“We were all hungry”: the movie saw Tom Hanks turn a corner
Every young actor who finds success early on in their career for doing one thing runs the risk of becoming typecast, but it wasn’t a trap Tom Hanks was interested in falling into. Instead, he decided to take it upon himself to prove that he was much more than a one-trick pony.
Like countless other future stars before him, he made his film debut in a low-rent horror flick, but 1980’s He Knows You’re Alone was his first and last appearance in a feature for four years. However, thanks to Ron Howard’s Splash, bawdy romp Bachelor Party, The Man with One Red Shoe, Volunteers, and The Money Pit, Hanks was in danger of becoming known as a comedy guy and nothing else.
Knowing full well that a pivot was required in order to let the world know he wasn’t going to be pigeonholed, Hanks’ seventh movie Nothing in Common marked a turning point. While there was definitely humour in the script and performances, it was his most serious dramatic performance to date.
The star’s advertising executive is in the midst of putting the finishing touches on a project that could take his professional life to the next level, only for his parents’ divorce to impact every fibre of his existence when he’s pitted between the warring former spouses in the part of makeshift peacemaker. When one of them falls ill, he’s faced with the choice of career or family, and Hollywood dictates that there’s only going to be one winner.
Still, Hanks wanted to be involved in the creative process from the very beginning. It was the producers who sounded him out about potentially playing David Basner, and he was on board Nothing in Common before it even had a director. As a result, when asked by Film Comment when exactly he turned a corner career-wise, there was only one answer.
“Nothing in Common,” he said. “I was involved from the beginning with the producer, Alex Rose, and the guys who wrote it even before Garry Marshall came in to direct. We were all hungry and wanted to prove something, score a touchstone or whatever.” For the first time, Hanks was able to give input, and the people in charge would actually listen.
“We talked about what we were going to do with it,” he continued. “I was able to say, ‘Here’s why I want to do this character, and here’s what I think the movie is about’, from my own selfish actor’s point of view.” It’s not exactly selfish for the leading man to put his points across to better service both their contributions to the film and the story at large, with Nothing in Common proving integral to Hanks’ ongoing evolution as a result.
