The actor Tom Hanks sabotaged out of a role: “More suited to a high school play”
It’s impossible to fake being a nice guy for over 40 years, so everyone can assume that Tom Hanks is the real deal. He comes across as a top bloke; nobody has anything bad to say about him, and he’s navigated a cutthroat industry without resorting to spite or underhanded tactics to get his way. Or has he?
The two-time Academy Award winner has earned his stripes as modern cinema’s most affable leading man, segueing from comedy and romance to heavyweight drama before settling into his current groove as one of Hollywood’s most popular and dependable veterans. However, nobody makes it to the top without showing a little bit of ruthlessness, although there’s a heavy dose of irony to Hanks’ subterfuge.
Ask him which of his films he likes the least, and there’s a high chance he’d answer with The Bonfire of the Vanities. As the adaptation of a popular novel directed by Brian De Palma that boasted Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, and Morgan Freeman among its ensemble, the 1990 black comedy had all the makings of a guaranteed hit. Unfortunately, it was the opposite.
The movie tanked at the box office, earned five Razzie nominations, including ‘Worst Picture’, ‘Worst Director’, and ‘Worst Screenplay’, and isn’t fondly remembered by anyone who was involved. With the benefit of hindsight, Uma Thurman dodged a bullet when she auditioned for Griffith’s role and was effectively ruled out of the running by Hanks’ declaration that she wasn’t good enough.
Thurman, who was only a teenager at the time of her audition, mesmerised Hanks from the second she sauntered into the room. “When she walked in here, I was stunned,” he told De Palma, per Julie Salamon’s book, The Devil’s Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities.”She’s quite attractive, almost erotic. She certainly has a sense of play.”
Suitably won over, the director started organising a screen test. Despite his immediate infatuation, though, Hanks was reluctant to run lines with Thurman, saying that her initial audition was “more suited to a high school play” than the Maria Ruskin he’d imagined in his head when he signed on to play Sherman McCoy. “I just can’t act with Uma,” he said, and she was suddenly out of the picture.
According to Salamon, a subpar screen test opposite Hanks – in which he was equally culpable in delivering work nowhere near his best – was the final nail in the coffin for her chances of landing the part. While it isn’t overly acknowledged or admitted, it certainly sounds like he sandbagged her to convince De Palma that she wasn’t the right fit.
Ironically, it would be a blessing in disguise for Thurman, who avoided the ignominy of starring in The Bonfire of the Vanities, a major misfire that would haunt Hanks and several other of his colleagues for years to come.
