"So he took my head shot and cut my name off and I used my middle name. He has played numerous minor roles in film and guest appearances on television, and often substitutes doing voice work for his older brother Tom Hanks (most notably Sheriff Woody). There's still time, though. Those aren't the only places Woody has appeared, though. As tied together as they might be among fans, though, they didn't start out that way. "Tom had other doubles, but they couldn't do the run," he recalled. Everyone from talk show hosts to film critics to grandmothers who rarely get out to the movies loves him, and he's embraced it, earning a reputation as "America's Dad.". "That's a stupid Hanks thing." With all of that in mind, it's easy for many to forget that Hanks has a younger brother who's also an actor, and who's been very closely tied to some of Tom's most famous characters. So how did Tom Hanks do as guest host of NPR's 'Wait, Wait' show? Personal life. Jim took a job waiting tables, and Karen got a gig as a receptionist for a talent agent. "I said, 'Well, I'm Tom Hanks.' Hanks is the youngest brother of fellow actor Tom Hanks and entomologist Larry Hanks, but they were not raised together. "The casting director said you should go in and not tell them your real name," Hanks recalled. Biografia. As for Praxel, you might recognize her from a small role in Tom Hanks' directorial debut That Thing You Do!, in which she plays the script supervisor for the Hollywood Showcase TV series. Since then, Pixar has gone on to become one of the most successful animation companies of all time, and Toy Story remains its flagship franchise. Jim Hanks is the youngest of four siblings, and was just a baby when his parents, Amos and Janet, divorced in 1961. James Mathew Hanks (born June 15, 1961) is an American actor, voice actor, director, producer, cinematographer and camera operator. Though he hid his last name in order to win a role early in his career, Jim Hanks didn't use an a stage name moving forward. After losing his job, a middle-aged man reinvents himself by going back to college. In those cases, Woody is voiced not by Tom, but by Jim Hanks, as Tom confirmed during a 2011 appearance on The Graham Norton Show. Cookies help us deliver our Services. He sounds and looks a lot like me, but our backgrounds are very different.". In addition to serving as a Forrest Gump running double and voicing Woody in all manner of projects, he has also taken over for his brother on things like The Polar Express video game, and even played "Captain Phillips" in lieu of his brother on another Robot Chicken episode. "The Late Show" airs 10:35 p.m. weeknights on CBS. While producers noted his "resemblance to Tom Hanks," he won the role based on his own comedic and acting skills and his relationship to Tom Hanks was not revealed until paperwork was completed. He has appeared on stage, including playing "Lennie Small" in Theatrical Arts International's production of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Among his other projects is Feet First Films, a company that specialized in making demo reels for up-and-coming actors to help them get in the door with casting directors. After college, he lived in Sacramento working as a waiter,[10] and in 1988, moved to Los Angeles. "I was contacted five different times," he said. Tom Hanks stars in the tech movie "The Circle," which hit theaters Friday. HBO greenlights 2016 presidential election miniseries from Tom Hanks and 'Game Change' producers. Tom Hanks' brother, Lawrence Hanks, is an entomology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dal … Just so they could say out loud that "Turner and Hooch" were doing it, in a nod to Tom Hanks' cult classic cop/dog buddy comedy of the same name. Hanks was born in Shasta County, California on June 15, 1961. Jim Hanks' career has been intertwined with his brother Tom's massive success for more than two decades now, and that connection has sometimes created opportunities to have a little fun, sometimes in very subtle ways. It was that tactic that ultimately won Hanks the role of Jeeter Buford in Buford's Beach Bunnies. [5] Owing to his vocal similarity, he often substitutes for his brother in the role of Sheriff Woody in various Toy Story video games and spin-offs.