Henry Winkler says he still hasn’t figured out what went wrong between him and Tom Hanks, decades after he was fired 13 days into directing Hanks’ 1989 film “Turner & Hooch.”
Winkler addressed the long-rumored rift in a new interview on “In Depth With Graham Bensinger.” He admitted upfront that directing was never a good fit for him, but he took the job anyway after Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg personally chose him for it.
“I went completely against my tummy, and it hit me in the face with a 2×4,” Winkler said. “I now meet the puppies, and I meet with Tom [Hanks]… and I, at that time being insecure, I talked too much and I gave them direction. I [did] what I thought was my job, and I wanted to do it over again and apparently that p—ed them off.”
The tension reportedly boiled over less than two weeks into filming. Winkler recalled being called into Katzenberg’s office and told the footage wasn’t working.
“I’m called into [Katzenberg’s] office, and he said, ‘It’s not in the dailies,'” Winkler said. “I then go to the set. I get my things. I drive home. I’m fired as a director… I don’t handle it well. I’m devastated.”
Roger Spottiswoode took over as director for the rest of the film.
Winkler also said the fallout resurfaced years later, when he tried to include a 60-second clip of Hanks from a 1982 “Happy Days” episode in a retrospective about the sitcom. Permission was denied.
Asked directly what his “perspective” is now on his relationship with Hanks, Winkler said, “I am still working on my perspective.” But when pressed on whether the relationship could ever be repaired, he answered simply, “Sure.”
Winkler has addressed the situation before while consistently rejecting the word “feud.” In 2020 comments to TMZ, later reported by Vanity Fair, he said, “I don’t have a feud with Tom Hanks. What everybody says and what is true are two different things.” He added that he had run into Hanks at that year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards and called the encounter “beautiful.”
A year earlier, on “Watch What Happens Live,” a caller pressed Winkler on the same subject and asked if he’d ever gone to see the finished movie. Winkler didn’t hold back on his affection for one particular co-star.
“I got along great with that dog. Love that dog.”
When host Andy Cohen asked if he’d seen the film in theaters, Winkler said, “I don’t even remember the title of that movie.”
Hanks has not publicly commented on the reported tension between the two.
