Tom Hanks calls film critics “cocksuckers” in jokey podcast rant

Hanks responded to some early reviews of his directorial debut from 1996

Tom Hanks has described film critics as “cocksuckers” in a jokey podcast interview with Conan O’Brien.

Hanks was appearing in O’Brien’s podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend when he made the comments. During the interview, Hanks was asked about his 1996 directorial debut film, That Thing You Do!, which O’Brien said was a cult classic, despite receiving a lukewarm critical reception upon its release.

In response, Hanks said: “Let me tell you something about these cocksuckers who write about movies,” before going on to describe a critic who said the film looked like it was “shot on TV and not much of anything” – and then recently called the film a “cult classic” (as per The Guardian).

Hanks went on to say he accepted it though, sharing: “But you know, that’s the thing we all signed up for. That’s the carnival, that’s the contest, right? I’ve got faith in that.”

Recently, Francis Ford Coppola also hit out at critics who left negative reviews of his most recent film, Megalopolis.

The film was met with poor reviews and received a somewhat hostile premiere at Cannes. In NME’s two-star review of Megalopolis, Lou Thomas wrote: “The whole piece is so uneven, that at times it’s akin to watching a toddler being given free rein as an interior decorator. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you always should.”

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On Rotten Tomatoes the film was left with a score of 52 per cent. Many commented on the movie’s “bizarreness”, with The Guardian describing it as “bloated, boring and bafflingly shallow”.

In response, Coppola recently shared a new trailer for the film featuring negative reviews on his past movies such as The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Hanks will next be seen in Robert Zemeckis’ time-hopping drama Here, reuniting with his Forrest Gump co-star Robin Wright. He’s also the lead in 2022’s A Man Called Otto, which was recently rediscovered by audiences when it topped the Netflix charts.