Unsurprisingly, as soon as it was announced that Steven Spielberg was remaking the classic Harvey, a lot of people assumed that top of the list to step into Jimmy Stewart’s shoes was Tom Hanks, but according to Variety that won’t be happening. With Hanks having been long compared to Stewart, the last thing he’d want to do is star in a project so closely identified with the actor.
Apparently Spielberg did have a conversation with Hanks about the project, but Tom turned it down without even reading the script. To be honest you can’t blame him, as he would just be setting himself up for unfair comparision to Jimmy Stewart’s original. A 20th Century Fox spokesman added, “Tom Hanks has not read the script and speculation about him and this project has been inaccurate.”
And if reports are true that the Harvey remake will be a contemporary tale that’s much closer in tone to the play than the film, it’d probably make more sense to go for an actor completely different to Stewart anyway. But who’s going to want to do it? It’d take a lot of balls for anyone to step into such an iconic role when you know there are thousands of people out there just waiting to rip you to shreds for not being Jimmy Stewart.