How one conversation with Meg Ryan saved Tom Hanks’ entire career: “I was an extremely cranky actor”
It’s hard to imagine the impressive and all-consuming career of Tom Hanks fizzling out. The actor has become such a stalwart on the silver screen that to think of his résumé simply flatlining is to imagine removing a huge chunk of cinematic history. Hanks’ list of roles is simply so extensive with culture-defining roles in Forrest Gump, Toy Story, Saving Private Ryan that his impression on the course of cinematic history is impossible to ignore.
However, despite gaining his first real leading performance in 1988’s Big, there is a good chance that his career could have gone way off the rails in the 1990s had it not been for one phone call from Meg Ryan.
The success of Big left Hanks in an enviable position as he began to assert himself as a leading Hollywood actor. However, some less-aspiring roles followed. Punchline, The Burbs, Turner, and Hooch may have some cult fans now, but they didn’t showcase exactly the actor Hanks would become. The following year, things arguably got worse.
Joe Versus the Volcano and The Bonfire of the Vanities represent some of Hanks’ lowest ebbs, with 1992’s Radio Flyer thankfully a forgettable moment of a year that also included the more appreciated A League of Their Own. The truth is, Hanks was both starting out in the industry and in danger of falling off a cliff, so his next movies would need to land with aplomb. Thankfully, next up on his slate was Sleepless In Seattle.
A classic from Nora Ephron and starring Meg Ryan opposite Hanks in the romantic leads, it has gone down as one of the finest rom-coms ever made. However, getting Hanks into the role was more difficult than it should have been. Originally, the producer liked the idea of teaming up real-life couple Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid in the lead roles, something Ryan was very interested in, even if her pregnancy had left her a little less than keen to work.
But Ephron saw something in Hanks and was determined to snag the upcoming actor. Hanks was very unsure of the role: “I was an extremely cranky actor at that time,” the performer told Erin Carlson for her book I’ll Have What She’s Having. “Coming in and saying, ‘Why does the kid have so many good lines?’ I had made enough movies to get smoked on a couple of occasions as well as thinking that I was a big shot and ‘My voice must be heard’.”
The screenwriter, famous for making When Harry Met Sally an unstoppable piece of cinematic legacy, realised a rewrite was needed to gain both actor’s approval. Hanks was on board, but it took a “difficult conversation” for Ephron to convince Ryan to not only pick up the role but to relinquish the idea of working with Quaid. Thankfully, for Hanks, the actor would agree.
Hanks and Ryan’s performances were electric, capturing the hearts and minds of America and turning the former into perhaps the most sought-after actor in the world. He had added a likeable boyish charm to his canon and could now be cast in the lead roles of movies without issue. The following years, he would take on performances in Forrest Gump, Toy Story, and Saving Private Ryan and become the icon he is today.
