# Tom Hanks: Great Actor? Greatest? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 24, 2006, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038 "2006-04-24T20:11:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/41 "2006-04-25T14:37:02Z")
Not only is Tom Hanks a great actor who can take on many different roles, he is also an all around nice guy who hasn’t let fame get to his head. Sort of like Jimmy Stewart. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/42 "2006-04-25T15:40:22Z")
> [@Big Bad Voodoo Lou](#): > > I hate _Forrest_ bloody _Gump_. I don’t see how it became such a cinematic milestone when it’s the biggest piece of disposable glurge in the last 20 years. I lost major respect for the Academy Awards when it beat \*Pulp Fiction \* AND \*Shawshank Redemption \* for Best Picture in 1994. That or _The DaVinci Code_ are emblematic of Tom Hanks and who he is as an actor. He - with, admittedly, occasional exceptions - does dull movies for dull people. Schmaltzy mediocrity like _Forrest Gump_ is pleasing to a lot of people, the same way a lot of people like eating at Olive Garden. Sure, he’s got some charm to him, but to me “charismatic” and “affable” are not qualities that particularly make me think of great actors. It’s a quality worth having, but I don’t see what it has to do with one’s acting abilities, and it seems to me that Tom Hanks’ amiability is what makes him popular, not his acting. > [@outlierrn](#): > > Good, entertaining? Definitely. A match for Phillip Seymor Hoffmann, not in my opinion, YMMV Not even remotely. There’s just no conceivable comparison. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the first name that came to my mind as a “great actor” when I started reading this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/43 "2006-04-25T16:32:08Z")
> [@Dob](#): > > So, now I’m not sure. Is Tom Hanks one of the greatest? Possibly the greatest? help me out here…either push me over the edge for him, or draw me back from the abyss!! IMNSHO, he’s a great actor, and he is one of the greatest actors in recent times. I’m beginning to widen that these days and class him in with Peck, Bogart, Gable, et al and think that he is one of the all-time greats. I’ll wait until I get a chance to see DaVinci Code, but the preview scuttlebutt that I’m hearing is that he has turned in another tasty piece of work. ---
**Author:** ![ddgryphon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8c91f0/32.png) [@ddgryphon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ddgryphon)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/44 "2006-04-25T17:46:04Z")
Hanks, I think, is likely much better than the majority of his work would suggest. That he is able to bring so much to projects that, quite frankly aren’t all that deep, suggests that, if he would get some daring, he could go to some very interesting places as an actor. I really think you’re dismissing his talent based on the films and not on his work in those films. of course obviously, YMVaries, and I’m not saying you’re wrong about most of his role choices, but his work in those roles indicates he’s much better than he’s getting credit for being. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/45 "2006-04-25T18:20:54Z")
> [@ddgryphon](#): > > Hanks, I think, is likely much better than the majority of his work would suggest. That he is able to bring so much to projects that, quite frankly aren’t all that deep, suggests that, if he would get some daring, he could go to some very interesting places as an actor. Personally, I think that it’s the guys like De Niro and Pacino, forever held up by those “in the know” as the greatest of the generation who play it safe role after role. Depp, PSH, Hanks. . .these are the guys without as strong a “type”. I’m not sure what the complaints about Hanks being safe, middle class, Olive Garden are all about. I didn’t think his Perdition role was safe. I didn’t think that his Philadephia role was safe. . .a sickly, wasting, AIDS patient suing his employers? Real red-state stuff there. The majority of roles he gets are likeable, but who can’t you say that about? Don’t anyone try to say that they don’t know EXACTLY what they’re going to get when they go to see Samuel Jackson or Denzel in a movie. I think that most actors tend to get more and more narrow as time goes by. I’ve already named several. Hanks, however, has gotten more expansive. He’s more like an Ian McKellen or a Peter O’Toole in that regard. THOSE are the guys I would compare him too. He’s an odd choice for _Da Vinci Code_. That main character was paper-thin in the book. The star of the book was the intrigue; the main character was just a place-holder that the plot revolved around. I think they just should have got Nick Cage to do it (and called it _National Treasure 2: Same Shit, Different Institution_). ---
