Tom Hanks’ biggest unrealised acting dream: “His one regret”
By this point, there isn’t a lot Tom Hanks hasn’t done on-screen. The beloved A-list everyman has starred in movies of almost every genre, played all kinds of characters, even the odd villain, and spent decades charming his fans as the nicest celebrity in Hollywood. In truth, it’s no wonder they call him ‘America’s Dad,’ and even his recent run of middling movies hasn’t been able to sully the deep love audiences have for him.
Looking back upon his career, it’s hard to imagine that the 68-year-old has any regrets about his choices, or any unrealised dreams left to fulfil. However, Hanks does have one burning desire in his back pocket that he has never satisfied, even though he came close(ish) to it on one occasion. It’s all to do with one of his childhood sci-fi favourites, and an abiding fandom that has never quite disappeared.
In Patrick Stewart’s 2023 memoir Making It So, the iconic thespian spoke extensively about his most famous role that didn’t involve him teaching mutants how to use their superpowers from a seated position in his wheelchair. Instead, this role involved him plotting a course through the galaxy from a seated position at the helm of the Starship Enterprise. We are, of course, talking about Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the beloved TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Within the pages of that tome, one of Stewart’s most fun revelations was that the show had some very famous fans during its ’90s run, including none other than Hanks. “Tom Hanks has told me he knows all the TNG episodes by name,” Stewart claimed, “so obsessively has he watched them.”
Going beyond that, though, Stewart claimed Hanks’ love of the show extended into true geek super fandom. “He told me he doesn’t just watch the show, he stays to read all of the credits,” Stewart said. “Tom knows the name of every Trek character, past, present, and I think future. His one regret is that he wanted to be in Generations or on a Next Generation episode, but he didn’t have time.”
While Stewart’s sentiment was accurate, and Hanks is a die-hard Trekkie, it reportedly wasn’t a Next Generation episode or the movie Star Trek: Generations that he was almost a part of. Instead, Hanks was asked on the Happy Sad Confused podcast if it was true that he was considered for the role of Zefram Cochrane, the man who pioneered the warp drive system that powers the Enterprise, in 1996’s Star Trek: First Contact.
James Cromwell eventually played that part, but Hanks seemed to indicate he was indeed in the running when he excitedly replied, “The guy who invented warp drive? Oh, come on! I would have jumped on that. I would have come in and brought gift Tribbles to everyone on the first meeting. I would have done that.”
Appearing in First Contact, widely viewed as one of the best Trek movies, would have been a dream come true for Hanks, but sadly, it didn’t happen. However, the film’s co-screenwriter, Ronald D Moore, who later created the excellent Battlestar Galactica reboot show in 2004, told The Hollywood Reporter that even if Hanks was talked about for the role, it never developed into a concrete offer.
“At that point in the process, there are lots of names on a wishlist for many, many reasons,” Moore mused. “I’m sure his name was floated in some capacity, but it was never really on the table.”
So, there you have it: Hanks would have happily snapped up the opportunity to beam himself aboard the Star Trek franchise, but it may have never actually been on the cards. Will he finally get to ‘boldly go where no man has gone before’ in the remaining years of his career? Maybe it’s written in the stars.
