When Harry Met Sally, directed by Rob Reiner and written by Nora Ephron, is one of the most beloved romantic comedies ever, thanks in large part to the great chemistry between leads Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.
It’s hard to imagine the now-classic film with anyone else in the starring roles, but the role of Harry almost went to another legendary leading man: Tom Hanks!
While Hanks would later go on to collaborate with Ephron in other classic rom-coms, he turned down When Harry Met Sally for a very surprising personal reason.
Hanks could “not understand”
In When Harry Met Sally, Billy Crystal’s character is struggling after a difficult divorce from his wife, who left him for another man. The film deals with his loneliness being alone and the complexities of dating post-divorce.
Tom Hanks was originally in the running for the role, and seemed to be perfect for the part — like Harry, Hanks had just been through a divorce from his first wife, Samantha Lewes.
But unlike Harry, Hanks was doing well after the divorce… to the point where he couldn’t relate to the character, according to his wife Rita Wilson.
“People probably don’t know this, but Tom was offered When Harry Met Sally and he turned it down because he was going through a divorce and he was very happy to be not married,” Wilson revealed on the Table for Two With Bruce Bozzi podcast.
“He could not understand that a person going through a divorce would have anything other than just like, ‘I’m so happy.’”
Tom Hanks’ first marriage
Samantha Lewes was Hanks’ college sweetheart, and the two had a baby together — the actor Colin Hanks — in 1977 when Hanks was 21. Hanks and Lewes married in 1978. They later had a second child, daughter Elizabeth, in 1987.
They divorced in 1987. While Wilson says Hanks was “very happy” after the divorce, it was a difficult decision given that they had two young kids.
“I was looking for something I had not found as a kid,” Hanks admitted in 2016. “And a broken marriage meant I was sentencing my own kids to the sort of feelings I had at their age. I was just too young and insecure for marriage. I was 23 and my son Colin was already two when I married for the first time. I was not really ready to take on those responsibilities.”
“We tried to make our marriage work, but we were both too young,” Hanks said in an interview, per the New York Post.
Sadly, Lewes was later diagnosed with bone cancer and died in 2002. A source told the Post that Hanks was “devastated,” and that despite their “ups and downs” they remained friends over the years.
After their divorce in 1987, Hanks started dating again and met Rita Wilson; they married in 1988 and have been one of Hollywood’s most enduring couples ever since.
‘When Harry Met Sally’
While Hanks might’ve been good in When Harry Met Sally, it’s hard to imagine anyone other than Billy Crystal playing the role, which feels like was tailored to his unique brand of neurotic comedy.
According to The Daily Beast, Albert Brooks, Richard Dreyfuss and Michael Keaton were also in talks for the part, while Molly Ringwald was considered for Sally.
Neither Crystal nor Ryan were major film actors at the time, but their chemistry was undeniable and the hit film helped establish them as movie stars.
Tom Hanks might have not been able to relate to the pains of divorce, but director Rob Reiner certainly did: the film was largely based on his own divorce from actress/director Penny Marshall.
Billy Crystal, real-life friends with Reiner, drew inspiration from seeing his friend go through the separation. The scene where Harry and Sally talk on the phone while watching TV is based on something Reiner and Crystal would do.
Crystal also lived alone in a separate apartment from the cast and crew to get in touch with Harry’s loneliness.
While Hanks turned down When Harry Met Sally, he did go on to star in two of Nora Ephron’s other classic romantic comedies, Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail, both of which also starred Meg Ryan. Hanks also starred in Ephron’s 2013 play Lucky Guy, which premiered a year after Ephron’s death in 2012.
When Harry Met Sally is a classic rom-com, but it’s fun to imagine what could have been with Tom Hanks in the lead role!
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