Tom Hanks’ brother had an unexpected part to play in one of the star’s best-known films.
Tom Hanks is set to return as Woody for the fifth Toy Story film, which is scheduled to arrive in theaters on June 19, 2026, more than 30 years after the original movie first introduced Pixar’s cowboy and space ranger duo to audiences.
The new story puts Woody, Buzz and the rest of the toys up against a modern rival: Lilypad, a frog-shaped digital tablet competing for a child’s attention and underlining the franchise’s long-running theme of what toys are for in an increasingly screen-driven world.
While Tom Hanks has long been the voice most people associate with Woody, he is not the only member of the family to have contributed to the franchise.
His brother Jim Hanks bears a striking resemblance to him and is also known for having a very similar voice.
That similarity led Jim to become involved with Toy Story in a way many fans may not expect.
Rather than appearing in a minor background role, Jim actually stepped in as Woody for certain voice work whenever Tom was unavailable.
“Tom’s schedule was crazy busy, so they reached out to me,” he told The Daily Mail.
“I had been doing voiceover for a while, and I guess everybody knew that I sounded like him!”
His recordings were used for some of the Woody toys released alongside the film, and Jim has continued to provide Woody’s voice for toys and some theme park attractions over the years.
“They brought me in, and I did the pull string toy classic lines, ‘you’re my favorite deputy’ and all that, and I did it pretty well,” he said.
Over the years, Jim has continued supplying Woody’s voice for toys and for various theme park attractions across the world.
His work as a stand-in for Tom was not limited to animation, either, as he also helped out on Forrest Gump.
Speaking about that movie, Jim explained that he handled several of the running scenes filmed from angles where Forrest’s face could not be clearly seen.
“I was carted off to different locations to do the goofy run,” he said.
“There was only one location where Tom was with me on set, and that was in Vermont. And that was only because there was one shot where he was running towards camera, you could see who he was. But all the other stuff when you can’t see his face, it’s me!”
For the upcoming fifth Toy Story film, Tom Hanks will once again reunite with Tim Allen, who has voiced Buzz Lightyear since the original movie.
Joan Cusack is also due back as Jessie, a character first introduced in the second film, while the new movie also adds Greta Lee as Lilypad and Conan O’Brien as Smarty Pants.
The sequel is being directed by Andrew Stanton, with Pixar describing the story as a showdown between the classic toys and the growing pull of technology.
The next installment will additionally mark a change for Mr Potato Head. Don Rickles voiced the character until his death, with archival audio used for Toy Story 4, while Jeff Bergman is now set to take over the part in the new movie.