Hollywood veteran Tom Hanks has mostly laid out masterpieces for viewers to enjoy, with pretty much every single one of his acting gigs holding a depth that perhaps no other actor could capture with such intensity. However, he has been a part of some of the most epic failures as well, like the critically panned comedy-drama from 1990, The Bonfire of the Vanities.
Despite holding a bunch of A-listers in prominent roles including Morgan Freeman and Bruce Willis, for one to count, the movie was a terribly forgettable disaster nonetheless. But even as Hanks himself admitted that the film was “one of the crappiest movies ever made,” he seems to consider it a blessing at the same time because of the experience that film ended up lending him.
Tom Hanks Considers The Bonfire of the Vanities Crappy but a Blessing too
With brutal reviews on Rotten Tomatoes that rank at 15% from critics and 26% from audiences, The Bonfire of the Vanities will inevitably go down as one of the worst novel-based movies ever made despite having an incredibly strong lead cast that had some truly great A-listers.
This included Freeman as Judge Leonard White and even Bruce Willis as Peter Fallow.
That said, even Hanks, who played the role of Sherman McCoy in the movie, didn’t hesitate to admit that the film was indeed a rather trashy one, as he said during his 2001 interview for Oprah Magazine:
It’s one of the cr*ppiest movies ever made!
But while he did admittedly consider it a disaster, at the same time, he also believed starring in it was somewhat of a blessing for him as well.
According to what Tom Hanks continued to say during the same interview:
If I hadn’t gone through that experience, I would have lost out on something valuable. That movie was a fascinating enterprise from the word go. It was bigger than life, and for some reason it had a huge amount of attention on it.
Well, if looking at it while acknowledging the fact that bad decisions are also necessary for life, the Forrest Gump actor’s review on it becomes only understandable. But, surprisingly enough, that’s not all, because the film also seemingly taught him that he “couldn’t manufacture a core connection.”
As the actor revealed while talking about the lesson he learned from the movie:
I can go to Germany, even now, and people will say, ‘How come you don’t make good, gritty movies like The Bonfire of the Vanities anymore?’ They have no concept of what it meant to be an American and have that movie enter the national consciousness. Bonfire taught me that I couldn’t manufacture a core connection.
Needless to say, that is indeed a much more mature outlook to the movie by Hanks, which makes it understandable just why his starring in that disaster was so necessary.
But while the Cast Away actor has this to say about the movie, his co-star Freeman didn’t have all that positive approach and even claimed he never even got around to seeing the movie!
Meanwhile, Morgan Freeman “Never” Got Around to Seeing the Movie
On the one hand, while Hanks considers this satirical black comedy movie from 1990 somewhat of a blessing in disguise, on the other hand, his respectable co-star Morgan Freeman claims he didn’t even get around to seeing the movie.
Originally presenting his views on the same during an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he said:
I knew that movie wasn’t going to work. I don’t think [director] Brian De Palma had a clue. It struck me that he didn’t read the book—or that he didn’t like the book.
Adding to this, Freeman even claimed how he felt “it was the one time Hanks was awfully miscast.”
But that’s not all, because the biggest regret that The Shawshank Redemption actor seemingly had about the movie was that he considered someone else perfect for his respective role of Judge Leonard White in it.
Revealing how the original choice for that forgettable casting was Alan Arkin, Freeman said:
I thought that was perfect casting. But then they thought they had to be politically correct and make the judge black. So they fired Alan Arkin and hired me. Not a great way to get a role. I was kind of a suck-a– for not turning it down, but they weren’t going to give it back to Alan anyway.
All in all, he ended up scoring the role, and even though he did his best to perform as epically as he could, revealed that “I never did get around to seeing the movie.” Perhaps, it was only for the better, especially since the film was a forgettable disaster like this one.
Nonetheless, you can watch The Bonfire of the Vanities on Prime Video.
