Tom Hanks is speaking his mind about movie critics and how he believes one’s perceptions of a film can change over time.
The Oscar winner recently appeared on the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast, where he jokingly used the phrase “cocksuckers” to describe a film critic who initially wasn’t a fan of his 1996 feature directorial debut That Thing You Do!.
“Let me tell you something about these cocksuckers who write about movies,” Hanks said, drawing laughter from O’Brien. “Can I say that?”
The Here actor continued, “Somebody who wrote about [That Thing You Do! wrote] that ‘Tom Hanks has to stop hanging around on with veterans of TV because this is just like it’s shot on TV, and it’s not much of anything.’ That same person then wrote about the cult classic That Thing You Do!. Same exact person. All you need is 20 years between now and then, and it ends up speaking somewhere.”
Hanks went on to acknowledge that poor reviews come with the territory and that it’s “the thing we all signed up for.” However, the actor believes time can also change someone’s opinion of a film.
“That’s, you know, that’s the carnival. That’s the contest,” he added. “Right? I got faith in that, that’s alright.”
Elsewhere this week, on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Hanks weighed in on the conversation surrounding superhero fatigue (the genre has seen numerous flops in recent years like The Flash and Madame Web). While he understands that fans once pined for that film genre, including himself, he feels like audiences are now seeking new stories.
“There was a period of time, and I felt this way too, where we would see DC and MCU movies in order to see these better versions of ourselves,” the A Man Called Otto actor said. “God, I feel like an X-Man sometimes. I am as confused as Spider-Man. I am as angry as Batman is. I love my country as much as Captain America.”
However, he noted that “we’ve had probably 20 years, 15 years in order to explore that kind of thing, and now we’re in an evolutionary place where it’s: ‘And the story is what? The theme is what? The point of this movie is what?’”
“The industry often says, ‘Well if this this works it will work again.’ But the audience is way ahead of it,” Hanks continued. “They see the familiar and they say, ‘I’ve seen that already. What’s next?’ And it’s not just eye-popping stuff. It’s: ‘What’s the story? Tell me about myself.’ We’re in new territory about that every year it seems.”
