‘There’s a snake in my boot’ might be one of the most synonymous phrases associated with Toy Story’s favourite cowboy, Woody.
But one person who’s actually said it more than Tom Hanks himself is his brother, Jim, who remarkably has voiced the character of Woody for 30 years, hiding in plain sight.
No, I’m not mistaken and yes, you read that right.
As we all know, Tom, 69, brought the beloved character to life on-screen in the first Toy Story instalment in 1995, and has continued all the way until the most recent sequel, Toy Story 5, released just last week.
However, it’s Jim – younger brother of the Oscar-winning Hollywood stalwart – who has helped carry the legacy of Woody elsewhere. If you’ve ever been to a Disney theme park or bought a Woody toy for your children or even owned one in your own childhood, it was almost certainly featuring Jim’s voice rather than Tom’s.
Those dulcet tones repeating ‘you’re my favourite deputy’ when you pulled the string weren’t from the actor you’ve grown up watching on-screen for decades, but his lookalike and very much soundalike sibling.
‘Someone said to me, “I feel like your voice is more Woody than Tom’s”,’ Jim, 65, told Metro, as he prepared for a heartwarming toy donation event with ODEON Cinemas this weekend. Of course, the brothers were together ‘24-7’ as children, so naturally they’d have similar tones.
Despite Tom taking the character of Woody and completely making it his own, Jim revealed that he ‘never worked with [him] on it’ to honour the essence of the voice, and that it’s actually ‘Disney and the Pixar people who are really protective of it.’
Woody’s really important to me. I mean, the whole franchise is.
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The younger Hanks sibling explained: ‘Woody’s really important to me. I mean, the whole franchise is. I love the whole franchise, and working with Disney and Pixar on it. Disney takes a lot of care in cultivating the characters and making sure the sound alikes, are doing homage to the characters. So, it’s all part of the gig.’
Speaking of gigs, his main one has, of course, been the cowboy sheriff, but other voicework and screen roles have included Scrubs, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Dexter and Sunset Beach, as well as his film debut in Buford’s Beach Bunnies.
Special mention to his work as Geoffrey the Giraffe in the Toys R Us adverts, too.
And if you didn’t know, he also played Tom’s body double in Forrest Gump, the film that won his famous brother the best actor Oscar for the second time. Yes, those legs in the running scenes on Santa Monica Pier and everywhere else – Jim!
He’s, of course, extremely humble and won’t take credit for Tom’s golden man, but he might just claim ‘the pinky toe, that’s all. That’s my part of it.’
Surely, Woody and the link to one of Hollywood’s biggest stars has opened many doors for Jim.
‘I have not secretly voiced any other roles,’ he wanted to clarify, adding: ‘I wouldn’t say it’s opened doors, but it has helped cement me in the voiceover world. I started doing voiceover, actually, before Toy Story, and it’s just kind of kept me in a place in the voiceover world that helps me continue to work.’
He continued: ‘I wouldn’t say it’s open doors, because there aren’t that many other places where they need a sound alike like Tom, but I do believe a lot of my success is that I naturally sound like him. I’ve gotten campaigns and stuff like that, where I’ll be in a session where I can hear them trying to direct me to sound more like him and they don’t want to say it.
‘It is a thing. Celebrities do campaigns all the time and so if they can get a campaign where it sounds like [Tom] without having to pay for him. Well, you know what, I got people to feed, so I’ll do it.’
Jim would be the first to admit that being related to the great Tom Hanks is by no means a hindrance, but it has provided somewhat of an obstacle when trying to stand out on his own without the association – something that’s pretty hard to do when you’re your sibling’s doppleganger.
Delicately, he explained: ‘When I’m trying to, audition for things, I’ve never had the opportunity to be a face in the crowd. It sounds like I’m complaining, but when I go in to audition, I don’t get to walk in with an invisible suitcase with two Oscars in them, and set it down, and people will… they’re not just watching my performance, they’re comparing me to what Tom does.
It has impacted my on-camera career. It hasn’t impacted my voiceover career
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‘And I know my mannerisms, and the way I speak, and the way I sound, and the way I look is distracting. I told my agents several years ago, don’t worry about that, because I’ve seen video of myself, I get distracted by it. So, I don’t get to be just that, to walk in and become a character.
‘In my eyes, I am, but other people are going, “Oh, man, that’s Tom”. It has impacted my on-camera career. It hasn’t impacted my voiceover career, and so, I’ve kind of pivoted into doing other things.’
Those ‘other things’ include writing and ‘stuff behind the camera’ as he so humbly put his own successful career.
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‘Like anybody else in this business, you’re constantly reinventing yourself, and branching out, and being as diverse as you possibly can. And, I’m doing okay with it,’ he admitted.
Like for many millennials, Woody has been there for a good chunk of Jim’s life. It’s why Tom felt so comfortable handing the baton to his younger brother when he thought Toy Story 4 would be the last film in the franchise as it was originally touted as.
‘I remember after [Toy Story] 4, and the way 4 ended, it felt really much like, okay, we’re done,’ Jim recalled.
‘And, you know, it was a bit of a surprise when they came out with 5. I was having lunch with [Tom], and we were talking about it, and he said, “Well, and now, Woody is yours. And I went, “Oh, okay!”
‘Because he didn’t think he was going to be doing any more movies for it. And I just continued to do all the different merchandise and toys and games and all that. Tom’s just never done any of that, so I thought, “Okay, I’m Woody now”.
‘And then 5 came along, and Tom jumped back in, so, oh well!’
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Tom acknowledged that Disney could use AI to voice Woody in the next sequel, a notion that Jim feels very strongly about.
‘I would prefer to step in for him rather than they use AI, and I really don’t think they would do [that]. I think he’d probably go, “Okay, I’ll do Woody again”. I don’t know. I would step in if I could, but who knows? I don’t know,’ he said.
Jim is clearly keen to keep the magic of Toy Story alive, which is why he is supporting a push to give unused toys a new home across participating ODEON Cinemas this weekend.
‘For the next few days at Odeon, you can bring in well-loved toys and donate them to kids who don’t have any. And I love the idea where you bring in that toy that you love, just like Andy did with Bonnie,’ Jim said.
‘He had these toys that he loved, and he wanted them to continue to be loved. I think it’s a great idea that we’re recycling here, we can continue the lifespan of these toys.
‘It’ll give people a nice feeling letting those well-loved toys continue their life.’
Play Them Forward is ODEON’s toy collection running this weekend (June 27 and 28) as Toy Story 5 plays in cinemas across the UK. A full list of participating ODEON cinema locations is available at: https://www.odeon.co.uk/play-them-forward/. Locations include cinemas across England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland.