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Henry Winkler is looking forward to having happier days with Tom Hanks.
The Happy Days alum weighed in on the long-running lore that he has beef with Hanks after being fired as the director of the Oscar winner’s 1989 movie Turner & Hooch less than two weeks into production.
According to Winkler, he may have rubbed Hanks the wrong way during filming because he wasn’t as “suited” to direct the comedy, which also costarred Beasley the dog and Mare Winningham.
“At the time, being insecure, I talked too much and I gave them direction—what I thought was my job,” the actor—who was initially hesitant about directing but was approached by a studio exec—recalled during an In Depth With Graham Bensinger interview published Sept. 9. “I wanted to do it over again and apparently that pissed them off.”
Winkler was let go from his position after 13 days of filming, with Roger Spottiswoode ultimately replacing his spot at the helm.
“I went completely against my tummy, and it hit me in the face with a 2×4,” the 80-year-old continued, adding that he was “devastated” by his firing. “I don’t handle it well.”
Winkler believes there’s been some underlying tension between himself and Hanks, 70, since then.
“Tom, before he was a movie star, was on Happy Days,” he noted. “We did a retrospective of Happy Days and we wanted 60 seconds of Tom Hanks in his episode, and we did not get permission for that.”
So, what does he think of Hanks today?
“I am still working on my perspective,” Winkler said. And when host Graham Bensinger asked if he thought their relationship “will ever repairs itself,” the Barry actor simply replied, “Sure.”
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E! News has reached out to Hanks’ rep for comment but hasn’t heard back.
While Hanks has never publicly commented on his rift with Winkler, their mutual friend Ron Howard did confirm that the pair did not see eye to eye while making Turner & Hooch.
“I’m friends with them both and both men felt compelled to come to talk to me about it,” the filmmaker told The Guardian in 2020. “It was just one of those unfortunate things where they really had a working style that did not fit. I know it was painful for both of them and I was able to lend an ear, if not offer any solutions.”
And, for what it’s worth, Winkler would not call what he has with Hanks a “feud.”
“I don’t have a feud with Tom Hanks,” he told TMZ that same year. “But it doesn’t matter, because what everybody says and what is true are two different things.”
For more famous fallouts between celebrities, read on.
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