[6][7]. "I know why I'm getting publicity," Hanks once said. Hanks said he introduced himself to the students and said his brother, Lawrence Hanks -- who "insists on being called Professor Lawrence around our house" -- is an entomology professor. So I was like the famous guy's brother, you know, at the thing. In 1986, Jim Hanks married Karen Praxel, an aspiring actress, and the couple settled in Sacramento. Between 2008 and 2012, he directed five different short films, serving as producer and cinematographer on several. Hanks began to provide the voice of Geoffrey the Giraffe in the Toys "R" Us commercials in 2001[8] and is the voice of Rudy from the Red Robin Gourmet Burgers commercials. In 1988, at Karen's urging, they moved to Los Angeles so she could more directly pursue her acting career. © 2020 Looper.com. Tom Hanks is among the most recognizable people on the planet. So, while Tom's star continued to rise in the mid-1990s (on his way to dual Oscars for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump), Jim was getting offers to follow in his brother's footsteps... sort of. The film spawned two sequels, with a third on the way in June 2019, as well as two half-hour holiday specials for television. The recognizability of his name, coupled with his facial similarity to his brother, was not lost on Jim Hanks, who said a casting director once told him she didn't even hear his audition because she was too blown away by how much he looked like Tom. Hanks is the youngest brother of fellow actor Tom Hanks and entomologist Larry Hanks, but they were not raised together.After their parents Amos and Janet Hanks divorced in 1961, Jim went to Red Bluff, California with his mother while older siblings Tom, Larry, and Sandra remained with their father. At first, the acting dream was Karen's alone, and Jim once described his only acting experience as "a few high school plays." By the early 1990s, Tom Hanks was a full-fledged movie star who'd not yet won an Oscar but had logged a string of hits including Splash, Big, and A League of Their Own. The agent who employed his actress wife Karen Praxel as a receptionist encouraged him to get into acting. I said no." [11] Hanks and Praxel have one son and currently reside in Venice, California. Yes, he's the voice of Woody when his brother's not. Why? In 1995, Tom Hanks became part of animation history when he co-starred in Toy Story, the first entirely computer-animated feature film and the debut feature release from Pixar Animation Studios. When Stephen Colbert asked Oscar winner Tom Hanks to introduce himself on Friday's episode of "The Late Show," Hanks said he is a "man whose brother is a tenured professor in entomology at the University of Illinois.". At various points during the production, the running sequence required a double, but none of the other doubles on hand to stand in as Forrest could pick up on the particular physicality of the run Hanks concocted for his character. Jim Hanks is, somewhat inescapably in the public eye, Tom Hanks' younger brother, and they have enough of a resemblance in both face and voice to keep reminding everyone of their brotherhood. He guest-starred in an episode of Scrubs, appearing as a "Dr. Turner" partnered with a doctor called "Hooch" (in reference to his brother's film Turner & Hooch).[9]. When Jim told his brother about the offers and his answer to them, Tom Hanks agreed with his brother, and called the Splash TV show "the most stupid thing you could possibly do.". In November 2016, Hanks guest-starred in a web series called Gary CK Needs Work, a parody of the FX show Louie. No matter what either man does with the rest of his life and career, Tom Hanks and Jim Hanks will always be linked in the public eye, and because Tom is the more famous brother, Jim will often be framed in terms of who he's related to. He works with Los Angeles-based "Feet First Films," a production company that provides actor demos as well as production support for short films. Jim describes himself as "incredibly green and gullible" in those early years, and the audition process was brutal at first. At various points early in his career, Jim was offered the chance to play his brother's roles in both Big and Splash for TV show revivals of the films. [2], In 1995, A Current Affair revealed that Tom had created the mannerisms for the character of Forrest Gump in the film of the same name based on the simpleton mannerisms earlier created by Jim for the role of Jeeter,[3] including Forrest's "now-famous jerky run". Directed by Tom Hanks. È il fratello minore di Tom Hanks. Lawrence Hanks has been at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for more than 20 years, according to his resume. "There are so many computer games and video things, and Jim just... he works on those all year long," Hanks said.