The iconic Tom Hanks role Robert De Niro turned down: “It just got into a pissing contest”
Tom Hanks and Robert De Niro are two cinema legends with a pair of Academy Awards each and a combined filmography that features a multitude of all-time classics, but it’s hard to imagine the pair competing for the same roles.
The former is the affable everyman who used his innate likeability and effervescent charm to evolve from a comedy favourite into an acclaimed dramatist before settling into his current designation as an enduringly popular veteran, a beacon of wholesome positivity and ‘America’s Dad’.
The latter made his name as one of the heirs apparent to Marlon Brando’s transformative method stylings, committing himself fully to every character he played and making the physical and psychological sacrifices necessary to gain an understanding of his characters on a granular level.
They’ve got iconic status in common, but that’s about it. However, the course of Hanks’ career could have turned out very differently if it hadn’t been for De Niro getting a bad case of cold feet. If often takes a single role to turn a working actor into a star, and in the case of Hanks, that happened when he secured the first Academy Award nomination of his career for Big.
The body swap comedy was the perfect showcase for his now-signature blend of comedic timing, pathos, and radiant charisma, but it was De Niro’s for the taking. An offer was on the table, and Martin Scorsese’s muse was seriously contemplating the idea of embodying Josh Baskin in Penny Marshall’s critical and commercial smash hit before his desire to have the production push the boat out financially ended up with the part landing at Hanks’ door instead.
“What happened was Penny wanted me to do it,” De Niro admitted to The New Yorker. “I wanted to do it, then I didn’t want to do it. Then I said, ‘I want this much’, and they said no. So that was that. And, I don’t know, it just got into a pissing contest about the money. So they went the way they did with Tom Hanks, and that was fine.”
Steven Spielberg was also under consideration to direct Big at one stage but ruled himself out of the running because his sister Anne had co-written the screenplay. He didn’t want to steal the spotlight and take credit for the film’s success, so in an alternate reality there’s a version of the movie that was helmed by Spielberg with De Niro in the lead role.
No offence to De Niro, but broad comedy has never been his strongest suit, and it’s hard to imagine Big being anywhere near as whimsical as it turned out to be if he’d been cast. It worked out for the best, especially for Hanks, who used his Oscar-nominated turn as the launchpad to secure the position on the A-list he’s been holding ever since.
