Prior to the 2022 Oscars award ceremony, Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks discussed the process of voting for the Oscars at a press junket for his film Catch Me If You Can. Hanks, who has been nominated for six Oscars and won two, made a surprising revelation about the voting process.
Having won the Academy Award in the Best Actor category for his 1993 film Philadelphia and 1994 movie Forrest Gump, Hanks is no stranger to the process.
Tom Hanks revealed that he has never done this one thing for the Oscars in his life
After being nominated six times for the award throughout his career, Tom Hanks revealed that he never votes for himself and tries not to even think about Oscar prospects for his movies. He explained how the Oscar voting process works, saying that Academy members receive a list of all the movies that have been made and the people in them.
The members then have to decide which movies they think were the most truly affecting and vote for those. Hanks said that he doesn’t judge based on genre, but simply votes for the movies that he thought were the best.
“You just go off and end up voting for the things that you thought were the most truly affecting movies that you’ve seen. I’m in the actors branch so I vote for the four actors, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and everybody put in nominations for best picture. You just go on from there, you only have five choices.”
Hanks has certainly given many worthwhile performances that did not receive Oscar nominations. Apollo 13, Captain Phillips, Road to Perdition, and the subject of this interview Catch Me If You Can, would qualify. However, Hanks chooses to celebrate his fellow actors and doesn’t think self-nominating is allowed.
“That would be so gauche. No way do I vote for myself. Are you nuts? I don’t think that’s allowed under Academy bylaw.”
And to top it all, the Inferno actor also revealed that he has never prepared a speech for his wins
READ MORE: “I’m never gonna touch these things again”: Tom Hanks Returned His Two Hard Earned Oscars to Academy
Tom Hanks claimed he never prepared a speech for the Oscars
Who can forget Hanks’ first Oscar speech for Philadelphia where he mentioned his gay teacher? His words were so powerful and inspirational that they went on to become the premise of the comedy In & Out. However, when asked about how he manages to pull off such motivating speeches, Hanks replied that he never puts much thought into them.
“I think there’s a lot of people out there that know exactly what they’re going to say ever since they’ve been in junior high school. Everybody fantasized about winning an Oscar, but the reality is there’s no reason to prepare. You have one out of five chance. If you’re not nominated at all, you have a 100% chance of being a loser.”
Hanks’ comments reflect what kind of a humble and down-to-earth actor he is. His words go on to show that he is someone who doesn’t take himself too seriously and is just a true fan of cinema who also enjoys celebrating the work of his fellow actors.
Source: Showbiz CheatSheet
