Note: Dead Eyes transcripts have been generated with automated software and may contain errors. We advise you to listen to episode audio before quoting in print.

Dead Eyes, Episode 31, “Tom”

Connor Ratliff Hi. For those of you who are listening to this podcast Dead Eyes for the first time, welcome. Before we get started, a bit of advice. This is our 31st episode. If you have time, it might be more satisfying for you as a listening experience if you go back and check out a few of our earlier installments. My recommendation: episodes one, three and six. My producers suggest episodes two, 10, 13, 20 and 27. Tom Hanks and I have yet to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but this episode is sort of like our Avengers: Endgame, the big event it's all been building towards. That's actually a callback to one of our episodes in season two. But it's also the last time I'm going to pause to explain when something from a previous chapter is referenced or resolved. And now here's the episode.

Ben Schwartz Tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, ta. What a special moment for a special boy.

Connor Ratliff Uh, it makes me really anxious.

Ben Schwartz Anxious for this part, talking about it, or anxious for the possibility of what's happening next?

Connor Ratliff Just um.

Ben Schwartz God, you have terrible wifi. You have terrible wifi.

Connor Ratliff This is me talking with my friend Ben Schwartz, actor improviser, Jean Ralphio on Parks and Recreation, the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog, seen most recently on The Afterparty. I got in touch with him a few minutes after I received a surprising email.

Connor Ratliff Yeah but I, I mean, I got to figure out how I respond to this email, which

Ben Schwartz You haven't even responded yet?

Connor Ratliff No, I haven't responded, I don't know what to do.

Ben Schwartz No, you're doing great. Respond any time you want. It's an email.

Connor Ratliff It's an email. So,

Ben Schwartz What do you want to write back?

(Upbeat fast paced music starts)

Connor Ratliff This is what the email said:

“Connor, not sure how to volunteer my services to you, but joining you on your podcast would be a pleasure.

Tom”

And then below that, it says, “T. Hanks.”

So at first, I wasn't sure if it was real or a prank. The address was unfamiliar and honestly, anyone could have written this. Longtime listeners will recall I have been fooled before. I will not be fooled again. I sent a screenshot to my producers, Mike and Harry, who immediately began investigating to confirm that it was a legitimate email from Tom Hanks.

(Upbeat fast paced music fades)

Ben Schwartz Then I got a FaceTime, a FaceTime call from Amir Blumenfeld. He was in his car. He was so excited he had to face time in the car. He goes, I just need you to, all I need you to do is confirm one thing: Tom Hanks' email. I was like, I'm not going to give you Tom Hanks' email. He goes, I just need to know if this is him. Connor got an email from this person. We, we all think it's fake. We just need to know if it's him. And then he read the email and I go, Holy shit, the kid did it.

(Theme music starts)

Oh my god, Connor did it. The idea that he's heard about this and isn't averse to coming on must be a fantastic feeling, and I can't wait to see what stupid shit you talk about before you ask him about the dead eyes. It's such a fun, I can't wait. I just can't wait to see. It's the Super Bowl of Dead Eyes. It's the Super Bowl of Dead Eyes.

Voice of God This is Dead Eyes, a podcast about one actor's quest to find out why Tom Hanks fired him from a small role in the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.

Connor Ratliff I don't remember everything about the whole experience. The other thing is, you know, I was 24 and clean shaven. He's going to be meeting this, you know, 46-year-old hobbit person now.

Ben Schwartz So bring your headshot. Connor, you gotta bring your headshot and show it there. So he maybe he'll, do you have your headshot from that exact time?

Connor Ratliff Um I have one from close to it. Yeah.

Ben Schwartz Great. You got to bring it. You got to bring it, bring props. Be Carrot Top for this episode.

(Theme music ends)

(Energetic music starts)

Connor Ratliff I emailed Tom back. I said yes enthusiastically, and right away he and I were messaging back and forth, coordinating a time and place when we could meet and talk together in person. Mike and I bought plane tickets to Los Angeles, where Tom's based and conveniently where Harry works. His boss, Adam McKay, who has appeared briefly on this podcast, was more than happy to loan out his studio for us to record our long-awaited conversation. The morning of the interview, we showed up a couple of hours ahead of when Tom was scheduled to arrive. We all took COVID tests per studio protocol. We set up the recording gear. We waited.

(Energetic music fades)

I was in the studio when he entered the building. And the weirdest thing happened, I felt like I was suddenly back outside the re-audition room at Hatfield 22 years ago. The familiar sound of Tom Hanks' voice, no discernible words, just the distant melody of it, accompanied by the hushed, but excited murmuring of studio employees ushering him down the hallway.

Mike Comite He's here, I can hear his voice.

Connor Ratliff I can hear it too.

Mike Comite You OK?

Connor Ratliff Yeah. I take, when do I take my mask off?

Connor Ratliff Harry and Mike sat in the control room on the other side of a big glass window to the studio. And for about 30 seconds, I didn't know what to do with myself, I was just standing in the middle of a room waiting for Tom Hanks. And then. He appeared.

Mike Comite Hello.

Tom Hanks Hey I'm Tom.

Connor Ratliff Hi there, Connor.

Tom Hanks Connor, how are you?

Connor Ratliff I'm doing OK.

Tom Hanks Yeah?

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks You are?

Connor Ratliff I am. Yeah.

Connor Ratliff Another thing that brought back memories of my re-audition, purely by coincidence, the furniture in the studio, couch chair low coffee table, was arranged in the exact same configuration as the last room Tom and I had been in together, back in 2000.

Tom Hanks So where would you like me?

Connor Ratliff Well, you can sit here if you want, but you can sit there if you like.

Tom Hanks Well I'll sit over there.

Connor Ratliff OK, great.

Tom Hanks Is that oK?

Connor Ratliff Yeah, it's absolutely fine.

Tom Hanks Great.

Connor Ratliff Yeah. Let me just I'm going to move a couple of things.

Connor Ratliff Back then, Tom sat on the couch. This time he chose the chair.

Tom Hanks Well, this couldn't be more comfortable. Geez, we're just we're just sitting around the living room having a conversation.

Connor Ratliff It's just a human moment. That's all it is.

Tom Hanks That's great, that's great.

Connor Ratliff OK, here we go, from this point on, I'm going to sit back and let this conversation unfold without my usual interruptions and editorializing.

Connor Ratliff Well, I'm I couldn't be. I couldn't be more pleased to be having this conversation.

Tom Hanks Well do you want to trip me or hug me? Do you want to punch me or kiss me?

Connor Ratliff Well, I mean, what's COVID appropriate? Is hugging and kissing allowed at this point, you know?

Tom Hanks Well, I have, I brought in my vaccination card.

Connor Ratliff Great.

Tom Hanks So if that's where it ends up, I'll be––

Connor Ratliff No, I think it's going to be a really pleasant conversation. That's always been my goal from the beginning of doing this podcast. And I guess the thing I want to start out with is finding out how you heard about this podcast.

Tom Hanks I heard about it from my son, Colin and my daughter, Elizabeth.

Connor Ratliff And what did you what was your first thought when you heard what the concept was?

Tom Hanks I was aghast. I was I was I actually got chills, my heart rate, you know, skyrocketed and I said I did, I did what, I did what?

Connor Ratliff Now I guess I'm going to skirt right to the basic, the heart of the matter.

Tom Hanks I think we should.

Connor Ratliff Which is the central mystery of it has always been that I had an experience and I never could figure out. I could never fully unpack where in the process something broke down because I got the message that I got, which was, You need to go re-audition in person for Tom Hanks. He's seen your audition tape. He's having second thoughts. He thinks you have dead eyes.

Tom Hanks Wow.

Connor Ratliff And so I had the train right down where I just kept thinking, what do I what I do? What's the trick? How do I pop the eyes

Tom Hanks Oh my.

Connor Ratliff as I'm delivering these two or three lines?

Tom Hanks See, my heart is racing right now hearing this story.

Connor Ratliff Now this is the first opportunity that I've had to ask, like maybe a more confident 24-year-old would have asked in the room, like, did you? Did you? Is there something different I can do?

Tom Hanks Yeah yeah, what, what happened when you came down and read in person?

Connor Ratliff I waited in the little room.

Tom Hanks This was a casting place in like Soho?

Connor Ratliff No this was at, this was at the air base. This is at the air base at Hatfield.

Tom Hanks Oh, really, I was out there for that?

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks Did I have a huge beard?

Connor Ratliff You had, it was post shaving the beard.

Tom Hanks Oh ok.

