Tom Hanks Says Oscars Have Enough Categories — Tom Hanks Gold Derby Interview
Tom Hanks Gold Derby interview: Hanks said the Academy Awards already have enough categories and do not need a separate voice actor prize. The 2x Oscar winner made the case while returning as Woody for Toy Story 5, which puts the debate back in front of voters before the film reaches theaters on June 19.
Hanks and the Oscar debate
“I think they have enough categories,” Hanks said. He added, “The truth is, a voice actor can win Best Actor,” pointing to the real standard he thinks should govern awards: “The judgment is, ‘any performance that moved you.’”
That is a cleaner answer than the industry usually gives when category questions come up. Hanks did not argue for a special lane for vocal work; he argued that the existing acting races already have room for it if the performance lands with voters.
Andy Serkis and vocal work
Hanks cited Andy Serkis as the clearest example. “Even though he does not appear as Andy Serkis, he gives all the raw material for it,” Hanks said about Serkis’ work in the Lord of the Rings and Planet of the Apes franchises. He also noted, “There’s been people who have been close to being nominated that do not appear on camera.”
“That could happen to a pure-vocal actor,” Hanks said. The line matters because it frames voice performance as part of the same awards ecosystem as on-camera acting, not as a separate craft that necessarily needs its own podium.
Oscars in 2027
No voice actor has ever won in the acting categories since the Academy Awards were first held in 1929. That drought sits alongside a rule book that keeps expanding in other directions: the Academy added Best Animated Feature in 2002, Best Animated Short Film dates back to 1932, and Achievement in Stunt Design begins in 2027.
Cassandra Kulukundis won the first Best Casting award for One Battle After Another at this year’s ceremony, another sign that the Academy is still willing to add categories when it sees a gap. Hanks’ comments cut the other way: if a vocal performance truly belongs in the race, he says the answer is not a new category but an acting nomination.
Woody returns June 19
Hanks is making the argument while reprising Woody in Toy Story 5, the first new Toy Story installment since the original premiered in 1995. That gives his comments immediate timing, because the conversation is happening just as one of the franchise’s signature voices is headed back to theaters on June 19.
For voters, the message is blunt: if a performance moves them, they already have a place for it. Hanks is not asking the Academy to redraw the map for voice work; he is saying the map already exists.
