Certain movie roles just require an actor who gives off a particular energy. But the best stars have range and get immersed enough into a part that they disappear into it completely. It’s easy to see Tom Hanks triumph in any movie he’s in. That could have included Jerry Maguire, but Hanks was actually ruled out all because of his age.
Jerry Maguire, a romantic sports dramedy that was first released in 1996, is about successful sports manager Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise), who gets sacked due to a moral crisis. With the assistance of his assistant, played by Renée Zellweger, he works with his final client, Cuba Gooding Jr., to launch his own moral sports agency. Here is where Hanks almost made sense in the big picture.
Tom Hanks was almost in ‘Jerry Maguire’ instead of Tom Cruise
Actually putting Jerry Maguire together was quite the ordeal, moreso than many of its contemporaries. Cameron Crowe directed and wrote the screenplay for the film, drawing inspiration from his own time as a sports journalist. Authenticity was crucial. Crow was no stranger to writing on the subject matter but he still took a long time – so long, in fact, that his plans had to change. Originally, Hanks was his first choice for the role of Maguire, but he ended up aging out of the role.
“I took so long doing the script that Hanks was no longer a 35-year-old man,” revealed Crow to Empire magazine back in 1997. “By the time he got [the script], he was almost 40 and had two Academy Awards and wanted to direct.”
Success in other places
Hanks never visited the Jerry Maguire management offices, which meant he missed a movie that made $273 million worldwide on a $50 million budget. Not to mention the lucrative cache of catchphrases and cult following it also managed to produce. Honestly, Jerry Maguire had the whole country at “hello.” Hanks was replaced in the starring role by Cruise, who was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award. Not Hanks, whose critically panned 1990 film The Bonfire of the Vanities marked the decade’s beginning.
Despite these setbacks, Hanks was not wanting for acclaim by the time Jerry Maguire wrapped up in the rambling writer’s room. He may have aged out of the part, but he was busy growing his impressive, beloved filmography in his own way. He wrapped up the ’90s with hits like Sleepless in Seattle, A League of Their Own, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, and Toy Story. The same year Jerry Maguire released, Hanks was in That Thing You Do, which was an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Things balanced out for both actors, so one Tom helped the other Tom help Tom.
