Short Takes : Hanks Pooh-Poohs Gripes Over Filming of ‘Bonfire of Vanities’

Tom Hanks says the much-ballyhooed protests that accompanied filming of the soon-to-be released movie “The Bonfire of the Vanities” were overblown efforts to horn in on the act.

“Nothing much really happened,” Hanks says in the Winter issue of Fame.

“Remember, it was ‘Bonfire’ we were shooting . . . so there were a lot of people who had a very great interest in it and wanted to get their two cents worth in,” Hanks said.

In the movie based on Tom Wolfe’s novel of the same name, Hanks plays Wall Street bond salesman Sherman McCoy, who is thrust into the New York court system after he accidentally kills a black youth.

During filming in May, Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer objected to a Bronx courthouse being used for filming, complaining that the movie unfairly painted the area as dangerous. He tried to get Warner Bros. to add a disclaimer.