Connor Ratliff So but you had a little stubble. You had sort of like Michael Stipe.

Tom Hanks This was for the audition, this was for the the episode that I directed.

Connor Ratliff This was for episode five

Tom Hanks Episode five.

Connor Ratliff I don't think I knew about Castaway when I met you. And so one of the jarring experiences was you were wearing like sort of like a sweat pants and like a casual clothes, but they were just hanging off you.

Tom Hanks Yeah, I was very skinny.

Connor Ratliff All I knew was my initial sighting of you was, Oh no, Tom Hanks is sick.

Tom Hanks (laughs)

Connor Ratliff So I was processing this.

Tom Hanks That's why I asked if I had the beard because there's one period where I was losing the weight and had a, you know, an eight inch long beard. And, you know, I looked like an insane man, but that was probably eight months before we started shooting.

Connor Ratliff So I got there and I waited in the office and everyone was very nice, but it felt like I was sort of like the the problem in the room sort of that like this is a little bit uncomfortable.

Tom Hanks Oh my Lord.

Connor Ratliff And I had been down at Hatfield to get my haircut and get the costume fitting like a week or two earlier.

Tom Hanks I swear if I have to bolt, I'm going to upchuck in the bathroom for my part in this.

Connor Ratliff And then I heard you. It was very similar to what just happened, where I heard you enter the building.

Tom Hanks Ok yeah, big presence.

Connor Ratliff I could hear a voice that musically I recognized as that is this, I couldn't hear any words, but I could hear the music of the voice of Tom Hanks. It was very (impersonates Tom Hanks) it was just very.

Tom Hanks Yeah, that's me.

Connor Ratliff And I could hear people were, you know, sort of chattering. And then I came into the room, shook hands and said hello. And then you said, Well, let's hear it. And

Tom Hanks I actually did this?

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks I said that. Okay, all right.

Connor Ratliff  And so we did the scene. So there's not like Zielinski doesn't say a lot.

Tom Hanks What was the scene? I can't even remember.

Connor Ratliff The scene is, the scene is

Tom Hanks I wrote this episode too, so I should know this.

Connor Ratliff It's when Nixon comes to visit Winters and Winters now has an orderly, and Zielinski was the orderly.

Tom Hanks OK.

Connor Ratliff And Nixon sort of is razzing him a little for like, Oh oh, you've got an orderly, oh, maybe you go get us a couple of bacon sandwiches. And he sends him off to go get a couple of bacon sandwiches. So this this is

Tom Hanks I have vague memories of it now.

Connor Ratliff Yes. So this is the character is basically just there as a signifier of his new status and how it kind of makes him uncomfortable.

Tom Hanks Yes, Winters was made the XO of the which turned him into a guy who typed a lot of reports and was no longer fighting on the front. And along with that, he got an adjutant, an aide in his office in order to do things like get bacon sandwiches.

Connor Ratliff Yeah, so we read the scene and you said, Is that it? Well, I wish there were more. And then I went out of the room.

Tom Hanks Uh huh.

Connor Ratliff And then Suzanne came out a few minutes later and said, and I remember she sort of sat she sort of knelt down where I was, and she said they've decided to go another way. And then

Tom Hanks This is a bone chilling story, it's just bone chilling.

Connor Ratliff I remember walking around London and I'm thinking, I'll go to the record store that'll cheer me up.

Tom Hanks Oh always buy something after you get bad news as an actor. Yes.

Connor Ratliff The Green Mile had just been released in London, so there was a giant poster. I remember thinking if I'd been fired from a Wendy's, I wouldn't see the guy who fired me on a poster afterwards. You know, it's one of those things because I was already so nervous about meeting you in a positive context that suddenly now I was thinking, Well, now. What am I now? Like, I sort of felt like I had built this thing up so big and then it was just gone, so I put it to you.

(Suspenseful music starts)

Tom Hanks If you can see if you if you podcast listeners could see my face now would be you'd be such I'd be such a grimace.

Connor Ratliff People have always said when I've been doing this podcast, what if he doesn't remember? I said that's fine because he was actually busy recreating World War II at the time. It was a pretty big job and this was one thing, very big to me, but I'm sure five minutes after you recast the part, you were on to the next thing and then the next thing and the next thing. Does any of this ring a bell?

Tom Hanks Not a single moment of this rings a bell.

(Suspenseful music ends)

Now, let me let me first take full responsibility for doing this to you. This was this was without a doubt the act of the director.

Connor Ratliff Yes.

Tom Hanks And that was me. There was something that either stuck in a craw or was one of those very, very subtle sort of decisions that aims the story in the direction that you want it to go.

You are not a coffee cup, but sometimes they come to you and say, Would you like the blue coffee cups or the red coffee cups? And you say, I'll have the blue. And then when you get on the set, you find out, Oh, you know, the color is the red. I bring in the red coffee cups. The prop guy says, Well, we ordered the blue, so it's going to take a while for us to go dig out the red coffee cups. And I said, Well, you got 20 minutes, you know, so do what you can otherwise lose the coffee cups, you know, it's like that kind of thing.

Which is, look, I have to admit that I am not an instinctive director. I'm an instinctive other things, but the directors that I know of that I've worked with have no problem making thousands of decisions every day and they usually make the right decisions. I just barely scrape by and hope out of I hope I make 50.6 correct decisions out of the course of the day.

Now, for some reason, in the midst of the fury and exhaustion of directing anything, first of all, I should never should have said, I don't know. Let's take another look at this guy. Someone should have said, and by the way, I'm not saying this is this was, this was on me. Don't don't think for a minute that someone else got in here, but I will tell you, I will tell you a story because I've been thinking about this moment sitting here with you.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks If I, if someone said, well he's already been cast, then I would've said, Oh, well, it's a, no problem then. Somewhere in the course of that, a director will get a bug about something. And I don't know why I had a bug about the guy who was playing Zielinski other than trying to make sure that one, he looked like he was a paratrooper because all those guys were, you know, they all jumped out of planes even if they were just typing and two who knows, who knows what else goes on in there? All right. But let's imagine I actually watched the tape and said to somebody, I don't know, Man, this guy's got dead eyes. Let's I'm going to say, I said that, obviously, I said that. Dead eyes.

Connor Ratliff Does that feel like something you'd say?

Tom Hanks Yeah. Yeah, because it's been said about everybody. I mean, it's been said about me. He's got it. He's got a big ass. You know, there's this is this is the story. This is a story. Let me I'll go back in time when I was the first movie that I made with Penny Marshall was in 1987 or something, and I thought it was a big shot. And so I thought being a big shot on a movie entitled me to access to the inner sanctum of watching the rushes. I'm the actor in the movie, I work every day, therefore I am entitled, it goes along with all of the all along the food chain that I get to go and sit and watch the rushes. I get to watch the dailies.

So after we shot, after the first day I showed up in the screening room in Midtown Manhattan, I sat down there because I'm big. I've got status here, man, and so I am going to watch the rushes that we shot yesterday. I had seen the screen tests, I had seen the wardrobe tests, so I thought I would be watching the daily rushes. And Penny made a beeline to me in the theater and said, What are you doing here? I said I'm here to the rushes. You can't be here, she says. You can't be here, you don't get to watch dailies. I said, I think I do because I am, you know, I have this stature and status now that everyone must obey.

And she said, No, no, you don't. You don't get to see dailies because in this room, we have to talk uncensored, we are going to say terrible things about you and the lighting and the props and the dolly moves and you. That line is not the line, they said. That is a horrible thing. I hate this take. I'm not use it. His hair looks stupid. Why does he have those folds in his neck? Why is his voice so squeaky? We have to say all these things. And if you're here to hear them, it's really going to screw you up. Now what I learned from that exchange, which took me a while, was that the worst thing an actor could do is watch the dailies. That's that's my opinion.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks I don't like to watch the playback on the monitor because it just becomes one big exercise in self-consciousness. That's what I look like? That's what I sound like? That's what this scene is like. This is a disaster. So I stopped doing it on Big. I never watched dailies again and never, never, ever tried to, even say, Well, can I at least watch VHS cassettes to to see what the lighting is like? Even that was all a waste of time.

