Denzel Washington Revealed the Only Other Actor That Reminded Him of Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks was an actor unlike any that Denzel Washington had ever worked with before, until he came across this younger movie star years later.

Tom Hanks grew to know Denzel Washington when they both collaborated in the feature Philadelphia. And according to Washington himself, Hanks had a special quality that he only found in one other actor decades later.

Denzel Washington felt this actor was the only person who had what Tom Hanks did

Hanks has always been regarded as one of the kindest and most genuine actors in Hollywood. It was a reputation that Washington agreed with when he first got together with Hanks. And although he’s worked with several other actors since Philadelphia, there was only one other star since that reminded Washington of Hanks’ credibility.

In 2016, Washington saw himself working alongside a large ensemble cast in the western The Magnificent Seven. It was the first time he teamed up with Marvel star Chris Pratt, who exuded the same qualities that Hanks did years prior.

“Chris is great,” Washington once told Good Morning America (via WBAL). “I can see why he’s so popular. There’s another actor that I worked with, whatever, 20 years ago, by the name of Hanks who had that same quality about them, that you just really like them — aside from their obvious talent, they’re good people and it comes across onscreen.”

When Pratt heard about Washington’s comments, he was more than flattered.

“That is so cool,” Pratt said. “Man…Now I feel like I have to repay a compliment with a compliment.”

Pratt also asserted that he took the opportunity to learn from his much more experienced co-star Washington.

“He’s very serious about his work,” he added. “And if you’re smart you just keep your eyes open and watch and learn — he may be the greatest living actor and one of the greatest actors of all time.”

Tom Hanks called working with Denzel Washington an acting class

Similarly to Pratt, Hanks also couldn’t help but to watch and learn from Washington’s Philadelphia performance.

“I sat beside him for three weeks shooting the trial. I had no dialogue. It was a thriller of an acting class. He follows no rules but pursues the moment. No nonsense, but a looseness that can’t be faked. A one-on-one scene with him is a game of hardball catch – he is both daring you to keep up and propelling you to do more,” Hanks once told the Irish Times.

After the experience, Hanks had no issue ranking Washington among some of cinema’s strongest heavyweights.

“He is our Brando. Nicholson. Olivier. And, like me, he steals office supplies and notebooks from the set dressing,” Hanks said. “We were talking about our New York City days as broke actors – about the same age, peers, trying to learn craft and get work. I noted that we were in the same boat at the same time. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘But you could catch a cab in Manhattan.’”

Denzel Washington joked that Tom Hanks thanked him after winning an Oscar for ‘Philadelphia’

Philadelphia was a huge film for Hanks, as it earned him an Oscar for Best Actor in 1994. It was a prize Hanks more than earned, as he went through an extreme physical metamorphosis for the role. He lost a considerable amount of weight playing a gay man living with AIDS. But what perhaps made his weight loss even harder was Washington playfully teasing him about it on set.

“He was eating only 800 calories a day and he went way down. So, we would do scenes. He was really skinny in the scenes in the court room. So, I would leave candy bars, I would sneeze and 500 almond joys would fly out. I was having pizzas delivered to him,” Washington once said on The Graham Norton Show. “He thanked me when he won the Oscar.”