**Author:** ![Scupper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Scupper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scupper)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/46 "2006-04-25T18:28:36Z")
> [@Trunk](#): > > I’ll see your drag queen and Agent Smith, and raise you a Kip ‘Buffy’ Wilson, and Agent Hanratty. Oh, please don’t. Kip ‘Buffy’ Wilson was a guy in a dress in a bad show and Hanratty … oh God but that accent was horrid. > [@Trunk](#): > > Hugo Weaving played Agent Smith in his role as Elrond. Exact same character. I disagree. I think people couldn’t help but _hear_ Smith as Elrond, but the malevolent, snide, contemptuous venom that oozed out of Smith was entirely (and appropriately) absent from Elrond. > [@Trunk](#): > > Neither character is acting. It’s just finding a guy with a cool voice to fill a role. If you want to see Weaving show off his chops, check out “The Interview”. I will check that out. Personally, I thought he did an amazing job in an almost unplayable part in **V for Vendetta**. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/47 "2006-04-25T18:31:36Z")
> [@Trunk](#): > > I didn’t think his Perdition role was safe. People keep saying this, and while I liked the movie, he didn’t exactly play an unlikeable guy and his character was pretty sympathetic even if he was an ex-hitman. It’s not like he was playing a sociopath a la one of DeNiro’s characters from a Scorcese movie or something. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/48 "2006-04-25T18:59:15Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > That or _The DaVinci Code_ are emblematic of Tom Hanks and who he is as an actor. He - with, admittedly, occasional exceptions - does dull movies for dull people. Is it possible to have this discussion without the customary “everyone who disagrees with me is stupid” comment? Or do we need to start discussing why you didn’t understand “Forrest Gump” and what _that_ says about _you_? > [@](#): > > Not even remotely. There’s just no conceivable comparison. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the first name that came to my mind as a “great actor” when I started reading this thread. A method actor wins one Oscar by imitating someone and everyone’s lined up to blow him. Hanks wins two Oscars without imitating anyone, and he’s the one doing the sucking? Give me a break. ---
**Author:** ![marymargaret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@marymargaret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marymargaret)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/49 "2006-04-25T22:11:35Z")
He didn’t play a very likable character in \*A League of Their Own \* and I thought he did great in that. ---
**Author:** ![Dob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Dob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dob)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/50 "2006-04-25T22:45:11Z")
okay the first half of the responses had me drawing back from the Tom Hanks: Greatest Actor abyss. The second half, has me jumping off the cliff! Trunk’s post I think sums it up nicely. ---
**Author:** ![Kiros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/439d5e/32.png) [@Kiros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiros)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/51 "2006-04-25T23:34:30Z")
I’m sort of anti-Hanks in this particular debate, but I’m not sure we can use the Hoffman bandwagon quite yet - Hoffman is 10-15 years younger than Hanks and has been almost exclusively a supporting actor to this point in his career, where Hanks has been almost exclusively a lead for two decades now. We’ve gotta see a few more performances like Capote (or, maybe more to the point, _not_ like Capote but just as high quality) before you can even really compare the two. > [@Trunk](#): > > I didn’t think that his Philadephia role was safe. . .a sickly, wasting, AIDS patient suing his employers? Real red-state stuff there. A likable, sympathetic character that’s being discriminated against and can’t get anyone to help him? In a movie and part that basically screams “you can get an Oscar if you play me well!”? I mean, he got the Oscar because he played that part extremely well… but I don’t know that it falls outside the realm of “pretty safe”. As I said above, I really liked him in Perdition, and agree that that one’s a good deal less “safe”… though as **Neurotik** notes, he still isn’t exactly an unlikable guy. I am not going to say this is true for everyone out there, but when someone says Tom Hanks to me, I think “blah Oscar-dramas and a few chick-comedies”. This may well just be my perception of him… but it’s my perception of him. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/52 "2006-04-26T19:38:17Z")
> [@Kiros](#): > > …I’m not sure we can use the Hoffman bandwagon quite yet… For my money, we can never “use the Hoffman bandwagon.” I don’t get the appeal of that guy. It seems to me he always just plays a slight variant of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Even when he played Capote. And speaking of really bad fake accents, I give you PSH in Cold Mountain. ---
**Author:** ![Indygrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@Indygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indygrrl)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/53 "2006-04-26T20:12:42Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > A method actor wins one Oscar by imitating someone and everyone’s lined up to blow him. Hanks wins two Oscars without imitating anyone, and he’s the one doing the sucking? Give me a break. Well, he has done other movies that were just not seen by many people. And really, I think he did more than just imitate Capote. He really seemed to become him, and I never say that about actors portraying real life people. You might not like him, but he is a tremendous actor. IMO, that doesn’t take away from anything Hanks has done. He’s a likeable guy who plays boring roles in boring movies (Philadelphia and Bosom Buddies being the exceptions). ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/54 "2006-04-26T20:21:39Z")
I consider Hanks to be have one of the shallowest, narrowest ranges of any of the big name stars working. He’s one of those actors whose name attached to a project is likely to keep me away from it. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/55 "2006-04-26T21:20:31Z")