So in the inner sanctum of whatever this casting session was on Band of Brothers with me and the the, whatever the crack staff, I'm sure I said, I don't know, man, that guy's got dead eyes. I could have. I could have said he's got too blond a hair. I could have said he's too tall and I can't have the aide be taller than Captain Winters. I could have said he's too short and slight. He doesn't look like a par––I could have said any of these things.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks And it would have been true and there would have been the opinion. And if someone had also said to me, well, he's already cast, I would have said, Well, can we replace him? I would have said that, and I've done it in, and I think it's been said about me on occasion as well. All right. So with that, whoever communicated to you what was said in the inner sanctum with with such authenticity should have their kneecaps broken because that that is not allowed. The inner sanctum is like the it's like the dugout, man. It's not quotable there. It's off the record.

Connor Ratliff Right.

Tom Hanks I could have said his face is too red. And if someone comes back to you and says your face is too red to be in this in the show, that's and that's what that's what the man in charge says. So what you should have been told was they wouldn't have said you have to re-audition. You should come down and meet meet Tom, you should have been told that. Not that there was any sort of test that was involved.

Connor Ratliff Yeah. And I knew even on that day that there had clearly been some breakdown in communication because I knew enough to know that unless it was an especially cruel mind game, there'd be no reason for that, that message had made it through multiple levels of even when it got to my agent's office.

Tom Hanks Yes.

Connor Ratliff And it was the assistant who called me.

Tom Hanks Yes.

Connor Ratliff I've talked to him. He has no memory of delivering the message, but he also, when he was talking to me, it felt like there may be a part of him that remembers it, but not, you know what I mean.

Tom Hanks Your agency should never have been told Tom thinks your client has dead eyes.

Connor Ratliff Yes, and that person should have then looked at that message and said, Let's not tell Connor this.

Tom Hanks Exactly.

Connor Ratliff But I think the panic of the last minute you have to come you have to do this.

Tom Hanks OK, I get that. I think that was probably a factor in it. Now I have. I found this. I don't know if this will help.

(Fun music starts)

Tom Hanks Oh oh your headshot.

Connor Ratliff That's my headshot from the time because I have

Tom Hanks These are not dead eyes. Can I just say that right now from this 8x10 black and white.

Connor Ratliff Absolutely.

Tom Hanks I don't get it.Can I ask a question?

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks What was your physical state? Were you a slight guy back then? How tall are you?

Connor Ratliff 5'10''

Tom Hanks OK. 5'10". Were you skinny?

Connor Ratliff I was a little bit, I was skinnier than I am now.

Tom Hanks OK, we all were. Were you, were you slight? Were you out of shape? Were you in good shape?

Connor Ratliff I would say I was in what I would say normal human shape.

Tom Hanks Ok. All right.

Connor Ratliff Not impressive shape. But also not no one would be concerned.

Tom Hanks I'm trying to go back and honestly, I have no recollection, but I have very few recollections of any day in the course of directing that because it's just it's just such utter chaos. But I'm trying to figure out what possible rationale I had for making a change in a part, a role that only shot for one day. I'm flummoxed as to why I even bothered saying, let's go in a different direction there. I don't get it. My bad.

Connor Ratliff When I watch the scene, I don't imagine, well, this scene would be better with me in it. Band of Brothers won the Emmy for casting. It's hard to be bitter when you know that the thing that you're disappointed about actually happened exactly the way it should have in terms of the work, I look at the scene, when it aired finally, the first thing that I noticed was there was a height disparity in the shots where Adam Sims, the actor who plays the role of Private Zielinski, is significantly shorter than the other actors in the scene.

Tom Hanks OK, that might have been that might have been a reason.

Connor Ratliff And visually, it's not like it's not like a gag gag.

Tom Hanks Right.

Connor Ratliff But it is a little immediate, you know, within a second this is my orderly.

Tom Hanks Yeah, there's a cinematic visual there that probably I was going for.

Connor Ratliff Well, I mean, even though even though you have no recollection of the actual thing.

Tom Hanks None whatsoever.

Connor Ratliff But you're also not under oath, that sounded

Tom Hanks No, no, but I, I take it in in in the in the very vagaries of directing something a moment of insanity like like that happens really, really, really quite often. And you I'm sorry that you were the butt of it.

Connor Ratliff I'll tell you, I had I had a thing in my mind and I was thinking about it that day, which was I had just written and produced like a very small indie feature for myself to act in because I was trying to, I was trying to do everything I could to sort of get things started. A friend of mine directed it and we had filmed this movie in Missouri, and we had hired Holmes Osborne

Tom Hanks Oh!

Connor Ratliff to be in the movie.

Tom Hanks Yes the legendary actor of Missouri, Kansas City area, yeah.

Connor Ratliff And we literally we drove to Kansas City and we filmed it in like the basement of the director's house. Holmes came over and he said, Yeah OK. And he kind of sat down

Tom Hanks One of the, one of the greatest actors in the world, Holmes Osborne Jr. Yes.

Connor Ratliff And we had such a blast because he we just we would do takes, then we would let him go. And he was playing this creepy mentor who was like a recluse and that was a few months before getting cast in Band of Brothers and then having the re-audition. I was thinking when I found out you were going to be directing it, if I ever have to make small talk, I can mention that I've worked with Holmes.

Tom Hanks Oh my lord. If you had said that in the re-audition it, that would have been that you would have been in there, no way I would have said, thanks for coming in. We're going in a different way.  Never would have done that.

Connor Ratliff It was, It was on the tip of my tongue the entire time.

Tom Hanks Ahh missed opportunities.

(Music starts)

Connor Ratliff I was worried that I thought, Is this too desperate a Hail Mary pass, if I say Holmes Osborne says hello. Now because I'm going to fill you in on another part of the story that I learned because since you don't know any of this story.

Tom Hanks I don't know any of this story.

Connor Ratliff This part.

Tom Hanks Even though I'm responsible for the whole damn thing.

(Music fades)

Connor Ratliff You know that often that happens in a lot of Shakespeare where there's a character who starts it off who doesn't know everything that's going on. When I talked to Adam Sims, the actor who plays Zielinski, he'd auditioned a couple of times. He said he'd played a lot of stuff where it was just like a soldier who like groans or something, and he got the call to come that was going to be coming to read for you in person. And we realized that it was the same day.

Tom Hanks (Growls)

Connor Ratliff And what we realized was that they were this is this was maybe the most excited I've been in the whole process of this podcast because I felt like a real journalist. I remember saying to someone, Can you imagine if this was actually an important story like this would be a real Woodward and Bernstein moment where we're figuring out what happened.

I was in a car with Suzanne Smith and there was a second car with casting director Gary Davy and three possible Zielinski replacements. They were taken to Hatfield. I was taken to Hatfield. Suzanne was very nice to me the whole day she was, so she really took care of me in terms of like making sure that I was comfortable, making sure that I, you know, she was very kind and warm all day. But they were taken to a room to wait and I was taken to the office to wait. And I was so grateful in hindsight that this whatever had gone wrong

Tom Hanks You weren't just stuck in a room and they were all looking at each other

Connor Ratliff Yeah, whatever went wrong with the dead eyes comment and communication went right with the make sure the three alternate Zielinskis are kept in a separate place.

Tom Hanks Well in that case, a tip of my hat to the casting people because they did that right.

Connor Ratliff That would have been the true nightmare, would be when you're in a room and you realize that guy looks a little like me and that guy looks, Oh no, these are the

Tom Hanks We've all been there. I've been sitting in a room with seven other goofy looking guys with squeaky voices. Yes.

Connor Ratliff But my guess is that.

Tom Hanks Does he have any memories of shooting the day that were unique?

Connor Ratliff Adam's experience was really positive. He, you know, he auditioned that day. He actually, his telling of it I found great significance in this was he's waiting in the room with the other actors. And he said the other actors were kind of like talking a lot. And he was sort of staying quiet and I said that's smart. That's he's sort of like not trying too hard. He said he got there. He's waiting in the room. He asked, Where's the bathroom? And he goes to take a leak. And you came into the bathroom and took a leak next to him in the bathroom.

Tom Hanks (laughs)

Connor Ratliff And and I said, tell me you didn't make a joke or anything. He said, Nope, we just said, Hi. Hey. And he left the room. And then went into audition a few minutes later, when he came to the audition, you said, Hey, I just saw you in the bathroom. And I I said, you know, because I've sat in as a reader on auditions and there is that thing where someone walks in the room and they they have the part before they sit, the second they walk through the door.

Tom Hanks Yeah that happens, that happens.

Connor Ratliff I've seen that happen, and I said to Adam, I think your audition was not in the room. I think the fact that I think your audition was in the bathroom at the urinal, when you didn't you didn't try to make a joke. You didn't try to impress anyone.

