The actor was reportedly “so happy” about his divorce at the time that he just didn’t want to take the part in the film.
Forrest Gump, Sleepless in Seattle, The Green Mile: Tom Hanks has starred in some of the greatest films of the 20th and 21st centuries. But as his wife Rita Wilson has now revealed, Hanks also canceled a very specific, fairly big role – for private reasons. For example, in a new episode of the iHeart podcast, Table for Two With Bruce Bozzi, Wilson revealed that Hanks turned down the lead role in Harry and Sally because he was “so happy” that he wasn’t married anymore.
At the time the romantic comedy (directed by Rob Reiner) was in the works, Hanks was going through the process of separating from his first wife, Samantha Lewes. Wilson explained: “[Er] declined because he was going through a divorce and was very happy not to be married”. She added, “He couldn’t understand why someone going through a divorce would say anything other than, ‘I’m so happy.'” Because of this, Hanks didn’t feel able to adequately convey the lovesickness portrayed in the film.
Tom Hanks and his first wife, Samantha Lewes, married in 1978 and separated nine years later in 1987. The mime had met Rita Wilson a few years earlier while filming the 1985 work Everything Goes On My Command. The two married in 1988, just a year before Harry and Sally premiered. The romantic comedy is about the two eponymous characters Harry and Sally, who meet again and again by chance over several years, until a good friendship develops and later an intense love relationship. Meg Ryan – with whom Tom Hanks would shoot Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and Email for You (1998) a few years later – and Billy Crystal eventually took over the leading roles.