ‘high maintenance'

When Hollywood legend Tom Hanks appeared on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" to promote his new movie "The Post," he managed to find time to take a few playful jabs at his co-star and fellow Hollywood legend Meryl Streep.

Colbert and Hanks were having a friendly chat when Colbert mentioned the veteran actress. Hanks rolled his eyes and said, "You mean, can I just say, Meryl 'High Maintenance' Streep?'"

This clearly peaked Colbert’s interest. “Oh really? Diva?” the host asked.

“Look, the shoes alone, man,” Hanks quipped, before quickly adding, “No, I am so joking.”

He made sure to clarify that Streep isn’t actually a diva.

“You know what’s scary about Meryl? She comes in and does it just like everybody else does,” Hanks said. “You’re expecting French horns before she enters the stage.”

Putting on a posh accent he added, "You expect a guy in livery to come out: 'Ladies and gentlemen, the actress known as Meryl Streep.' And she comes in and waves to the crew the way the royals used to."

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In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the Academy Award winning actor issued a warning to those who aspire to a career in Hollywood: "There are predators absolutely everywhere."

Hanks began his musings on the recent wave of sexual assault scandals by addressing the positive aspects of Hollywood: "There's a lot of reasons people do this for a living. Making a movie is a life experience that can create an awful lot of joy," he said. "You can meet the person you fall in love with, you can laugh your heads off. That's the good stuff."

But the 61-year-old "Forrest Gump" star added that there were sinister elements in the film industry: "The bad stuff can happen on a movie as well. There are some people who go into this business because they get off on having power," he said. "And the times they feel the most powerful, which is why they went into the business, are when they are hitting on somebody who's underneath them, [and] I don't necessarily mean completely sexually," he said. "There are predators absolutely everywhere."

But true to his reputation as a Hollywood nice guy, Hanks ended his train of thought on the matter with a hint of optimism:

“Somebody said, ‘Is it too late to change things?’ No, it’s never too late,” Hanks said. “It’s never too late to learn new behaviors. And that’s a responsibility of anybody who wants to obey a code of professional ethics.”

"The Post" is based on a true story involving the Pentagon Papers and the cover-up that spanned four U.S. presidents and pushed the country's first female newspaper publisher, Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep), and a hard-driving editor, Ben Bradlee (Hanks), to join in an unprecedented battle between journalism and government. It was directed by Hanks' longtime collaborator Steven Spielberg.