Tom Hanks So here's the turn.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks One guy did not say something at the urinal.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks And it's possible that that that was the turn.  You did not mention Holmes Osborne in the room and and didn't get the job. So there's another there's another cruel twist of fate. These two guys did not do something. One had a pos, one was 00. The other one was 01.

(Revelatory music starts)

Connor Ratliff It's one of those. It's that's It's a Wonderful Life moment where it's you start thinking about what you did or didn't do.

Tom Hanks Don't pull those threads, man, it's a it's a delicate knit, the whole thing that gets us that got us from there to here.

Connor Ratliff Ok, I promised I would shut up until the end, but we have to do commercials. You know that right? I mean we did two whole episodes this season about how commercials are just part of being an actor. Maybe you heard those episodes, maybe you didn’t. Anyway we got to do an ad break here. Dead Eyes will be right back.

(Revelatory music fades)

Connor Ratliff When I think back to now having the answer that if I dropped Holmes's name and I'd made that little bit of chit chat, that that would have turned it. I do, as I have thought back to this, I had a couple of other sort of things I was trying, you know, the the film that I had done with Holmes got into a film festival.

Tom Hanks For Holmes Osborne played Guy Patterson Sr. in That Thing You Do.

Connor Ratliff Yeah yeah.

Tom Hanks He was also in From the Earth to the Moon, and he was also in Larry Crowne. So I've worked with Holmes every time I can.

Connor Ratliff And he's delightful to work with.

Tom Hanks Lovely man.

Connor Ratliff And he's electric on screen.

Tom Hanks He is, and he is in Windtalkers.

Connor Ratliff Affliction.

Tom Hanks Affliction, which he is brilliant in, which is, I mean, look, I think he's a crazy, odd kind of genius. We met, we met in 19, I knew him in 1997, 78 and 79. We did Shakespeare together in Cleveland, Ohio. He was Valentine, I was Proteus in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. So we've been cohorts, he always said, Well, Tom, now let me tell you now I've got a few more years in the biz than you do. That's that's that's that's the way we refer to it, years in the biz. I've been in the biz a little bit longer than you have. And he is. He's worth his weight in gold

Connor Ratliff And he's a great storyteller as well just in conversation, we had him on the podcast and the conversation was almost two hours because he had so many stories.

Tom Hanks Yeah. He's like that. Had you said, Oh hey, I worked with a buddy of yours, Holmes Osborne.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks It would have been Katie bar the door. You would have you would have played Zielinski and you, we wouldn't be sitting here talking right now.

Connor Ratliff We absolutely would not. I said this when I talked to Erik Jendresen and we had this great

Tom Hanks Ahh sure.

Connor Ratliff We had this great conversation. And I said if I'd booked that part and filmed the scene, I never, ever would have been able to have this conversation because everybody has a disappointing experience who tries to go into show business. This one has a number of elements in it that make it distinct, like if it had been any other director of any other episode, it wouldn't have felt the same because I wouldn't have had an invest, like I went into this experience, having a certain sense of excitement and anticipation that I was going to be working with one of my favorite actors. So it meant something

Tom Hanks Boinggggg.

Connor Ratliff to feel like I, you know, in the in the broad strokes of it to feel like I was so defective as a human being that even even the nicest man in show business could not work with me.

Tom Hanks (laughs) Oh dear.

Connor Ratliff Whereas if it was just any director, but I was probably at some point if I'd done Band of Brothers been in the scene, I think in the final version he has like one, maybe two lines. I would have then been back to square one as an actor. You know, what I mean.

Tom Hanks Yeah but you would have been invited to the reunions, we have, we have the reunions every year.

Connor Ratliff It's true. I'm not saying it wouldn't have been great. It would have been great. But I was going to face a big disappointment at some point down the line. If I just keep, you trying to be an actor, you're going to face these

Tom Hanks Well, you have touched on something that is the great inequity and the great X Factor when it comes down to this, and I learned this beginning in 19, years in the biz, Tom, years in the biz is that there is there is luck and it's blind. You have no idea. And by the way, good luck. Hard luck. I mean, there are people who sign on for a job for $75 a week and then they get offered a TV series and then can't do it. You know, that happens all the time.

But there is also the requirement of perseverance, and I think that actually is the the breaker. There are people that cannot take the five, six, seven years. They can't take the long string of disappointments. They can't they can't get past coming close and not getting it. They can't get past getting getting fired. And it, I think it really does cull the herd very, very quickly because there are versions of a career that are not based on getting on TV. I know a lot of people for that that Holmes and I knew back when we were at Great Lake Shake, all have careers and many of them have careers in theater because they still do films locally, they teach in universities, they've been in the educational theater for a long time.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks When I auditioned for things, when I was not getting them, I always treated myself to something a cheap ballpoint pen, a new notebook, a, you know, a candy bar that eventually gave me type 2 diabetes. I did some things so that I could come away from the day with something other than disappointment. Now what you should have done, I guess, is gone out and bought a car in order to treat yourself to the disappointment of me saying you had dead eyes.

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I'll tell you a brief story I've been I've been fired or I've been informed that what seemed to be like a sure thing I had frittered away literally like what happened to you? Your first audition was great. Your second audition was fine. You disappeared on that third, that third audition man. I can't hire you now. I said, Oh. I've also had moments where I was going to be cast in a movie. The main people involved they said, You are in this movie. And then I never heard from them again, except until I saw the movie and it had somebody else in it. That happened twice.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks Then there was one other time where I was going to do a film and I had a meeting with with the guy, the guy who was the writer and the director, the movie and everything who shall remain nameless. And I called him up out of the blue because it had been about three or four months since we had talked last. And I just called him up and say, Hey, I just I just thought I'd just check in, you know, I've read the script a bunch of times. If you want to talk, I'm available. He said, Yeah, sure, let's talk. And for about 20 minutes, we talked this. We talked that, we said this. We said that. And the next day, I got a call from my representatives that said, What happened on that phone call? I said it was a nice phone call. We talked about possibilities in the screenplay and what we could do when we shoot this thing six months from now, and they just said, you're off the picture. So that was that. That was that. Now, now that those all were long before I had spent the money, you know.

Connor Ratliff Right.

Tom Hanks For you to have won the role and then said, Oh no, you have to go down and audition for the director. And then for me as the director to say, Hey, thanks for coming in. And then somebody to kneel down and said, they're going with you a different direction, that that's that's a level of cruelty in in what is a cruel business that is almost off the scale, that's like getting fired from the scene as you're shooting it, which is bad. That would be bad.

Connor Ratliff Basically, when I made that movie that Holmes had a little part in and it got into a film festival, it got in the Austin Film Festival for October

Tom Hanks What's the name of this film?

Connor Ratliff Living in Missouri was name of the movie.

Tom Hanks Ok all right. Note it internet listeners,

Connor Ratliff I don't think you can find it on the internet.

Tom Hanks It must be. It's got to be on YouTube somewhere. Go deep in the bowels of the darknet.

Connor Ratliff We got into a film festival. We got accepted in August of 2001 for October of 2001.

Tom Hanks Oh, I know what happened between then and then

Connor Ratliff Yes, and and there was a series of things like that where I started feeling like, well, like the first episode of Band of Brothers aired on the Sunday night before. And I couldn't have felt sorrier for myself. As I was watching it, I was thinking, this is, how am I going to make it through the next two months? This is the worst thing that's ever happened to anybody. And two days later, I realized, Oh, actually, no, it's a very small thing that I went through. I'm not upset. It was sort of it was a

Tom Hanks it's a great refocusing moment.

Connor Ratliff Yeah it was a real camera pulls wide and you realize like, Oh, right, I maybe have been making too much of this.

Tom Hanks We are but grains of sand scattered amongst the the along the beach along the shore.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks You know, the movie moviemaking comes down to the most arcane, nonsensical moments where for some reason you open a can of dog food in a real, fascinating manner, and all you did on the day was open a can of dog food and you might of, and then when people see the movie, they said, Man, that scene where you open that kind of dog food. I've watched that a million times.

You go, OK, that's the that's the great serendipity of of all of us that I would say in and for that in an example of that episode of Band of Brothers, which is episode five. It's called “Crossroads.” It's right in the middle of the series is you've got four and a half episodes until the middle of that episode and you have four and a half episodes afterwards. It is called “Crossroads” for a real reason. There were moments in there. I said I thought this is the most key moment in the entire series because it's the last time Captain Winters kills an enemy soldier, and he looks like he's a 14-year-old kid.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks That that was it. Now, whether or not that has resonance or not, I don't. I can only, you can only go into and said, This is this is what I'm, you know, this is what I'm aiming for, for this to be a moment that that breaks the rest of the series and you try to do that again and again and again and whether it works or not. God, it's not up to you. It's some other powerful force.

