Tom Hanks reveals what he considers “the greatest job an actor can have”
Among the myriad paths to breaking into acting, one truth remains: there’s no single route to success in the film industry. Every actor’s journey is unique, and Tom Hanks is no exception. Known for his remarkable versatility across genres and characters, Hanks has established himself as one of the most revered actors of his generation. His rise to stardom can be traced back to one pivotal early job, a stepping stone that helped propel him towards the big time.
Hanks isn’t just a great actor in the singular sense; he has played a heavy hand in bringing to life some of the greatest comfort movies of all time, starting with Splash, Big, Turner and Hooch through Forrest Gump, The Terminal, and the more biographical and drama ventures, like Apollo 13 and Sully. He first earned an Oscar following 1993’s Philadelphia, which proved his ability to provide plenty of emotional nuance in a role that only the most skilled actor could have embraced so willingly.
Beyond his acting ability, Hanks also understands the importance of exhibiting high professionalism in any role an actor takes. This can take a lot of patience and composure, considering some of the difficult environments that occur on some film sets. However, Hanks seems to have mastered the art of extreme professionalism from the get-go and even now regards anything else as a “cardinal sin” when it comes to acting.
As he explained during an interview with The Guardian: “You don’t have to like the people you’re working with, but you do have to have professional respect for them. We don’t have to sing round a camp fire or go to dinner every night, but you do have to extend the professional courtesy that allows them to work the way they need to work.” Adding: “And I have worked with some people who didn’t necessarily do that for the other person which I think is something of a cardinal sin.”
A lot of Hanks’ tricks could be attributed to how he got his start, which involved a job at a rotating repertory theatre, working on a different show each day and exposing himself to every facet that could be thrown his way in the acting world. While there are many things that could be construed as the everyday actor’s dream, this role was Hanks’ “greatest” opportunity, mainly because of the “variety” it allowed him to immerse in.
“My first job as an actor was in rotating repertory theatre, which I think is the greatest job an actor can have because there is such a variety that is demanded of you,” he once explained. Noting the diversity of the role, he added: “You don’t really have to make any choices. Years ago in 1977 at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, we did six plays a year—a comedy, history, tragedy, something contemporary, and something made up. So the job of the actor was to live up to the text—the expectations of what each individual play was.”
Hanks also noted the differences between this role and the more established ones that come later in an actor’s career, explaining how the decisions you’re faced with appear more “singular”. However, this role also equipped him with a subset of acting techniques that he continued to use in his more high-profile efforts. One of these involved merging various aspects of genres to bring characters to life, like injecting comedic moments into serious roles and making the narrative appear more nuanced.
In his view—this is also a guiding principle of acting, not just because it lathers texts up with multiple layers but because it more accurately reflects real life. As he put it: “I think in every comedy I’ve done, there’s been some serious moments, and in every serious movie, there’s been some comedic moments. That’s the way life is.”
Although Hanks has achieved more than what could solely be attributed to his role at the theatre, it no doubt bolstered his understanding of acting and its role in imitating real life. Even in films with an overt note of melancholy and tragedy, Hanks can filter in subtle notes of comedy, making his characters appear more endearing and relatable and dusting them off with a timeless quality.
