Over the years, Ratliff rebuilt his crumbling confidence and kept trying, becoming an improv star with the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York. He compiled countless small roles in commercials and movies while landing major roles and stealing scenes on TV shows such as Research Group, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Orange is the new black.
He did it. He’s a working actor. And that, with the passage of two decades, is what softened a painful moment into something he and others can actually laugh at.
The dead eyes The podcast uses Hanks’ shot as a setting, but many episodes are about other people’s goofy stories about ego erasing. Mad Men star Jon Hamm shared the story of an executive who told his agents bluntly that he lacked what it takes to be a successful TV actor. Lost co-creator Damon Lindeloff plunged into his memories of the backlash from that show’s finale. Nicole Byer, Elijah Wood, Seth Rogen, 40 year old virgin director Judd Apatow, and Last Jedi writer-director Rian Johnson all came to sympathize with their own stories of epic rejection and planting public faces.
Even Hanks has one to share.
AAs part of a preview for the upcoming 31st episode, Ratliff offered this story in which Hanks talks about getting kicked out of a screening room by Big director Penny Marshall. The reason: she wanted to spare her feelings as they reviewed pictures of him. It was a courtesy not extended to Ratliff later. Band of brothers.
“I had seen the screen tests. I had seen the wardrobe tests. So I thought I’d watch the daily rushes. And Penny walked up to me in the theater,” Hanks told Ratliff. “’You can’t be here,’ she said. “You can’t watch the dailies.”
When he protested, she became even more blunt about why he was unwelcome: “She said, ‘You don’t see the dailies because in this room we have to speak uncensored. We are going to say terrible things about you. And the lighting. And the accessories. And the carriage moves. And you! “This line is not the line.” “It’s a horrible thing. “I hate this hold, I’m not going to use it.” “His hair looks stupid.” “Why does he have those creases in his neck?” “Why is her voice so grating?” We have to say all these things. And if you’re here to hear them, it’s really gonna fuck you up.'”
Unfortunately for Ratliff, he was able to hear some of that speech unfiltered. And that did fuck it up. It was worse than just not finding a job; it was a real success story, then to have it ripped off. “You don’t want to kill the part of yourself that likes to look forward to things, and for a while that was something that felt diminished to me,” Ratliff said. Vanity Room. “I was like, nothing’s going to work out for me. You get into a mindset where you’re scared to look forward to something because what if it’s a mirage that’s going to go away?”
Now that he’s landed the ultimate interview — Hanks himself — what will happen to Ratliff’s “Tom Hanks Rejected Me” podcast? Ratliff says it’s not the end.
“One of the greatest compliments people have given is that at the start of the first season, people started saying, ‘I hope you never get to Tom Hanks because I don’t want that the podcast is ending,'” Ratliff said. “I think if we continue it will be different. The Band of brothers The “Dead Eyes” story will be less of a mystery and more of an origin story.
To find out where it all started, listen to the very first episode below.
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