Connor Ratliff I can tell you from my own point of view that it works because the night that I watched that episode, I remember thinking, like, ugh this one's good.

Tom Hanks (Laughs) There you go.

Connor Ratliff That was still, you know, it was in that fog of post-9/11, everything feeling very like

Tom Hanks We did not know if if we were going to be back on the air after 9/11. We didn't know if this was going to be a jingoistic, you know, a shock and awe kind of like bit of quasi propaganda or if was going to be a tonic for a nation that was looking for some sort of common purpose in the midst of, you know, the most insane thing that had happened in our lives?

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Connor Ratliff I remember for me that it was something to do on Sunday night that would I could focus on in a period where it was sort of hard to focus on things. You know?

Tom Hanks There is a power to that. There's a power to that concept of that brand of appointment viewing. Game of Thrones has done that. Mad Men did it. The Sopranos does it. It's it's a it's a brand of old school anticipation that was, you know, sort of not used to, but I happen to I happen to adore it.

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Connor Ratliff When I thought of the idea of doing this podcast, I was always concerned that it would be something that like when you described having chills when you first, like, heard about it, I really didn't want this to be something that would annoy you. As I was thinking, I remember I was talking to my manager saying, Is this a bad idea? If I do a podcast about this? Like because I thought, maybe it is really stupid to do like from a just from a purely careerist showbusiness point of view.

Tom Hanks Got it right yeah.

Connor Ratliff To be like, I don't want people thinking this is a take down podcast or that I'm on the I'm I'm looking to get revenge or something. I've seen people write about the podcast where they say he's looking for revenge. I'm not. I'm not looking for revenge. I'm, I'm a nice guy looking for a nice conversation.

One of the things that gave me the feeling that it would be OK was I had a realization about two of the movies you've written and directed. Larry Crowne is about a guy who gets fired, and for the first act of that movie, he feels terrible. He's moping around, and the whole movie is about what do you do when you have a disappointment that you have no control over, and you've got to figure out how to reframe your life. Then I realized That Thing You Do, Shades, his ending at the end of that movie is in the extended cut of that movie. He basically starts a podcast.

Tom Hanks Oh, yeah. That's right.

Connor Ratliff It's the 1964 version, he has those tapes of the interview.

Tom Hanks He interviewed Del Paxton. And yeah.

Connor Ratliff You can't get closer to a 1964 version of a podcast than jazz interviews on a jazz radio station. And I thought, Well, these are the themes that the podcast is about. It's about trying to figure out, you look at a moment where things don't go your way. And everybody has something like that. Mine happens to star a two-time Academy Award winner, beloved

Tom Hanks Long ago by the way, I was done by the time you and I met. But yeah.

Connor Ratliff I, I, I was rooting for you for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

Tom Hanks But you know, you know what, you're talking about something here. When I heard about this, from my son and from my daughter, the initial chill was, Oh, what have I done? Because look, I've said, I've told stories on the air, and I made mention of things that end up ended up like hurting people that were involved. To me, they're just life stories, but it's like I could be bringing up a painful, painful episode, and I feel terrible about that and I'm getting better at at doing it perhaps the better the right way.

But this is a dispassionate look at history, meaning that there's no bad guys here. There's this happened. There's that happened. That's not like you offended me. And so therefore I I sought retribution by not giving you this job. You didn't, you know, in in in in lesser hands, the melodramatic aspect would just be well, there must be a reason that Hank's fired this guy, and there actually was no reason it would just like, I don't know. Let's go with somebody else.

So the dispassionate aspect of that, I think, is very, very important because when we have narratives, we break it up into I was a victim of blank or I triumphed over bad guys. And that's not the way the world works and forgive me, but when I first started talking with Bill Broyles and then eventually Bob Zemeckis about Castaway and even it's a theme that comes back again and again because I'm absolutely fascinated by it. Bill Broyles and I was talking he says, Well what is what is the point of this? What do you want to say on this movie?

I said, Here's if I could do it. Here's what we'd do. We'd start the movie in a in a beautiful setting, a beautiful farmhouse with the gorgeous tree. There's a lovely lady on the porch and I've got three gorgeous kids that are goofing around on the on the grass. Everybody's happy. Everybody is laughing. And I could say that this fabulous life of mine would never have occurred if I wasn't in a plane crash that isolated me on an island for four years.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks That, to me, is the great aspect of Shakespearean drama and every great, every great novel that I've ever read that you don't have this magnificent story without some form of tragedy happening to you, and that speaks to perseverance of keeping going, despite any number of bad news. It has, it speaks to the serendipity of, you know, you never know what's, you never know it's going to come come down the pike, and it takes the melodrama out and gives you instead a dispassionate. Well, this happened. And then this happened. And that's that's where, you know, I ended up today. I mean, Larry, Larry, the whole I was I was I was a man possessed in writing and directing Larry Crowne.

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But it always comes down to it's like, Well, what's what's the greatest thing that, what's the worst thing that happened to you? I got fired from my job in this case, Larry Crowne from Unimart and I said, And what's the best thing that happened to you? Well, actually getting fired from this job because then I went to then I went to school and all this amazing stuff happened. And that is that's that's my experience. That's my autobiography in a in a in a single page.

Connor Ratliff Like, I was never able to get away from it as an experience because of the, you know, the, you know, Green, the second I saw that Green Mile poster on the side of Piccadilly Circus.

(Sentimental music ends)

Tom Hanks That's almost too good.

Connor Ratliff I thought, Oh no, I can't fully move on from this. I have to assimilate it because I'm not going to stop hearing things about Tom Hanks or seeing things about Tom Hanks, so I knew that it's like, well, it became a joke when I started getting to know people. In the first episode of this, I talked to my friend D'Arcy Carden, who was one of the first my first friends at UCB. I said, I've told you this story before and she said, You told it to me on the day that I met you.

Tom Hanks (Laughs) You might have been carrying that around in your pocket.

Connor Ratliff Well, whenever someone's like, So how'd you get into this? How'd you get started? It was the thing that would always explain like, well, I, I tried to be an actor once and then I took a break, and it was also the funniest and most interesting part of that process.

Tom Hanks It's a good, it's a good story. What happened to you after that? What was your next job after me letting you go because of your dead eyes?

Connor Ratliff Ugh for a little while, I was a dishwasher at one point.

Tom Hanks Alright I've done that.

Connor Ratliff I worked at my friend's preschool for a little bit.

Tom Hanks Didn't do that. But that's that's a that's a that's a survival job.

Connor Ratliff And then I worked at Barnes and Noble Union Square for 13 years.

Tom Hanks Wow. All right. The book business.

Connor Ratliff And I loved it. And then I started taking classes at UCB at one point in New York.

Tom Hanks Oh ok. All right. Upright Citizens Brigade when the probably the premier improv institutions in the world now. Yes.

Connor Ratliff Yeah. And eventually I kind of fell backwards into show business again. But what I found when I looked back on the experience was that it had built a lot of character in terms of when I returned to show business, I knew not to take everything so personally, I knew that for everything that can go right, it can also go wrong just as quickly. And eventually, the story became a very funny story. And there's if you remove one detail from the story, it no longer is. It no longer works. It has to be you. I've tried thinking of it. What if it was somebody else?

Tom Hanks And that's the dispassionate aspect of it, which I think is fascinating and makes it a million times more interesting to to discover

Connor Ratliff If I if I were to just get a message that they've decided to go another way and then I never hear anything else. That's not a great story.

Tom Hanks No yeah.

Connor Ratliff I have to be told he thinks you have dead eyes because then it creates this larger emotional.

Tom Hanks All right, so let's look at the stepping stones here. If if that inner sanctum had been protected, meaning if someone had said, Well, we'll never tell this, you would have got a call that would have said, Hey, this great but they decided to go a different way, and that would have been that. So if if if the protocol had been followed, you would not have had as fascinating a story.

Connor Ratliff I would have had nothing. I would have just, I would have been I mean, I would have been fine. It's not like I think things still would have worked out eventually, but it's been such a gift because we never would have arrived at this place if I hadn't had my little show business nightmare. It's been a real lesson in terms of even a negative experience can sometimes be the thing that is ultimately more rewarding than if I just had a lovely time filming for a day on Band of Brothers.

