The iconic Tom Hanks role Jeff Bridges auditioned for: “That’s one I knew would be a hit”
Even though they’re only less than seven years apart in age, it’s hard to imagine Tom Hanks and Jeff Bridges circling many of the same roles when they’re so different as performers.
The former is the genial everyman who evolved into ‘America’s Dad’ after lending his dramatic chops to a number of acclaimed critical darlings, awards season juggernauts, and box office sensations, which all came in the years after he’d initially found fame as a comedy star and endearing romantic leading man.
The latter started acting as a child in his famous father’s TV shows before instilling almost every part he played with an effortless sense of cool and laid-back charisma. They’re of the same generation, they’re both Academy Award-winning legends, and they exist as respected elder statesmen of Hollywood, but they can’t have found themselves under consideration for the same gig all too often.
Hanks sure as shit couldn’t play The Dude, and Bridges as Forrest Gump would be a disaster. It would be impossible to buy Hanks as stepping into John Wayne’s shoes as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, just as it would be preposterous to imagine Bridges embodying Fred Rogers in Another Day in the Neighbourhood.
And yet, the course of cinema history could have been altered forever after Bridges revealed he auditioned for the part in Big that turned Hanks into an A-lister, landed him the first Academy Award nomination of his career, and set the template for the aw-shucks qualities he’d built his entire screen persona around in the years to follow.
“I remember going out for it. This is many, many years ago. It was shortly after Starman, I think,” Bridges recalled to Business Insider. “I don’t know how close I was to getting the part. I met with Penny Marshall, and that’s one that I knew would be a hit. It just felt hit-ish.”
He was completely correct, with Big earning over $150 million at the box office, landing on the Golden Globes shortlist for ‘Best Picture – Musical or Comedy’, and securing Hanks a ‘Best Actor’ statue from the same ceremony in the corresponding category. Bridges knew it would be, well, big, but he could never truly envision himself as Josh Baskin.
“But it’s like you go to a store, and you see a jacket, and you go, ‘I love that jacket’, and you try it on, and it’s too big or too small for you, and it’s the only one they have,” came his unusual analogy for realising he wasn’t the right guy. “For some reason, that part just didn’t fit me.”
Of course, it ended up fitting Hanks like a glove and became the single most important role of his entire career. To think, in an alternate timeline, it’s Bridges dancing on that giant keyboard in such an iconic fashion.
