Which director gave Tom Hanks his big break in acting?
Since making it big in the late 1980s (pun intended), Tom Hanks has been one of the most recognisable stars in the film industry. His acting performances have won him two Academy Awards along with four nominations and the adulation of millions of cinema-goers in all corners of the globe.
But even before that famous role as Josh Baskin in Big, Hanks was already beginning to make a name for himself as a lead actor thanks to a string of comedy and romance films, from Bachelor Party to The Money Pit. His exuberant on-screen charisma and “nice-guy” charm consistently won audiences over, making him the perfect fit for the role of a kid inside the body of a man.
There was one director who had to take a chance on Hanks, though. At the age of 27, he still hadn’t got a major acting gig, with only one minor movie role and a few TV cameos to his name. In 1983, auditions opened up for the lead role in a Disney-produced comedy about a man who falls in love with a mermaid.
The favourites to get the part were Bill Murray, Michael Keaton and Steve Guttenberg. But Guttenberg was rejected by the casting team, while Murray and Keaton turned down the movie to take on other roles instead. The film’s screenwriters, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, then pushed for Hanks, who was unheard of at the time. They were also writers for the long-running sitcom Happy Days, and had met the young actor when he starred briefly in a 1982 episode of the show.
“We were having a miserable time casting,” Ganz recalled to USA Today in 2019. “Turned down by some of Hollywood’s finest people”. So when they came across “great spirit” Hanks, who they’d found to be incredibly likeable during his appearance on Happy Days, they felt he was the only available option who would work.
But which director signed off on casting Hanks?
Now, Ganz and Mandel only had to convince the director of the movie that Hanks was their man. Director Ron Howard had a lot riding on the film, too, as it was only his second major feature-length picture behind the camera.
Howard agreed to take Hanks’ name to the executives of Disney subsidiary Touchstone Pictures, the studio producing the movie, on the advice of his assistant director. And because he trusted Ganz and Mandel’s judgment, having worked with them for many years as an actor on Happy Days himself.
As he later told US Weekly, the director genuinely believed that Hanks had “no chance in hell” of getting cast. For lack of a better alternative, however, the studio decided to plump for Hanks. Howard was “so excited” to tell his new star the good news.
With virtual unknowns in the director’s chair and lead role, Splash was expected to be a second-rate romantic comedy. Yet it turned out to be a springtime smash, taking over six times its budget and immediately making Hanks one of Hollywood’s hottest properties.
Thrown in at the deep end, Tom Hanks more than held his own. Within a decade, he was a two-time Oscar winner. Talk about making a splash.