Tom Hanks Well, isn't that, isn't that the serendipity that we're that that you must have faith in? There is a type of seasoning of who knows what's going to happen. A pure, unadulterated chance that moves stuff along somehow. And it never stops happening in a career. It happens when you're you have no job. It happens before you have a union card in your pocket. And it continues right along until, you know they drum you out of the business.

Connor Ratliff How do you process disappointment when something doesn't go your way?

Tom Hanks Oh my lord. It's by going into it with absolutely no expectations whatsoever. That's hard because look, I was very I was I was spoiled because, you know, the the first movie I made was a hit. The second movie I made was a hit and I thought, Well, the magic sauce in any movie, obviously is my presence. And then when you make literally five movies in a row after that and which are not just dismissed but sometimes loathed by people, and you read it, you know, like read that you learn pretty quick is that movies are binary. They're either 00s or 0 and 1. There is no other version of what it is. It either works or it does not work. The nature of marketing and prints and advertising, there was before the advent of cell phones, quite frankly, you could be in a really terrible movie on Friday, and no one would know that it was really terrible until Monday if they didn't read the reviews, if they weren't up on it.

Connor Ratliff Right.

Tom Hanks Because on Monday, people went to school, people went to work and they said, I saw the worst movie on Friday. Now, as soon as cell phones became ubiquitous in the first nanoseconds of a film, someone is saying, Hey, this is great or Hey, this sucks. So that that's just one of the great, you know, shifts in the cultural zeitgeist that goes along with it.

So going into any movie, you have to any story that you're trying to tell every step of the way, is this a good thing? I don't know. Did it work? I don't know. Were dailies any good? Who knows? Is it going to cut together? Maybe. Bob Zemeckis when the first time we worked together we had two moments.

One, we were, you know, sitting in a park bench in Savannah, Georgia, and I said, Bob, is any of this going to work? I mean, does anybody going to care about this? And he said, It's a minefield Tom. It's just a minefield. They're out there. Are we going to step on him and blow our legs up? Don't know. Well, we'll find out. Then when he was when he was cutting the movie together and he that was that was a very particular kind of union between the guy in the movie and the guy who was making the movie.

Connor Ratliff Yeah

Tom Hanks He said, You know, I can't I can't do this without you being my soulmate. I can't make this movie called this and have the guy who's playing the title role not be a part of everything. So I want you to look at this and tell me anything. And when he says I don't have any ego about this, I did not believe it to begin with. But then I found out, truly, he doesn't have any ego. I said, Here it is. Dispassionate. I don't want to. I don't want to overuse that word. But when we were when we were doing and I said, I'm man, I don't, I don't know, you know, I saw I saw a cut of it and I said, Hey, Bob, I don't know. I can't take. I'm the last person you should ask about this. He says well, you know, the good thing is the movie will tell us what it is, and that is true.

(Violin music starts)

And if it doesn't work, man, it don't work. So to answer your question, you can't go into it with any expectations whatsoever. All you can do is try to try to be fascinated by the work that you're doing that's it.

Connor Ratliff OK, sorry, sorry, sorry, got to do one more ad break. I promise this will be quick and then back with more Tom Hanks right through to the end of the episode. Dead Eyes will be right back.

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Connor Ratliff When we started at the beginning of this podcast, I was like, well, the dream goal is to eventually get to talk to you. I didn't know whether that would take years, whether it would take minutes like there was part of me that thought when we released the first episode that there'd be a phone call right away saying we got to shut this down. He's going to talk to you and we want to put an end to this

Tom Hanks (Laughs) Cease and desist order in a registered letter in the mail.

Connor Ratliff Or I was fully ready to like, well, it'll take as long as it takes, and maybe it'll never happen. The other holy grail, it's more terrifying than like, I'm not nervous talking to you. I'm very relaxed. It just feels like a normal conversation. But the other thing that does make me nervous and it probably doesn't exist is my original audition tape.

Tom Hanks Oh.

Connor Ratliff I don't know if this is in a shoe box somewhere. I don't know if it's it's a closet.

Tom Hanks That's a good question.

Connor Ratliff Or a cupboard. But I fear it in a way, because in some ways, whatever you might have seen on that tape that I will look at that and think, Oh God, I can't believe I even made it through the audition process.

Tom Hanks You know I, I predict that if you, if it does exist, you would have you would have looked at and you would said, What's wrong with that? You know, you said, Jeez, I wish. I would wish I would have had more. One of the things that I don't know is is because those auditions happened in England, it's a completely different system that we have here. We were still using essentially camcorders, you know, small VHS or maybe eight mil Sony eight mm in order to which you can't find it anymore. So I wonder what media all of those auditions are on and if they've been, if they've been kept.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks I bet they haven't.

Connor Ratliff I would bet they haven't. I didn't know. I bet a lot of I bet the most important stuff is somewhere in a

Tom Hanks 21 years old after that.

Connor Ratliff In a HBO Playtone archive somewhere

Tom Hanks Unless the director himself on his home, Ron Howard

Connor Ratliff Well, that's you in this case.

Tom Hanks Well I don't have it because it wasn't my home the home video. Ron Howard did auditions on his v, v, um, JVC VHS compact disc tape for Splash, and he actually still has those. And I've actually seen them. And they're it's painful. It's really painful.

Connor Ratliff I think it would be painful for me to see mine. I was talking to somebody about this podcast and they were saying, You're finding all these connections with people. And I'm like, Well, once you start looking for them, they're everywhere. And the fact that I already knew Holmes before I walked into that room with you and I didn't, I was I was too chicken because I thought, maybe if I say it, it'll be enough. Maybe I'm so close to not getting fired, but I thought, what if I say it and it's annoying? And

Tom Hanks You know there is a thing that has happened, I think, because we can now self tape so perfectly on on iPads that that that serendipity is removed. The do I or don't I. Do we talk about this or not, so you can save it for later on, you could save it for that moment where you really are, you've you've bypassed, your, I'm meeting you now for a really good reason because I want this to work out. Look, I've been on both sides of the audition process. I've walked into a room hoping that I was a guy they wanted and left out being, No, thank you.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks And I've also sat on the other side of the desk praying for the perfect Zielinski to walk, to walk through the door. And when it happens, it's it's undeniable. And when it doesn't happen, it is still left up to some sort of like odd chance, because it might just be that at the end of the day, you go with you, go with whoever you're closest to because you can't land, you can't nail it any other way.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks It's brutal. It's it's it's as cruel as baseball, I think. You know, it's it's you should win, but you lose. You should lose, but you win. And it's it's that inexplicable and requires if I can go back and overuse this word again, a degree of dispassion, I don't understand people who are pissed off because, oh, he didn't give me that job or, you know, she cut the scene that I was in or, there's no room for that. There's no room for that in the, you know, it's it's a it's a journey of many steps and the only the only thing you can do is is keep stepping, keep walking. That's the perseverance that's required.

Connor Ratliff It's been an interesting thing to process because I've I learned the lesson a while ago. That thing of you have to you have to move on to the next thing. When something doesn't work out, the most important thing is just, well, what can we learn from this and is, sometimes nothing. Sometimes you have a bad experience and it's just a bad experience.

Tom Hanks Just a bad experience.

Connor Ratliff But is there anything that you can get from this?

Tom Hanks When I found out about this from my daughter and my son, I said, I literally said, How bad is it? That was my question. And he said, no. They both said, No, no, it's actually a really wonderful thing.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks I mean, this guy has really taken this thing and has nothing but a great perspective. And at the same time, you know, an authentic version of what happened. And because I yes, you were told I thought you had dead eyes. That's about as concrete a statement as anybody is ever going to have from anybody. But I was I thought, Well, and I go right to the cheesy, melodramatic narrative, which is like, Oh, OK, so this is going to be essentially ongoing poison pen letter.

But it's not because you we the people in the know, the people who who live on Fountain Avenue, as I like to say know that there's no room for that. You can't go there. If you do, it's it's it's the it's the death of moving forward.

Connor Ratliff If you imagine yourself in your early 20s, who would have been the person that you would have most not wanted to be fired by?

Tom Hanks That's like like a triple negative in there.

Connor Ratliff Yes. Like is there, is there someone who was like, who you adored as like, who is the big actor movie star that you would have taken as the ultimate sign of

Tom Hanks You mean this would have had to been after I was in town, I was beginning to audition for things.

Connor Ratliff Yeah, let's say this is like 79ish, like 78, 79 ish, maybe.

