Credit: 20th Century Fox
Mon 7 September 2026 18:15, UK
Anybody who’s ever worked a day in their life will tell you that it isn’t supposed to be sunshine and roses all day, every day, and just because Tom Hanks gets paid millions to do his job, it doesn’t disqualify him from being a miserable bastard, just like everyone else has been at one point or another.
Admittedly, it helps that, unlike most people, the two-time Academy Award winner can finish a tough day at the office by returning to either his palatial mansion or luxurious trailer, sleeping soundly in the knowledge that dressing up and playing pretend is hardly the most taxing profession on the planet.
Actors are often described as a pampered and pompous bunch, and rightly so, but you can’t say that Hanks didn’t put the effort in. It was a monumental undertaking from beginning to end, and by the end of it, it’s not even hyperbolic to say that he’d literally laid his life on the line in the name of performance.
For the most part, ‘America’s Dad’ doesn’t really play the kind of roles that pose a serious risk to one’s health. However, when he did, dropping a dangerous amount of weight in a short period of time to headline Robert Zemeckis’ Cast Away as Chuck Noland, it almost killed him.
Then again, it was a game of two halves. Before production kicked off in January 1999, the star had to pile on the pounds to play the schlubby FedEx employee. “For the first half, I didn’t do anything,” Hanks confessed. “I did not do a thing except eat.” After that, though, things became pretty dire.
During the shutdown, with Zemeckis using the time to film What Lies Beneath to keep himself and the Cast Away crew busy, his leading man shed 55 pounds in short order. “Taking that into account,” Hanks pondered. “The physicality of the movie was… back-breaking. No fun for anybody. Just arduous, and difficult, and back-breaking.”
Despite being emaciated, bearded, and looking very much like a man who’d spent years in isolation on a deserted island with only a volleyball for company, Cast Away “was a great freedom” for the actor, who didn’t carry any self-consciousness onto the set “because you’re going to look terrible whatever you do.”
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
Was it worth it? In terms of his performance, you’d have to say yes, since it comfortably ranks as one of Hanks’ finest turns, and it landed him a ‘Best Actor’ nomination at the Academy Awards. On the other hand, almost dying for your art doesn’t sound like a fun time, and it’s absolutely not a coincidence that he’s never embarked on such a dramatic body transformation ever again.
If you’re going to play the titular character in a film called Cast Away, there’s no other choice but to go all-in, otherwise the audience won’t buy it for a second. That’s what he did, and physically, emotionally, and psychologically, the star paid a fairly hefty price.
