The movie Tom Hanks thought he could “bullshit” his way through
Over the past four decades, Tom Hanks has solidified his status as one of Hollywood’s most cherished actors, consistently gracing the screen in blockbuster hits. His breakthrough moment arrived with the 1988 fantasy comedy Big, directed by Penny Marsh. However, it wasn’t until the early 1990s that he realised his full potential.
A performance in Philadelphia alongside Denzel Washington in 1993, followed by Forrest Gump the next year, earned the California-born actor his only two Academy Awards to date, both for ‘Best Actor’. These trophies made Hanks only the second actor, following Spencer Tracy, to win two consecutive ‘Best Actor’ Oscars.
Following this accolade peak, Hanks maintained consistent applause over the years, appearing in a vast range of highly successful movies, from the child-friendly scenes of Toy Story to the bloodied beaches of Saving Private Ryan. In fact, Hanks’ back catalogue is nothing short of staggering; so, what’s his secret?
Beyond acting prowess, an actor of Hanks’ calibre requires a good nose for successful projects, especially during an early rise to prominence. In a 2001 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Hanks reflected on his tongue-in-cheek, early career TV roles, such as Bosom Buddies and The Love Boat.
“Somewhere in the middle of my career, there came a moment when I said, ‘I’m not going to play pussies anymore.’ Up until then, I’d made a career out of playing ordinary guys who couldn’t figure out how things work,” Hanks said. “After I did A League of Their Own [in 1992], I took a year off from making any artistic decisions. At that time, my career was an express train. I was continually being asked to make movies, so I felt I had won an actor’s lottery. If people were asking, how could I say no? That would be insane. But I finally had to ask myself, ‘What kind of creative entity am I? And when do I start to control some of my artistic destiny?'”
From this moment forward, Hanks learnt to be more selective and established a cinematic identity of portraying the strong and amiable leading protagonist. Later in the conversation, Winfrey asked the actor to reflect on one of his early career’s critical duds, 1990’s The Bonfire of the Vanities, based on Tom Wolfe’s 1987 novel.
“It’s one of the crappiest movies ever made,” Hanks asserted. “And yet, if I hadn’t gone through that experience, I would have lost out on something valuable. That movie was a fascinating enterprise from the word go. It was bigger than life, and for some reason, it had a huge amount of attention on it.”
“It came along at the right time,” he continued. “When I was playing Sherman McCoy [in Bonfire], people stopped me on the street to say, ‘You’re not Sherman McCoy?’ I was like, ‘Oh, yeah?’ I was going contrary to everything about the character and even the screenplay, but I kept telling myself, No, no, no—there’s a way I can get into this.”
Despite the movie’s functional role in elevating Hanks’ status, he admits that it was never a project he would be enthusiastically associated with. Winfrey asked Hanks why he took on such a role. “Because I was asked to—and back then, that was still a big deal. I thought I could bullshit my way through,” he replied.
Hanks later addressed his own success and boiled down quality acting to two key virtues: “passion” and confidence. “Several things always separated me from a herd of other actors. Whenever I auditioned for a part, I’d think, ‘I’m probably better than 50 per cent of the actors here because half of these people are self-conscious in ways I’m not.’ I would do anything—I didn’t care. But many would not make fun of themselves the way I’m willing to.”
Watch Tom Hanks in the trailer for The Bonfire of Vanities below.
