(Credits: Far Out / TCM)
Sun 16 November 2025 10:43, UK
If there’s one thing history has proven beyond all doubt, it’s that buying Tom Hanks as a convincing villain is something that’ll simply never happen to any successful degree.
Sure, Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis was a box office hit and a ‘Best Picture’ nominee, but the most notable awards season recognition he got for his hammy performance as Colonel Tom Parker were two Golden Raspberry Wins for ‘Worst Supporting Actor’ and ‘Worst Screen Combo’, the latter of which was shared with “his latex-laden face (and ludicrous accent)”.
Techno thriller The Circle cast Hanks as basically ‘what if Steve Jobs was less subtle about being evil?’ and ended up taking a critical pasting. Cloud Atlas under-performed on both fronts despite the two-time Academy Award winner defending it with every fibre of his being, and the Coen brothers’ remake of The Ladykillers is comfortably among the sibling duo’s lesser works.
On the plus side, Hanks freely admits the reason he doesn’t play bad guys all that often is because he knows it’s impossible for the suspension of disbelief to be stretched that far, but along similar lines, who would have ever guessed the beloved actor has a soft spot for raunchy R-rated comedy?
That being said, he did pop up for an inspired cameo at the end of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat Subsequent Moviefilm to inadvertently blame the intrepid Kazakh journalist for his coronavirus diagnosis, but it was the question of Big being updated for a modern audience that opened the door for Hanks to name his guilty pleasure viewing habits.
Tom Hanks in 1984’s ‘Splash’. (Credits: Far Out / Buena Vista Distribution)
Having a child wake up in the body of an adult and form a romantic relationship isn’t the sort of plotline that would fly in the 21st century, but Hanks outlined to The Guardian that there probably is a way to get around it. “I think they could make it, but they’d make it raunchier,” he explained. “That’s what comedies are like today.”
The rise of gross-out and frat-boy humour in the 21st century hasn’t been to everyone’s taste, but it turns out Hanks is a secret supporter. “I’m kind of amazed when I go see a comedy, and it’s just filthy,” he exclaimed. “And with filthy language!”
That’s not to say he’s been many of the pearl-clutching purists denigrating the devolution of the studio comedy into a nonstop cavalcade of profane smut, though, going so far as to admit “they’re a guilty pleasure, those movies.” Judd Apatow even gets name-dropped, with Hanks aptly calling the prolific producer’s output “extremely different from the stuff I did.”
That’s a fair enough assessment. Hanks never got close to appearing in such a flick. While Appatow and his crew of comedy heroes have provided a serious amount of laughter through the grosser side of life, Hanks has never touched such a project. He has a fairly wholesome image to maintain, and diving headfirst into the dick and fart jokes Apatow is so used to delivering simply wouldn’t have landed.
Although Hanks doesn’t name any titles specifically, Apatow and his ‘Frat Pack’ collective were responsible for The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Superbad, Bridesmaids, Knocked Up, Anchorman, Step Brothers, and Christopher Nolan staple Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby among others, making his funny-bone far cruder than first imagined.
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