For comedians aspiring to be dramatic actors, there is no better model than Tom Hanks. A two-time Academy Award winner and five-time nominee, this unflashy, modern-day Jimmy Stewart or Henry Fonda has also shown every struggling actor on earth that if you persevere you can actually make people forget you started out as a comedian and then simply a romantic comedy lead (remember the dreaded “You’ve Got Mail” and “Sleepless in Seattle” years). Hell, if you endure long enough you can even wipe out the memory of TV movies like “Mazes and Monsters” and sitcoms like “Bosom Buddies” (where’s that other dude now?).The first man to win back-to-back Best Actor Oscars since Spencer Tracy, he embodies a kind of fundamental decency like few others, but to stereotype him in that way does the star a disservice: like Stewart and Fonda, some of his most engaging performances come when he subverts that persona.
“Larry Crowne,” Hanks’ first directorial effort in a decade and a half, hits theaters tomorrow. Unfortunately, as you’ll know from our review, it’s something of a wash-out, but at the very least it gives us a good excuse to look back at some of our favorite Tom Hanks performances across his 30-year career, in the latest in our Essentials series (we’ve already done Ewan McGregor and Nicolas Roeg in the last few weeks). Check it out after the jump.
“Big” (1988)
It isn’t just Tom Hanks that elevates “Big” above the fates of similar ‘80s comedies “Vice Versa” and “Like Father Like Son.” However, he’s certainly the biggest part of the success of this winning Penny Marshall film, which has aged far better than its often-awkward protagonist does. A lesser actor would have been all goofy and gawky–an element which Hanks nails–but the future Oscar winner scored his first nomination for a layered performance that goes beyond just impersonating a 13-year-old stuck in a 30-year-old’s body. He’s alternately vulnerable, silly, sad, gleeful and terrified. We can’t decide whether we like him best when he’s romancing fellow toy company exec Elizabeth Perkins, playing “Heart and Soul” with boss Robert Loggia or crying in a hole of a New York hotel room. This film distills everything we love about Hanks into a single role and it was an indicator of things to come: his seemingly effortless facility with drama, comedy and romance would later manifest itself in “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Toy Story,” “Saving Private Ryan,” and dozens of other films. When we watched it as kids, we could identify with the desire to grow up fast, and now as adults, we’re nostalgic for the freedom of childhood, all thanks to Hanks’ near-perfect work here.