Tom Hanks has cemented his status as a bonafide Hollywood icon thanks to a truly impressive body of work in the film industry. His several memorable roles and affable personality have endeared him to fans over the span of his almost five decade career, in which he has also achieved the status of the fourth-highest-grossing American film actor of all time.
In the latest news about the Toy Story franchise star, Tom Hanks opened up about his late friend Rob Reiner during his appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert earlier this week. While Hanks touched on several topics with the late-night host, his candid behind-the-scenes story from the set of Sleepless in Seattle truly stood out.
“Rob Reiner, God bless his eternal memory, we worked with Nora Ephron in Sleepless in Seattle. We got to know each other really well on this, and our kids were all about the same ages. So one day we go to, we say, ‘Hey, let’s go to Disneyland. Let’s get the kids out of the house,’ and so we all drove in one car. Rob, Michelle, our kids, we drive to Disneyland.”
Hanks goes on to explain that the families had a fantastic time in each other’s company until they hit traffic on their way home and were stuck on the highway next to a commuter bus containing several passengers.
“We are next to this bus for the longest time and Rob was riding shotgun, and I was driving. And we happen to notice, in this bus, because people are stuck on it for so long, they have TV monitors that play movies. I swear this is absolutely, 100% true, as we’re going, ‘Hey look, they’re playing movies.’ Then, Rob says, ‘I think that’s Sleepless in Seattle.’ And so I’m trying to like get up as much as we can, and we’re leaning over like this so we can see up in the window of this bus. Our movie is playing on a TV screen right there.”
As fate would have it, the timing worked out so that they caught on to what was happening just moments before the film’s most famous scene.
“And not only that, Rob says. ‘I think the tiramisu scene is coming up.’ And I said, ‘Oh, my God, you’re right.’ “
The passengers eventually caught on, and the hilarious moment was one Tom Hanks clearly cherishes to this day.
Tom Hanks surpsrises Stephen Colbert with gifts on actor’s final The Late Show appearance
During his recent The Late Show appearance, Tom Hanks also surprised Stephen Colbert with gifts, likely due to the late-night host’s imminent cancellation. The actor started off by giving Colbert a ream of paper bearing the CBS logo as he walked out on stage.
“Dude, you’re moving on, and there is so much stuff to steal from the offices right now. They’re never going to miss it.”
Later in his interview, Hanks added to the surprise with his second gift, a box of dot matrix paper.
“This is great paper that’s always connected. It’s not enough to have great paper. You need a tool with which to use that paper, and you’re going to be doing some serious résumé writing and what have you.”
Before he was done, Tom Hanks also provided his friend with a typewriter as well as a bag of Hanks Coffee, a project whose profits go towards benefitting veterans.
Edited by Rahul Singh