“I totally blew it”: why Tom Hanks regrets the way he played his role in ‘Philadelphia’
Only the most confident and egocentric actor would go through their entire career thinking every single one of their performances was pulled out of the top drawer. Tom Hanks is unquestionably one of his generation’s best, but he’s not too proud to admit he would have liked to do things differently.
With two Academy Award wins under his belt from six nominations to complement his septet of Primetime Emmys and four competitive Golden Globes, his trophy cabinet speaks for itself. Even when he’s not competing for trophies, he’s spent decades as one of Hollywood’s most popular stars and reliable box office draws, so regrets should theoretically be at a minimum.
Most of his regrets come from the early days of his career before he cracked the A-list, with Hanks pointing to an early appearance on The Love Boat as the one role he doesn’t want to be remembered for. That’s fair enough, but it’s one of his most acclaimed performances he’d desperately love to do over.
Hanks has no issues holding his hands up and admitting when his pictures don’t work, as he’s done in the past when reflecting on the star-studded failure of The Bonfire of the Vanities or the “hooey” of his Robert Langdon trilogy alongside Ron Howard. And yet, it was his first Oscar-winning turn that stings the most.
“Oh, boy. Have you watched Philadelphia recently?” he asked Hard Drive. “That city has one of the richest, goofiest-sounding accents in the entire world, and I totally blew it. What I wouldn’t give for another shot at that role.” It wasn’t just his cadence either, with Hanks decrying his overall performance. “I regret the way I played it, certainly.”
For the actor, “it’s most important that I am satisfied with my work on a personal level,” and in the case of Philadelphia, he wasn’t. Obviously, the Academy vehemently disagreed after he beat out In the Name of the Father‘s Daniel Day-Lewis, What’s Love Got to Do with It‘s Laurence Fishburne, The Remains of the Day‘s Anthony Hopkins, and Schindler’s List‘s Liam Neeson to the ‘Best Actor’ trophy, which was an impressively stacked field of contenders.
In recent years, Hanks has admitted that he probably wouldn’t play Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia if it were made today because he didn’t think it would be right for a straight actor to play a gay character. Obviously, things were different back in the early 1990s, and he was good enough to win an Oscar, even if he remains unconvinced that it was anything close to his finest hour.
One positive is that of all the performances he’s ever given, the one he regrets the most and the one he’d love to take another shot at was the one that elevated his career to the next level.
