Confessions of a Former Tom Hanks-Skeptic
Friday, November 29, 2019 at 9:40AM by Cláudio Alves
Tom Hanks has been nominated five times before. Can he get his sixth nod for playing Fred Rogers?
There was a time when I considered Tom Hanks one of Hollywood's most overrated actors. For years, his consecutive Oscar wins were the nadir of the actor's undeserved success, a symbol of the Academy' unfairness. In Philadelphia, he was overshadowed by a more awards-worthy Denzel Washington and, in Forrest Gump, he managed the impossible feat of being even more annoying than the rest of that insufferable Best Picture-winner. Worst of all, Tom Hanks had become something of a personal synonym for boredom.
I'm not proud of my youth's distaste for the actor, even though I still hold a negative opinion regarding his Oscar victories. The rest of my dislike, however, has vanished into thin air. I can pinpoint the exact moment when such growth occurred. When the clouds of skepticism parted, they illuminated the path by which I'd become a passionate fan of Tom Hanks, one of contemporary Hollywood's best actors…
It happened in November 2013, in the rainy hours between classes and the nightly screenings of the Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival. I had time to kill and Captain Phillips, which had opened two weeks before, was perfectly fitted to fill that hole in my schedule. As you can imagine, I'd avoided the film because of the dreaded Hanks but the Oscar buzz made it an unfortunate must-see. So, I watched it and, by the end, I found myself gobsmacked.
I remember crying along with Tom Hanks onscreen, sobbing. This actor I had spent so many years undervaluing had taken my breath away with an explosion of painful vulnerability, the likes of which we seldom see from American leading men. It was trauma materialized in the form of a trembling wreck of a person, covered in another's blood and unable to cope. It's easy to reduce Tom Hanks' performance to those last few minutes, but the entire work is worthy of praise, solid and astounding, essential to the creation of tension and compassion that the film exploits so well.
Without Hanks, Captain Phillips wouldn't work and I doubt it would have scored six impressive six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Weirdly enough, Hanks wasn't among the nominees. He had been nominated for the Golden Globe, the BAFTA, the SAG, the Critics Choice Award and a myriad of other honors, but not for the Oscar. One would expect a two-time Academy Award winner starring in a Best Picture nominee would be an automatic lock, but Hanks seems prone to defying Oscar punditry.
2013 also saw Hanks as Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks. In it, he managed to walk the line between celebrating the icon and demystifying it, complicating what could have been an empty gesture of corporate propaganda. Hanks' Disney is a pushy businessman who isn't used to hearing no for an answer. He always has a smile on his face, but there's a crassness to the way he gives pre-signed photos to fans and the way he tries to hide his impatience. It's by no means groundbreaking work but it's much better than that year's Best Supporting Actor winner.
What initially was a strange anomaly in the History of the Academy and Tom Hanks soon devolved into an alarming pattern.
In 2015, Hanks reunited with Steven Spielberg for Bridge of Spies. Like Captain Phillips, it was nominated for 6 Oscars, including Best Picture, but its lead wasn't among the nods. Then came Sully, a movie that looks to have been engineered to win as many Oscars as possible, but ended up with a single nomination for its Sound Editing. Nothing for Tom Hanks' subdued work, which manages to dismantle the idea of an hero and reveal the traumatized miasma of self-doubt beneath the facade. With The Post, in 2017, Hanks added another Best Picture nominee to his resumé without a Best Actor nod.
Most frustratingly, this sudden draught of Academy affection coincided with my growing love for the actor. The one-two punch of Captain Phillips and Saving Mr. Banks (plus all the other great performances) propelled me to reevaluate my solidified opinions on the actor, rewatching older films and looking for ones I'd never felt compelled to see. What I discovered was an actor that's a master at playing that most elusive of characters - a genuinely decent person. Such roles can be difficult to make into interesting personalities, but Hanks knows how to shade goodness with melancholy and the glint of hidden sharpness. It's amazing, but easy to ignore when you are not looking for it.
My younger self wasn't looking for it and, apparently, neither does today's Academy. Maybe that's why he hasn't been nominated in almost 18 years. Another reason can be how easy Hanks makes it all look, how he hides the seams and never turns the effort of performance into something visible. The roles themselves also tend to be rather modest in script-form, before they are complicated by his deft performances. What makes Tom Hanks a great actor is, in a way, what makes him such a difficult match for Oscar's usual perception of an awards-worthy feat of acting.
Maybe A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood can change that. I haven't watched the film yet, but, even so, I hope the Academy remembers how brilliant Tom Hanks is. At least, it'd be lovely if one of my favorite actors could have an Oscar that he deserves and represents the sort of work that has made him simultaneously so masterful and so easy to underestimate.
Reader Comments (23)
Well, Claudio, you listed The Turner 5th in '86 so you have a lot to atone for.
Peggy Sue -- Please don't think I'm being rude when I say this, but... what are you talking about?
The And the Runner Up thing.
This was a nice read. It is undeniable that his prestige has increased during his Oscar-less period which tell us that certain movie critics are a bunch of snobs.
I'm not sure he's going to make it. The reception was kind of cold at least on Twitter.
Peggy Sue -- Oh, I understand but I ranked Turner 3rd, not 5th.
My ranking was Weaver>Spacek>Turner>Matlin>Fonda with Ellen Greene as a bonus pick.
Thanks for the compliment regarding the piece. I'm also unsure he will make it this time. Tom Hanks has such a weird Oscar history.
