Tom Hanks & Bruce Springsteen Pay Tribute to Jonathan Demme at Tribeca

Tom Hanks and Bruce Springsteen are paying their respects to esteemed director Jonathan Demme, who lost his battle to cancer earlier this week.

The actor and the musician shared their thoughts during the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival on Friday (April 28) in New York City.

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In Jonathan‘s 1993 film Philadelphia, Tom took home the best actor Academy Award, while Bruce took home an Oscar for the movie’s opening song, “Streets of Philadelphia.”

“I think the strongest union of our two names is probably Philadelphia,” Tom told the crowd. “God bless Jonathan Demme. We just lost him.”

“He was such an inspirational guy,” Bruce added. “No Jonathan Demme, no Philadelphia, no ‘Streets of Philadelphia.’ [Jonathan] wanted more of a rock song for the beginning, so I said I’d give it a shot. I tried for a day or so to come up with something, and I didn’t come up with anything. I had some lyrics. Eventually, I just came up with that tiny little beat and the track, and I figured it wasn’t what he wanted but I sent it to him anyway. He sent me that opening piece of film where the camera moves slowly through Philly, and I said, ‘What do you think?’ And he says, ‘Great.’ And that was it. It took about two days.”

“Well, I have to tell you,” Tom chimed in, “if you ever want to have a great moment in a motion picture, walk out a door and make sure they just put up a Bruce Springsteen song.”