Tom Hanks has described film critics as “cocksuckers” in a jokey rant during an interview with Conan O’Brien.
Hanks was appearing on O’Brien’s podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend to promote his new film Here, and was asked about his directorial debut That Thing You Do!, which was released in 1996 – which is now, according to O’Brien, considered a “cult classic” after an initially disappointing reception.
Hanks replied by saying: “Let me tell you something about these cocksuckers who write about movies …” He then described a writer who criticised That Thing You Do! on its release for looking like it was “shot on TV and not much of anything”, and then much more recently called the film a “cult classic”.
Hanks is not the only major Hollywood figures who has lashed out at critics. Incensed by negative coverage of his most recent film, Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola said that it is “unpardonable to attack a movie because it doesn’t play by Hollywood’s current rules”, and released a trailer for the film using supposed negative reviews of his earlier films. (The trailer was quickly pulled after it emerged the quotes were fake.) Titanic and Avatar director James Cameron also responded to negative comments about his work, saying: “You know what? Let me see your three-out-of-the-four-highest-grossing films – then we’ll talk about dialogue effectiveness.”
Hanks, though, quickly struck a conciliatory tone, saying: “But you know, that’s the thing we all signed up for. That’s the carnival, that’s the contest, right? I’ve got faith in that.”
Here, directed by Robert Zemeckis and promoted as a “Forrest Gump reunion” featuring a de-aged Hanks alongside Gump co-star Robin Wright, has been widely slated by critics, including in a one-star review from the Guardian’s Benjamin Lee.