Claudio: this post is EXACTLY how I've felt about Hanks all these years. I'm glad I'm not the only one who was mystified by his two Oscar wins (those 5-minute self-serious acceptance speeches didn't help), and equally mystified when he failed to be nominated for far better work this decade.
The only thing I'd add is that I've always thought he was a good comedic actor ("Big", "A League of Their Own").
By the way, his "Beautiful Day" performance is exactly what you'd expect; he looks and sounds nothing like the real Fred Rogers, but his whole Hanksiness immediately wins you over.
I’ve been thinking about something that impressed me about A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD that dovetails with something you wrote here: Hanks is incredibly adept at playing decent people, and Mr. Rogers is perhaps the most decent person in pop culture memory, but some of the most interesting stuff in the film is how Hanks finds the cracks and edges of that decency. People in the film describe Fred Rogers as not perfect, his wife mentions that he has a temper; and what's fascinating is how subtly Hanks evokes that. There's a scene in which Matthew Rhys as the interviewer pokes him with the idea that having Mr. Rogers as a father was difficult for his kids, and there's something approaching a sort of quiet, controlled menace in Fred Rogers’ response. But Hanks in that scene also evokes a person with a lifetime of empathy for people like his interviewer. And of course there's the final image of the film. On paper, Hanks playing Mr. Rogers seems like a no-brainer, but I didn't expect the shades he'd find with him, or how unexpected the performance would end up being. I realized, watching this, that he hasn't stagnated as an actor even as some of his roles have been similar: he's finding new and fascinating moments in his films and will hopefully continue to do so.
Sorry! Still, 3rd place is a disgrace but I forgive because you're so nice.
A man who falls in love with a fish, a kid trapped in a man's body, the movie with the drooling dog... He's been always great. Imagine Daniel Day-Lewis playing those roles.
"Tom Hanks has been nominates five times before. Can he get his sixth nod for playing Fred Rogers?" You mean nominated five times.
Missy -- Thank you for pointing out the mistake. It's been corrected and, hopefully, there are no others in the rest of the piece. Once again, thanks for the feedback.
I've loved him since Splash
TOTALLY agree with th e author.
Great piece about Tom! I've been a long time fan of his since I was a kid, but I can see how or why he doesn't connect with some moviegoers. (Personally, Captain Phillips was entirely underrated as Best Picture in 2013.) I think sometimes there's an expectation for movie goers to like a popular actor, not for the merit of their roles/talent but just because they're popular. Hanks strangely defies the reasoning that Hollywood always nominates the same actors. He is well-liked, he has given great performances, and yet sometimes he misses the mark. It kind of what makes his career remain so strong after so many years. I think it gives him energy and interest to go after different parts and do them to the best of his ability.
He has a real easy way in his screen prescence like nothing will bother him but those last few mins of CP are among his best work.
I also don't like the 2 Oscar wins not that he doesn't have moments in both,certainly not the overwrought Philadelphia opera scene,that's a bit of classic ham.
He is great in comedies not so a romantic lead.
I've always been a fan but I was also mystified by the Oscar wins for those two pieces of treacle. I thought he was mushy in Philadelphia but this thing is so full of misdirection I lay the blame at the director's feet. Forrest Gump is just noxious drivel.
But there are multiple instances now where he should have been in the running, or won when he was nominated. Hopefully he'll be back in the game soon.
I'm sure he'd be grateful for the acknowledgement but his career seems to be going just swell without it and has pretty steadily since Big, excepting that Larry Crowne-Cloud Atlas rough patch in the early 2010's.
Tom Hanks is a national treasure that should be treated with care and respect. Not to mention that when he's on SNL, he makes the show so much better.
Hear, hear, re: Hanks. Though I think that his best performance is still in Big, he really has upped the ante by pushing himself while working with marvelous auteurs like Greengrass, Heller and even the Wachowskis (as ultimately a misfire as Cloud Atlas is). Demme and Nichols are sadly gone, but hopefully he eschews Eastwood, Spielberg, etc. in favor of more challenging artists.
Tom Hanks is a genuinely great actor. And not just recently. Even when playing characters who were..different, he always manages to be keep his characters with both feet on the ground. He's earthy. And he's a great.
Hanks is magnificent in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood but I fear the actor's branch is going to overlook him yet again. " A nice guy playing another nice guy" or some such drivel. I hope I am wrong because his performance is my favorite of the year next to Phoenix in Joker and Pesci in The Irishman.
Your younger self was hot take trash. The kind who would ‘well actually’ every conversation and be avoided at parties.
I disagree with the author. I think that Hanks was really good in Philadelphia and Forrest Gump. If he deserved to win two Oscars is just up in the air as with all the Oscar winners. BUT after these two performances I have had a hard time not see pass the Forrest Gump / Hanks persona in all of his performances. He is just playing a version of Gump for me.
I think he tries too hard. Good for you Americans that you consider him a national treasure. For me he is a mediocre actor with tons of money and has a great network of powerful men in the industry
Lol ok then
/3rtful -- I like to think I wasn't like that when I was younger. If that's the case, I'm glad I grew out of it. At least, I hope so.
Everyone -- Thank you for all the feedback. For the record, I think Tom Hanks is brilliant in Big (still his best nominated performance), A League of Their Own and Sleepless in Seattle. The Ladykillers aside, I think he's consistently great when doing comedy.
I hate this place. I didn't say that bullshit up thread.