Tom Hanks | Jerry Maguire – Jerry Maguire

Big and Splash, no pun intended, were the breakthrough movies of Tom Hanks back in 1988 and 1984, respectively. A few years after these two films, Hanks won Best Actor category awards for Philadelphia, where he played a lawyer, and Forrest Gump, which became a mass favorite. In 1996, he was supposed to star on Jerry Maguire instead of Tom Cruise—but what happened?

Apparently, writer-director Cameron Crowe wrote the character of Jerry for Hanks. As it took him four years to finish the whole script, the leading candidate didn’t look anywhere near the 35-year-old role he was supposed to portray. While Harrelson made investments in writing a compelling script, Hanks lost his chance. He was also venturing into directing that time. Admirably, the now-64-year-old actor took it positively and even joked that Tom Cruise owed him $1 million for the role.