(Credits: Far Out / Nathan Congleton)
Sat 11 October 2025 11:38, UK
There has never been a movie role in which Tom Hanks hasn’t given everything of himself. The actor is most beloved by audiences for his humanity, and that comes from his willingness to commit to every role he has ever been given.
Although most actors might come into a movie looking for a cheap paycheque and maybe even a dose of fame, Hanks has always committed himself to every role he has taken on, whether playing the harrowing role of a man lost at sea in Castaway or the lovable handicapped protagonist in Forrest Gump.
Hanks has enjoyed a truly extraordinary career and has a resume that most people would only dream of achieving in three lifetimes, let alone one impressive run. Although Hanks has had more than his fair share of fantastic movie roles, he stands by this film as one of his finest works onscreen.
Then again, there aren’t too many roles where Hanks has ultimately struck out. Although he has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t care for what he brought to the film Bonfire of the Vanities, the rest of his career has sent him into the stratosphere of cinema, playing the iconic soldier looking to get the last of a band of brothers back home in Saving Private Ryan.
When he was first getting his feet wet, though, Hanks found himself on television before getting his big break on the big screen with the film Big. Outside of the wholesome family films, there were also a handful of pictures that didn’t quite hit the mark that Hanks was hoping for.
Tom Hanks in ‘Splash’. (Credits: Far Out / Buena Vista Distribution)
Between making blockbusters, Hanks was involved with the film Punchline, playing the role of stand-up comedian Steven Gold. As he makes the rounds on the local circuit, he comes across Sally Field’s Lilah Krytsick, a humble housewife looking to break into the comedic industry. As they both test out material on each other, they grow to become friends and help each other out on the circuit.
While the movie has a slice-of-life quality that wouldn’t feel out of place on television these days, it wasn’t well-received then. Though audiences were mixed, critics didn’t take kindly to the movie’s premise, which caused the movie to tank at the box office. Even though Hanks may not have taken the movie as far as he thought it would go, he did stand by the fact that the movie was a high point for him.
Speaking in 1989 about the film, Hanks would still regard the movie as one of the greatest experiences he has ever had, telling David Sheff, “That’s the hardest one to make any sort of judgment on. The movie didn’t do that well, which was really disappointing. But it’s the best work I’ve ever done. We were talking some real naked truths about the characters and, in a lot of ways, about myself. I was too close.”
Compared to the other roles he had taken on, Hanks thought Gold was the closest to what he felt like in real life, explaining, “The guy in Punchline probably has the worst aspects of my worst aspects. He is extremely competitive, for one thing. Competitive to a fault. He is unable to balance his daily existence so that real life and what he does for a living have an equal weight. I’ve certainly had those problems; I think any actor has”.
That’s part of what Hanks enjoyed as a role. The movie wasn’t necessarily a comfortable venture for him to exercise his usual acting muscles, and certainly a little step away from the movies he has made in his later career. But the challenging aspect gave him the feeling he had done his best work.
Even though Punchline may not have found its audience at the time, Hanks was about to go on a streak of films a few years later that would become pivotal for him, from the dramatic courtroom drama Philadelphia to the lovable Woody in the Disney film Toy Story. While Punchline might not rank among Hanks’s most celebrated works, the lessons he gained from this film helped shape him into the actor he is today.
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