Tom Hanks Well, I remember that both Peter Scolari and I in the in between the seasons, we only made two seasons of Bosom Buddies and we thought, Hey, there's a we got a little cachet here, let's get out there and not a peep, not a dent. There were, you know, get, you know, at that time, there were all kinds of things that were casting all the time and I thought, Well, you know, I'm on this show. I got I got something, you know, I wasn't, you know, it was a certain thing and nothing translated, absolutely nothing translated. Whatever, whatever we did on the show, the most that you could get out of it was like, you know, because we were on ABC, you could do the Love Boat or Fantasy Island or you know, Circus of the Stars or

Connor Ratliff Battle

Tom Hanks Battle of the Network Stars. You could do that, and I didn't do any of that.

Connor Ratliff When are they bringing that back?

Tom Hanks Oh, soon, I hope don't you don't you, along with American Gladiators.

Connor Ratliff All the streamers can fight each other.

Tom Hanks Wouldn't that be something Ted Lasso could take on, you know, Squid Game?

Connor Ratliff And I think that's if that doesn't get if that doesn't get the clicks. I don't know what will.

Tom Hanks You know, you're talking about another thing, too, which is like, I was palpably sensing that, OK, I have given up. I have thrown in. I'm all in on this TV experience of Bosom Buddies. All of my efforts and all of my cachet, and anything that comes after that is going to be due to what we're doing here. And it was a nightmare. I mean, I think I went to bed more petrified every night than I did if it hadn't been for the friendship of Peter Scolari. And, you know, the kind of like molecular bonding that we had in that thing, I think it would have gone nuts.

Connor Ratliff From the outside looking back in hindsight, I would have looked at that and I would have I would have assumed, well, once you had Bosom Buddies, you had it made.

Tom Hanks Oh, dear Lord, no, oh heck no.

Connor Ratliff As a kid, I definitely would have said I would have looked at that and said, he's the star of a sitcom, and from then on it's smooth sailing.

Tom Hanks Well, I was unemployed for the year after that, you know, I got I remember I signed a deal with CBS that did absolutely nothing, so I got no series after that.

Connor Ratliff A year can go quick. But a year when you're waiting for something that could happen any day

Tom Hanks Well, this is the great amazing, this is the fantastic thing about now is that because we can make our own movies with our phones and our iPads, and because there is a huge talent pool, like everybody says, if I'm coming to L.A., what's the first thing I should do? I said, first thing you should do is make a bunch of movies where you are right now. You got friends, find somebody to write something shooting on your iPhone, do it and put that up. Get it up on YouTube as soon as possible and do that.

If you're going to come to L.A., the next thing you have to do is figure out your posse, get your crew, go to the UCB, take by the way, UCB is honestly it should get the Nobel Prize or the Pulitzer or something like that for the amount of comedic talent, but not just comedic talent, storytelling chops have come out of that place.

So when I was here in 78, 79, there was no place to go outside of an acting class. Or maybe some small theater that no one would come and see in Los Angeles in order to do it. So you had to, like, throw down. I'm going to be a New York actor and try to work in theater there, or I'm going to be in L.A. and I ended up in L.A. and I couldn't afford to go anywhere else. I was trying to make, I was trying to, you know, pay the rent and take care of the family and make my car payments.

Connor Ratliff When you have had to, I mean, in this case, you were making a call. You weren't having to fire someone directly. Have you had to ever fire someone directly to their face because that was another thing on the day, part of me felt like I wondered whether I would have felt better or worse if you had come out of the room and been like, Hey, listen, this won't work out, but don't worry, you know, like part of me imagined on the drive back, I'm like, I wonder whether that would have made me feel

Tom Hanks I was responsible for somebody being fired.

Connor Ratliff Right.

Tom Hanks I was not the day to day guy. I I won't say, this is very, very tough because everybody involved is, you know has an awful lot of stuff going. But I asked, Are there any bumps on the road? You know, all the decisions have been made and was going forward and there was there was there was a certain amount of time left that if any changes have to be made, we have to make, you know, going to make them right now.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks And and I asked is, are there any bumps on the road and everybody at the table looked at each other and I said what? You know, and the word came back that there was there was there was somebody that didn't seem to have the what's the word I'm looking for the kind of like philosophy just they were kind of like that weren't weren't quite the drummer we needed in the band.

Connor Ratliff Right.

Tom Hanks And I said, Well, then they have to go. And they said, Do we have your permission to do that? And I said, Well, do you have somebody that can come in and play the drums? I'm not, this is not about That Thing You Do. No, no, no.

Connor Ratliff You're using code.

Tom Hanks Well yeah I'm I'm using code. Is there somebody that can drive the bus, you know? And they said, actually, there's somebody else that we would love to be able to put in this part and and drive the bus. And I said, do it. They said, We have your permission.

There was another time when the dailies on the very first thing came in and I had to say, Oh, no, no, no, this this can't be. And it was purely it was it was purely physical thing. So we just can't have somebody that is like this. And they said, Well, what, and I at that point, I had to call the studio and say, Look, I've never done this before, but we have to make a change.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks And they said, well. You know, OK. Do you have a solution for this? And I said, Yes, I do have a solution for it and that worked out. It's bone cracking. It's, it's on one hand, it's, it's the last thing you want to do, but it's the first thing you have to get done. And it's it's not pleasant because look, I've been in that, I've been in that position of and I've also seen other people being put in that position too. And did it, did it crack up somebody's you know, you know, immediate life? Yeah. But did it also solve a major flaw in the porcelain? And the answer to that question, the answer is yes.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks Movies are, I find that you have to start a movie on a Wednesday because by Friday, everybody has proven their value. And if they're causing more problems and that this goes for, you know, number one on the call sheet or number three on the call sheet as well. If that man it ain't happening there, then guess what? On you, you you change things on Saturday and you bring somebody else in and show them around on Sunday, and they show up to work on Monday morning. It's just the way it happens.

Connor Ratliff Do you have something that's like a dead eyes story that from your own experience, like when you were younger or something, something that you carried around that you think like you've either made peace with it or for a while, it bugged you?

Tom Hanks Well, learning what I have over the course of time that you can't put too much on this and you can't let it fester and you have to write it off as we are all but leaves on the river and you know, and we make our way to the sea. This is going to sound really, really, really kind of oh, come on, are you really that much of a goody two shoes that you recall this?

When I was, I went to two years of junior college, during which time I only allowed myself to take one theater class per quarter because I thought I was just going to, what do you do? You go to college and you get a degree in something. I don't know, who knows, I didn't think you could actually study theater.

I didn't think that was like, I didn't think that was a job that you could pursue. But when I was going to junior college, I saw examples of it, said, Oh no, actually, you can study this like you can study drafting or electrical engineering or, you know, pre-law. I say, Oh, no there is actually a course of study for the theater. And I have seen enough of this life to realize that if I could get a paycheck in a theater.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks That would be about the greatest job. Stage manager, assistant stage manager, lighting designer, sound, I'll do anything. Actor, that'd be great. So when I started, I went to State University in Sacramento and lo and behold, the very first play I tried out for, I got in. And it was it went to the American College Theater Festival. It wasn't a big part at all, but I was. I was

Connor Ratliff My freshman year of college drama major. I had a play that also went to the American College Theater Festival.

Tom Hanks Yes. Yeah, big thing you go to if you make it through the regionals, which for us were in Fresno. And if you get chosen, you get to go and perform it in Washington, D.C.

Connor Ratliff We didn't make it past regionals.

Tom Hanks No we didn't make it past regionals either, we we we died in Fresno. As the case may be. I don't know what, but

Connor Ratliff I think mine was Kansas City. We died in Kansas City.

Tom Hanks Okay. Alright. All right. You know who once won the Irene Ryan Acting Award for literally best performance at the American College Theater Festival? You know who won it?

Connor Ratliff Who?

Tom Hanks Don Johnson.

Connor Ratliff Really?

Tom Hanks Don Miami Vice Johnson.

Connor Ratliff Wow.

Tom Hanks I had dinner with him at one point, I said, Don I got to ask you a question, man, you won the Irene Ryan, by the way, is Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies. She was an incredibly accomplished actress, and she started up this fund to give away the Irene Ryan Award to the best college performer, best college actor at the American College Theater, side stories.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks So I was in this production and the next audition was for this really great comedy that I want, you know, I was in college and I was taking the classes, so I auditioned for it. All of my friends, every single one of them who I had just acted with in this other play were cast in this play except me.

