Princewill Pius
Before Tom Hanks was a Hollywood-dominating star, he was a struggling actor trying to find his way. In a 2019 personal essay for AARP, Hanks recalled a time in 1978 when he “was completing [his] second season with the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Cleveland, with all of two leading roles on [his] yet-to-be-created résumé,” after moving up from an unpaid internship.
Luckily, he met two more senior actors, George Maguire and Michael John McGann. Hanks explained, “[T]hey were the professionals I admired, examples of the kind of actor I wanted to be — and the kind of human being I hoped to become.”
When Hanks found himself “an unemployed actor,” Maguire and McGann told the younger performer to head to New York to find success. He listened, sleeping on McGann’s couch until the friend co-signed a lease so Hanks could move into “a horridly dark and busted-up fourth-floor walk-up in Hell’s Kitchen,” something that the star described as “a moment of risky generosity [he] will never, ever forget.” It may have been a risk, but it was certainly one that paid off in the end. By 1980, Hanks had made his film debut with a minor role in a horror film, and by the end of the decade, he’d earned his first Academy Award nomination for Big (via The Standard). The rest, as fans know, is history. Hanks’ story is proof that everyone has to start somewhere!
Written by: Nicki
