Tom Hanks Reveals He Was Asked To Gain Weight For 'A League of Their Own'

Actors are often expected to undergo rigorous training and diet regimens to achieve peak physical condition for their roles, but in “A League of Their Own,” director Penny Marshall had a different request for Tom Hanks – she wanted him to gain weight.

Instead of the usual Hollywood transformation into an athletic lead, Marshall asked Hanks to embrace the physical decline of his character, Jimmy Dugan, a washed-up, alcoholic ex-ballplayer.

In “A League of Their Own” (1992), Tom Hanks played Dugan, a former baseball star turned reluctant coach for the Rockford Peaches, one of the first teams in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during World War II.

At the start of the film, Dugan’s lack of interest in coaching is palpable. His character is cynical, dismissive, and visibly past his prime, having allowed himself to slip physically and emotionally from his former glory days on the field.

To fully bring Dugan to life, Hanks was asked to add some weight, giving him the appearance of someone who had let himself go. "On ‘A League Of Their Own,’ Penny said, 'Put on as much weight as you can. I can't have you cute, because you're too young, and I don't want the girls to think, 'Oh, Jimmy's cute,'" Hanks recalled on a recent episode of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast.

"So I said, 'Well, you know, if I'm the guy who's 36 and I'm managing a girls' baseball team, there's got to be a problem with me,'" he added. "She said, 'Well, you're a drunk.' But then I said, 'Well, why am I a drunk?'"

From that question, the actor and director reached a breakthrough.

Initially, Hanks struggled to understand the source of Dugan’s inner turmoil and why he directed his frustration toward the Peaches. But eventually, he realized, "Oh, I know what happened. I blew my knee out trying to get out of a woman's hotel room. And that cost me my career."

The actor described this aspect of his behind-the-scenes process as a journey of learning: "How do you talk about the natural, recognizable compromises a human being has to make in order to get up the next morning and from then on?"

The Oakland A's recent farewell game at the Coliseum marked an emotional day for fans, including actor Tom Hanks, whose famous line, "There's no crying in baseball," from “A League of Their Own,“ felt particularly poignant. The final game, which occured in September, stirred up memories and tears for Hanks, a Bay Area native who grew up in Oakland and cheered for the A's since childhood.

"I think I was in fifth or sixth grade," he recalled, per CBS. "It was a palace. It was a world-renowned place where so much was going to be happening and I happened to live in the slightly elevated part of the city and I could see the lights of the Oakland Coliseum whenever there was an event down there. It was a big deal there."

While attending Skyline High School in Oakland, Hanks applied for his first job as a vendor at the ballpark.

"We had to wait for a very long time for all of the big-time vendors to line up before us and then we had to pay $15 in order to join the union and get our junior work card, and then I believe that first day I sold soda," the actor revealed. "Every cup spilled all over me and I was coated in hard sugary water in my pants the rest of the day."

Hanks shared that he started by selling peanuts and later moved on to popcorn before eventually pursuing other career aspirations.

The team recognized his early work at the Coliseum during the COVID pandemic; a cardboard cutout of Hanks as a young concessions vendor was placed among the images of fans that filled the empty stadium, honoring his connection to the ballpark and its legacy.

"Look, I am 68 years old. The Oakland A's have been a part of my life, and I paid attention to them all through the Bash Brothers days and certainly the glory days of their world championship games," Hanks said. "I saw San Francisco legend Willie Mays play his last professional baseball game in the World Series [as a member of the New York Mets] against the Oakland A's. Oakland A's won that day, by the way."

Hanks, who has been a lifelong fan, admitted that maybe there is, in fact, crying in baseball. The A's are set to relocate, spending the next few seasons in Sacramento as they await a new ballpark that is expected to open in Las Vegas.