Culture

Tom Hanks jokes about why he loves crashing weddings

23 Jun 2022

Tom Hanks poses for a photograph.

Tom Hanks has opened up about crashing other people’s weddings and joked about how his appearances at ceremonies is what makes them more memorable.

The 65-year-old actor discussed how he has crashed multiple weddings during an appearance on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” on Tuesday.

When Meyers said that Hanks was a man who would “show up at a wedding, invited or not,” the Elvis star agreed before joking that he helps the bride and groom “remember” their big day.

“It’s my ego, unchecked,” he said. “I just can’t help but think ‘What would these people like more than anything else to remember this magic day of days? Oh I know, me!’”

The television host went on to show a photo of Hanks at a wedding while he was in Rome for the 2009 film, Angels and Demons. According to Hanks, while filming at the Pantheon, the crew hadn’t realised that a wedding had also been booked at the famed church on the same day.

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As the husband and wife-to-be tried to get to the temple via car, which they weren’t able to do because of the film, Hanks said that he tried to “fix” the situation and offered to accompany the bride to her ceremony.

“This limousine pulled up, and it was the bride and the groom trying to ‘get me to the church on time,’” Hanks recalled. “And they couldn’t do it because we had all this stuff going on. It was like ‘Uh, how do we fix this?’”

“So, like a stalker — you know, ‘Hey miss, miss, miss!’ — I knocked on the window, I said ‘Hey listen, we have a thing, but would you do me the honour of escorting you to your bridal altar?’ So we did it,” he added.

He noted that this was one of his first times “crashing at a wedding,” which are experiences that he said he’d rather refer to as “providing a service”.

The Forrest Gump star was also reminded of an occasion last March, where he was photographed with a bride and her bridesmaids in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He recalled that when he and his wife, Rita Wilson, were going on a walk, that’s when he spotted the bridesmaids heading towards a party bus. Hanks said that once the bride showed up, that was when he decided to “crash their wedding photo”.

After the ceremony, bride Grace Gwaltney detailed how surprised she was to see the Oscar-award winning actor approach her.

“He was like, ‘Hey! I’m Tom Hanks. I would love to get a photo with you’ and I immediately froze and was just looking around,”she told KCRA last March. “I didn’t know what to do.”

Hanks crashed yet another wedding ceremony last October that took place on Santa Monica Piers in Los Angeles, California.

While speaking to People about their wedding day, Diciembre and Tashia Farries detailed how Hanks appeared from the crowd and asked to take photos with them. According to Tashia, the filmmaker “immediately treated [them] like family”.

“[He] told us if we ever see him again, in an airport or in any crowd, make sure we come say hi. He was very nice,” she said. “We looked at our pictures from that night and we’re like, ‘Tom Hanks just crashed our wedding. Can we talk about that?’”