Tom Hanks Recalls When Nobody Wanted to Work For Disney

Tom Hanks explained why he was hired for the 1984 film, Splash.

The 66-year-old actor starred in the film alongside Daryl Hannah and was directed by Ron Howard.

Tom had recently had a role on Happy Days, which Ron Howard also worked on but had moved on.

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“Ron Howard had already left the show, and he was directing, and they had written this movie called Splash,” Tom told The Jess Cagle Show. “And it was at Disney, and no one wanted to work for Disney, and no one would take the job. And eventually they said, ‘Hey, this guy who kicked Fonzie through a plate-glass window might be good.’ And so I ended up auditioning for that.”

Splash was about a young man who reunited with a mermaid who saved him from drowning as a boy.

“I remember going over to the Disney Studios lot,” Tom remembered. “And it had not been refurbished. They had built it in like 1958 and it hadn’t changed a wit. It looked like a Greyhound bus station in Selma, Alabama.”

Tom appeared on SiriusXM’s show in order to promote his new movie, A Man Called Otto. Find out here if there is an end credits scene.