Tom Hanks can be a jerk sometimes too, says Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks has developed a reputation as “America’s dad.” He’s Hollywood’s affable nice guy, warm, wholesome, with a welcoming twinkle in his eye. Even his oeuvre tends to reflect inherent goodness, better remembered for his Forrest Gumps and Fred Rogers than characters like Elvis’ Colonel Tom Parker. But forget all your fluffy assumptions about Tom Hanks: even that vaunted Good Guy can be kind of a jerk sometimes.

So says Hanks himself, while promoting his new novel The Making Of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece. The book is about the production of a blockbuster superhero film, and the jackass lead actor disrupting the filming with bad behavior. “I have pulled every single one of those moments of behavior myself on a set,” Hanks reveals in an interview with the BBC. “Not everybody is at their best every single day on a motion picture set. I’ve had tough days trying to be a professional when my life has been falling apart in more ways than one and the requirement for me that day is to be funny, charming and loving—and it’s the last way I feel.”

As pop culture prophetess Hannah Montana once said, everybody has those days. Those instances of bad behavior must not be too frequent, because Hanks largely retains his good reputation—except with another beloved Hollywood Nice Guy, Henry Winkler. Winkler has shaded Hanks on numerous occasions after a very negative experience working together on Turner & Hooch. Winkler was fired as director on that film two weeks into production, snarking to People back in 1993, “Let’s just say I got along better with Hooch than I did with Turner.” On a 2019 Watch What Happens Live the Barry star reiterated, “I got along great, great with that dog. Love that dog.”

However, even Winkler has disavowed the feud, saying that he had a “warm” run in with Hanks before the pandemic. “It’s all very cordial,” he said on Andy Cohen’s radio show in 2022.

Meanwhile, though Hanks will own up to some on-set naughtiness, what you can’t accuse him of is being late to work. “What cannot occur on a motion picture is that someone cannot monkey around with the timing or the length of the shoot or the budget. That is a cardinal sin in the motion picture business,” he declares to the BBC. “You will be amazed at how many people know that they can get away with it, and are told they can get away with it, because they are carrying the movie on their shoulders.” Hanks’ shoulders, at least, are free from this particular sin.