I lost it out to a guy who was incredibly good-looking and gorgeous and blond and looked like a looked like a superhero. And he was a friend of mine. And when I didn't get that part, for the better part of 10 days, I thought, Well, that's that. I'm done. I can study, I can stage manage, I can do this, but if I can't get cast in that, what am I going to do? I know what was coming down the pike and there was nothing, and I remember taking the taking the bus home from campus. I was sharing an apartment with two law students who were going to a law school in town, two guys that I knew from Oakland and I was bummed out.

It was just like I have experienced a type of negativity that I had never, in high school I always got cast. In junior college when I finally tried out for a play, I was cast. So I had never not made it into the cast. And when it happened, I thought, this is the great divide. This is the door closing. Everybody else is on the other side of the river and I'm left here.

And then I heard that there was a theater downtown that was auditioning for something. And I went downtown and got cast in a in a production that happened to be directed by a guy who was running the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival. And he invited me and four other people to come back and work in his theater. So again, what's the best thing that happened to me was not getting cast at school.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks So that I could go down and that I don't I, an example of that is the thing that happens again and again and again and again, just as the pleasure of the excitement of being cast in the high school play. We auditioned Wednesday, Thursdays and Fridays, and we had to wait for Monday to find out if we were in the show or not. Twelfth Night, Night of the Iguana, South Pacific, My Fair Lady, things like that. And on Monday, it's like, Oh my God, we made it. I made it. I made it. Oh, this is the most exciting thing in the world. The antithesis of that was I didn't get cast in the show at the thing, and I thought, Well, that's all that's that's all over. That's all, she wrote.

Connor Ratliff And if you pull it that string, if you had gotten cast in that play, you might not end up at Great Lakes.

Tom Hanks Yeah, I wouldn't have been available.

Connor Ratliff Yeah. And who knows, from that point on, like your whole life could have been different.

Tom Hanks Well, that's the way it works. And you know, it's a coo coo thing. If I hadn't even I hadn't just gone to Sacramento, you know, if I hadn't gone to Chabot Junior College, who knows what what you know, you never know the road not taken.

Connor Ratliff In another, at another point in my life, if I found out in 2003 that if you'd only mentioned Holmes Osborne, you would have got it. It would have really bugged me.

Tom Hanks Yeah, yeah.

Connor Ratliff But now, if I were to pull at that thread magically, I say, Hey, I just worked with your buddy Holmes Osborne.

(Contemplative music starts)

I wouldn't, it would undo everything that I've had, including this conversation, this experience. It would, and this is, I mean, we would have you and I would have exchanged a handful of words that day. And you wouldn't remember it.

Tom Hanks Wouldn't remember a thing.

Connor Ratliff Because as soon as you got the scene, you're on to the next thing. We got to do this, we got to. I wouldn't have made an impression, whereas I feel like there's a reasonable chance you'll remember this conversation.

Tom Hanks This conversation I'll I'll be talking about at dinner parties for the next year and a half and continuing along with it, without a doubt.

Connor Ratliff Well, I want to thank you so much for talking to me for this.

Tom Hanks This has been great.

Connor Ratliff I'll ask you and you don't have to promise this I won't hold you to it, but I'll put it out there. Next time you're directing something, let me read for it.

Tom Hanks OK.

Connor Ratliff I'd love to read for it.

Tom Hanks I guarent––

Connor Ratliff No  expectations. I'm just another

Tom Hanks My my crack staff behind, on the other side of the double pane glass will keep that will keep that promise.

Connor Ratliff Keep me on file.

Tom Hanks I will indeed.

Connor Ratliff That's all I ask.

Tom Hanks I'm trying to think of what we have that's going to be coming up cooking here.

Connor Ratliff I'm willing to shave for it.

Tom Hanks OK. Great.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks I really enjoyed this. Thanks very much.

Connor Ratliff I've had so much fun talking to you. It's been cathartic and pleasant, and wonderful.

Tom Hanks Who else is on your wish list now for this?

Connor Ratliff Ugh nobody. I don't know who else?

(Contemplative music ends)

Connor Ratliff When our conversation was over, I had two things for Tom to sign. One was my copy of the full shooting script for Band of Brothers episode five.

Tom Hanks You kept this?

Connor Ratliff I put it in a filing cabinet and I forgot about it.

Tom Hanks You have the famous thing that said this is what's known as a one liner that tells you every day's scene of that day and how long you're working. And here it is, Band of Brothers “Part Five: The Crossroads” by Erik Jendresen and based on the book by Stephen Ambrose. Current revisions by by yours truly. Wow. Yeah, yeah,

(Dramatic music starts)

Connor Ratliff He wrote on it: to Connor what eyes you have.

And it just now occurred to me that he is paraphrasing Little Red Riding Hood and that I once played the role of the Wolf in the 1997 production of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods at Drama School in Liverpool. And that thought is making me realize that I no longer need to search for patterns and connections like that.

(Dramatic music ends)

It's going to be a hard habit to break. The other thing I had brought for him to sign was one of my two DVD copies of Tom Hanks' Electric City that I had bought back when we were putting together our Electric City episode. When I placed it on the table, it was clear from his reaction that he had never seen one of these before.

Tom Hanks And this is this yours?

Connor Ratliff That's mine, that is Electric City.

(Emotional music starts)

Tom Hanks Oh, my God.

Connor Ratliff On DVD.

Tom Hanks Yes.

Connor Ratliff Do you have this on DVD.

Tom Hanks No, I don't.

Connor Ratliff You know what? I'm going to give this to you because I found this on eBay.

Tom Hanks You, we worked so hard and long on that thing.

Connor Ratliff Well that's yours.

Tom Hanks And if we take this and try to do it for real, I'll you'll come in and you'll play the guy that

Connor Ratliff Yeah you keep that copy.

Tom Hanks You'll keep play the guy that Cleveland Carr kills at the top of it. How about how about that? Thank you. I'm going to watch this at Wire Central. Holy cow.

Connor Ratliff Yeah. And it's subtitled, but you can think you turn the subtitles off and it's in English so.

Tom Hanks Oh, no kidding.

Connor Ratliff Yeah.

Tom Hanks Oh great fantastic.

Connor Ratliff After the mics were turned off, we left the studio and went out into the common area of the office. It's this cavernous, refurbished warehouse with a huge backlit shelf-lined wall, packed with art books and historical nonfiction. Tom was immediately drawn to the selection standing in front of it. We posed there for photos, making small talk while the cameras went off. And at one point when we were standing there almost eye to eye, he looked at me as if he was trying to figure something out. His arms were folded like a director considering a camera angle. And he said, you know, it was probably the height thing. I told him that was my dad's theory.

(Emotional music ends)

My name is Connor Ratliff. I'm an actor and comedian. 22 years ago I was fired by Tom Hanks. I made a podcast about it, and he agreed to be a guest. When it was over, he said he would keep me in mind if he was ever casting anything I might be right for. And that's the short version.

(Aimee Mann's song "Dead Eyes" begins)

Dead Eyes is a production of Headgum Studios. It was created by me, Connor Ratliff, it's written by me and it's mostly me that you hear talking, including now. Our producers are Harry Nelson and Mike Comite, and our associate producer is Jordan Allyn. Special thanks to my guest, Tom Hanks.

And thanks to my friend Ben Schwartz, in addition to verifying for us that it really was an email from Tom Hanks, Ben is also one of the reasons this podcast is what it is. There was a point when it looked like I was going to have to record this thing on my phone because nobody was interested in it. And right when we needed a champion, Ben vouched for it personally with Jake and Amir, and it became a Headgum original podcast. So thank you, Ben.

Also, thanks to Aimee Mann for writing and recording the song “Dead Eyes” specifically for this episode. The track was produced by Paul Bryan and features Adam Tressler and Jay Bellerose. I'd also like to give some additional thanks to people who have helped make all of this possible, including Clare Slaughter, Whitney Tancred, and the fine folks at Hyperobject Industries.

Also, thanks to Earwolf, who allowed me to make the original pilot for Dead Eyes. And you know what else? Thanks to Bebe Neuwirth for being the voice you hear at the beginning of every episode.

If you like Dead Eyes, please do all the things that podcasts tell you to do. Subscribe, rate, review, follow us on Twitter @deadeyespodcast, and talk about us nicely on social media. If you want to reach out, the email is deadeyespodcast@gmail.com. Please tell your friends about this show, especially if you are friends with Steven Spielberg, whom I'd really love to talk with to see if he remembers his awkward interactions with actor David Krumholtz when we return with season four of Dead Eyes: The Krumholtz Conundrum.

David Krumholtz Fuck you.

Connor Ratliff Or maybe not. We'll see what happens next. Thank you so much for listening. Be smart. Stay safe.