One movie “disappointed” Tom Hanks and changed him as an actor forever: “I don’t think I’ll ever be quite the same”

Posted On October 25, 2025October 25, 2025

As an actor of unrivalled fame and talent, Tom Hanks is undoubtedly a true champion of Hollywood excellence. With a career as long and rich as his, you have to be committed to the craft, and Hanks is certainly that. No matter how cuddly his roles may seem, Hanks attacks every one of them with the same authenticity.

With a charming public persona and a catalogue of performances that have proven his deep love for the craft of acting itself, Hanks has emerged as one of the most significant names in American cinema. Known colloquially as “America’s dad”, Hanks has used his ability to bring humanity to all his roles to have a career few could even hope for.

Embodying an authenticity and sincerity that often seems to be missing in many of his contemporaries’ on-screen efforts, Hanks has consistently given remarkable portrayals of characters varying from Forrest Gump to an astronaut stranded in space to a military leader in the midst of War World II, each one showcasing his nuanced approach to acting.

But even the best and biggest actors in the world eventually want to try their hand at writing and directing, and in 1996, Hanks gave it a shot with the musical comedy-drama That Thing You Do!. He admitted that because he’d already become famous by the mid-1990s, he had a leg up in getting to make the film in the first place.

“I’ll admit I had an advantage,” Hanks once told The Virginia Pilot. Hollywood is a town that relies heavily on cache, and if you have a good name attached to a bad project, you have far more chance of getting your movie made than a no-name attached to the best project. Such is life in Tinseltown. At least Hanks had the sense to know it, “If my name had been Tom Smith, they might not have read it. But if it goes smackeroo, flop, you won’t see me directing anything else. You don’t get a second chance.” 

That Thing You Do!, written, directed, and starring Hanks, tells the story of a one-hit wonder pop band from the 1960s and also features Tom Everett Scott, Liv Tyler, and Steve Zahn. Though the critical reception of the film was middling, it spawned a hit song that was nominated for an Academy Award.

The fact that Hanks directed and starred in the movie, as well as being aware of rewrites, seemed to take its toll on him, and he quickly learned the benefit of solely acting. “There’s something to be said for being a highly paid movie star,” he said. “You may get bored sitting in your trailer, but the director never gets to go to the trailer.” The rush and push of the director’s chair seemed to put Hanks off the idea for now, but it also gave him a new perspective as an actor.

The realities of running a movie set were hard to take, “For this job, I started at 4am every day and didn’t get home until 11:45 at night,” Hanks added. “I wasn’t ready for the physical grind of it. I don’t think I’ll ever be quite the same actor again. I always thought I was a pretty good boy with directors. I know now what that poor guy is going through.”

Sadly, the kind of exhaustion Hanks was going through proved in the film, and it made around $25million in the United States, with most of its commercial success arriving via VHS and DVD sales. There was an element of pride in Hanks for directing his first movie, but he still couldn’t help but feel let down by its results.

“Everybody wants their movie to cause fistfights and riots and make history,” he once told The Ringer. “I knew it wasn’t going to do that, but I was disappointed. You don’t want a movie to do OK and peter out, which is what it did. We had a three-star movie, but we didn’t do three-star business.”

Check out the trailer for That Thing You Do! below.

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