Tom Hanks arrived at the "Larry Crowne" premiere Monday night on the same powder-blue scooter that his eponymous character rides in the film.

Flanked by a crew of fellow scooter riders, Hanks motored up and down the carpet outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre and out onto Hollywood Boulevard to the delight of a thick row of screaming fans.

"Watch out babies!" Hanks yelled as an emotional woman in jean shorts and a wide-brimmed, fuzzy blue hat broke loose from the crowd of onlookers across the street and ran onto the carpet shrieking, "Tom Hanks!" only to be chased into traffic by security.

Hanks' costars Julia Roberts, Rita Wilson, Wilmer Valderrama, Cedric the Entertainer, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bryan Cranston, Nia Vardalos, Rami Malek, George Takei and more soon appeared on the carpet. The night was warm and balmy, a fact much remarked upon by the attendees, and the mood was light and excitable.

And apparently light and excitable was how things felt most of the time on set, according to Roberts, who said that Hanks, who cowrote, directed and starred in the film, likes it that way, and that his cast's happiness was of great importance to him.

Said Hanks: "The best part about being an actor as a director is when the whole cast comes in for the first time and they are better than you imagined and you can't imagine the film without them in it."