I think the range of Hanks’ successful work is such that he just can’t be called shallow - “Big”, “Splash”, “Volunteers”, “League of their Own”, “Philadelphia”, “Apollo 13”…those are my favorite performances of his. (if that makes me shallow, so be it) He’s really good; I like the comparisons to Jimmy Stewart. Not as good as Johnny Depp though… ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/56 "2006-04-26T22:31:06Z")
Male actors _of his generation_ who are better than Hanks, off the top of my head (and IMO, of course): Johnny Depp Sean Penn John Travolta (yeah, I said it) Denzel Washington Kevin Bacon (yeah, I said it - go watch _Murder in the First_) Gary Oldman Edward Norton Don’t get me wrong: I like Tom Hanks. He does have that Jimmy Stewart quality, and seems like a genuinely nice guy both onscreen and in real life. He just doesn’t “disappear into the character” the way some of the above guys do, or show the range of these guys. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/57 "2006-04-26T23:35:56Z")
I can only think of a few movies he’s ever done that I would want to see again. Most of them are rather meh for me. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/58 "2006-04-26T23:37:45Z")
> [@well he's back](#): > > I think the range of Hanks’ successful work is such that he just can’t be called shallow - “Big”, “Splash”, “Volunteers”, “League of their Own”, “Philadelphia”, “Apollo 13”…those are my favorite performances of his. (if that makes me shallow, so be it) > > He’s really good; I like the comparisons to Jimmy Stewart. > > Not as good as Johnny Depp though… What’s funny is I liked Splash and League of their Own, but wouldn’t think of them as Tom Hanks movies. If you asked me who was in Splash I would probably say 'Darryl Hannah and, umm, some guy" ---
**Author:** ![Amaranta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Amaranta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amaranta)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/59 "2006-04-27T00:27:06Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > That or _The DaVinci Code_ are emblematic of Tom Hanks and who he is as an actor. He - with, admittedly, occasional exceptions - does dull movies for dull people. Schmaltzy mediocrity like _Forrest Gump_ is pleasing to a lot of people, the same way a lot of people like eating at Olive Garden. Sure, he’s got some charm to him, but to me “charismatic” and “affable” are not qualities that particularly make me think of great actors. It’s a quality worth having, but I don’t see what it has to do with one’s acting abilities, and it seems to me that Tom Hanks’ amiability is what makes him popular, not his acting. Yah, that’s pretty much it for me. You know those nights when you’re hungry, but you don’t feel like cooking, but you don’t wanna go somewhere fancy or expensive and make a big deal of dinner, so you settle on a nicer chain restaurant where you know it’ll be at least okay, because it’s dependable and affordable and that’s as much energy as you have for dinner? But the next day at lunch, someone’s like “So, what did you have for dinner last night?” and you’re all “Ummm… I think salad… or pasta…?” On those rare occasions when I want to watch a movie but don’t want to think too hard or get too emotionally invested or anything, there’s Tom Hanks. I’ll laugh, I’ll cry, I’ll be standing there a couple hours later going “What happened in that movie again?” And though he was a “bad guy” in _Road to Perdition_, it was still the not-so-nice-guy-you’re-cheering-for. No one’s hoping for bad things to happen to a guy with an adorable kid. I’d really like to see him play the guy we’re not cheering for, an actual villain. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038/60 "2006-04-27T11:45:58Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > For my money, we can never “use the Hoffman bandwagon.” I don’t get the appeal of that guy. It seems to me he always just plays a slight variant of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Even when he played Capote. Have you seen “Along Came Polly”, “Happiness” AND “The Big Lebowski”? I think people really under-value the acting abilities of a guy who does comedy well (Happiness doesn’t count here). Pacino, Ed Norton, Oldman, Denzel, Kevin Bacon? Personally, I think Jeff Daniels and Jeff Bridges are better actors than any of them. Don’t get me wrong though. I love Pacino. I love watching him. I think his schtick is unique, and his performances astounding. But, if we’re talking about “range” here, and ability to create characters, I don’t think he enters in. But, he sure can get a reaction out of me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-hanks-great-actor-greatest/354038.md?page=4)