Jim also served as Tom's body double in 1994's 'Forrest Gump'
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Credit: Bei/Shutterstock; Moviestore/Shutterstock
NEED TO KNOW
- Jim Hanks has voiced Toy Story‘s Woody in projects like toys and video games when his older brother, Tom Hanks, is unavailable
- Jim contributed to Disney California Adventure’s Midway Mania ride by adding a “favorite teacher” tone to Woody’s voice
- Jim also served as Tom’s body double in Forrest Gump‘s running scenes, even improvising to distract cows during filming
Although Tom Hanks voiced Woody in Toy Story, that hasn't stopped his brother, Jim Hanks, from having some fun with the franchise character, too.
In an interview for the Love It podcast released on May 15, Jim, 64, shared that he has also voiced Woody — just for various projects outside of the main films.
"The first thing I ever did was one of the pull-string toys from the first movie where he's saying 'You're my favorite deputy' and 'There's a snake in my boot' and stuff like that," Jim explained. "They had processed the voice so much that they needed a cleaner [version], so I come in and do it."

Credit: Bei/Shutterstock
Jim added that he feels "immensely grateful" whenever he gets called to voice the character for everything from video games to talking toys, especially when Tom, 69, can't.
He explained that he tries to stay "as true to the character as possible," just so he doesn't seem too far off from Tom's perception of Woody.
However, Jim did get to add a bit of his personality to Woody when he voiced him for Disney California Adventure Park's Midway Mania ride. He recalled that he suggested to the Pixar team that Woody should speak to kids like he's their "favorite teacher."
Jim added, "I used to say that my Woody is my impression of Tom yelling at his kids. 'Get down from there!' is the same as 'Buzz!' "
During the same podcast episode, Jim discussed appearing as a body double for Tom in 1994's Forrest Gump. He helped his brother play the character during the sequence where he runs across the country.
"Pretty much all that running stuff, if you can't see his face, it's me. If you can see his face, it's obviously him," Jim said.
"Every time I watch the movie, I'm going, 'Me, me, me, Tom,' " he continued, adding, "I feel really fortunate to have had any part of it. They flew me to Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina."

Credit: Mike Guastella/WireImage; Phillip Caruso/Paramount Pictures
Yet, when Jim got to Vermont, he started to struggle.
He said, "I was running along this road, and the camera is on the other side of this field, but the cows kept looking at the camera. I was running, and they said, 'The cows keep looking at the cameras.' "
"[They said], 'When you're running, can you yell and whoop and whatever to get them to look at you?' " Jim explained. "So I'm running like, 'Hey, cow! Cow!' I'm trying not to look like I'm just screaming at the top of my voice as I'm doing the Gump trot."
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Tom ultimately won his second Oscar for Best Actor for the film in 1995. As for Jim, he also worked as an actor. He played Jeeter Buford in 1993's Buford’s Beach Bunnies, auditioning under the name Jim Matthews. He also runs a production company, Feet First Films.
The two brothers share another brother, Larry, and a sister named Sandra. Larry has been an entomology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign since 1996 and earned the National Recognition Award in Urban Entomology from the Entomological Society of America in 2000.
Sandra has worked a few different jobs, including writing and hosting a radio show. As of 2020, she told the Daily Mail that she lived in Italy.


