Tom Hank's Behind-The-Scenes Stories Prove Unmatched Dedication To His Films

During the production of Cast Away on the uninhabited island of Monuriki in Fiji, Tom Hanks scratched his leg, but thought the sore would heal on its own. When the swelling didn't go down, Hanks finally saw a doctor. His untreated leg had a staph infection, and according to the doctor, Hanks was in severe danger. Hanks recalled:

I went to the doctor who took one look and said, "I have to put you in the hospital because we have to get this infection out of you before it poisons your blood and you die."

Medical professionals were able to treat his staph infection, and Hanks went on to win a Golden Globe for best actor in 2001 for his role in the film. 

To make his 1995 film Apollo 13 as authentic as possible, director Ron Howard sent lead actors Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and Kevin Bacon to Huntsville, AL, to attend NASA's space camp. They went through the same rigorous training as NASA astronauts, using flight simulators, analyzing moon rocks, eating astronaut food, studying the command and lunar landing modules, and even learning how to urinate in space.  

The film is considered by NASA and retired astronauts to be the most authentic Hollywood depiction of a space mission. For Hanks, experiencing the intense training at NASA's space camp, along with studying the real Jim Lovell, helped him prepare for his role.

Forrest Gump won six Oscars in 1994, earned Tom Hanks an Oscar for best actor, and was the second highest-grossing film of 1994, right behind Disney's The Lion King. Its financial difficulties and troubled production, however, almost shut down the film before any of us heard "Run, Forrest, run!"

The movie's $55 million production budget was not enough to cover the costs of several of director Robert Zemeckis's ideas, and Paramount refused to allocate more. According to Cinema Blend, Paramount was only 48 hours away from shutting down the film altogether when Zemeckis insisted on additional scenes.

Zemeckis believed the shots of Forrest running across the country were necessary to the storyline, and convinced Hanks to help him. The men reached an agreement with Paramount to pay for the additional scenes themselves in exchange for larger profit sharing. This agreement ended up being highly lucrative for both men: According to IndieWire, Hanks earned an estimated $65 million from the film due to those larger profit-sharing margins, and the added scenes did contribute in a key way to the overall film.

Prior to filming Philadelphia in 1993, Tom Hanks was known as a comedy actor, and had missed his first chance at demonstrating his dramatic acting chops in the 1990 box-office flop The Bonfire of the Vanities. When word went around Hollywood that The Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme would be making a film about AIDS, Hanks told his agent he wanted the part of Andrew Beckett, a lawyer with the disease.

Making the shift from comedy star to serious actor meant Hanks had to say no to other projects that came his way so he wouldn't be typecast, the actor explained during a talk at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival: 

At one point in my mid-30s when I was making an awful lot of movies about the goofy headed guy who can't get laid, I realized then that I had to start saying a very, very difficult word to people, which was no. Saying yes, then you just work. But saying no means you made the choice of the type of story you wanted to tell and the type of character you want to play.

Hanks's insistence that he play Beckett paid off. He won an Oscar for the role and went on to play a diverse set of characters across numerous films. 

Before Saving Private Ryan, close friends Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks had not worked together on a film, worrying that doing so might strain their close relationship. But when Spielberg and Hanks realized they were interested in the same script, they discussed risking their friendship to make Saving Private Ryan. 

Spielberg recalled:

We got on the phone together and basically never had one conversation about whether we should mix personal with business. We just began saying, "Wow, what a great script and we can do so much with it"... Before you knew it we were caught up in the blizzard of enthusiasm, and we wound up making the movie. 

The collaboration was successful, and Spielberg and Hanks went on to work together on future films, including The Post and Catch Me If You Can.

Tom Hanks played detective Scott Turner in the 1989 film Turner and Hooch, which featured a dog, Hooch, as Turner's sidekick. Hooch was a big role, and star Beasley the dog had several understudies to join him on set. To establish a rapport with all of the dogs, Hanks spent time playing and wrestling with the dogs before filming even began. Hanks explained to NPR:

You know, when you make a movie with a dog, you have to work with the dog for weeks prior to shooting it. Otherwise, he won't take his eye off the trainer. So, I would go off and play with I think actually three dogs that portrayed... Hooch. It was a part too big for one dog.