Henry Winkler reveals reasons behind Tom Hanks 'rift'
Happy Days icon Henry Winkler has given his thoughts on his long rumoured feud with Tom Hanks.
Henry Winkler is "still working on his perspective" of his rift with Tom Hanks.
The 80-year-old actor was fired at the director of Hanks' 1989 film Turner and Hooch, which he was personally hired by a studio executive for despite a gut feeling he wasn't "suited" to helming the project.
Appearing on the In Depth With Graham Bensinger podcast, he said: "Here’s a lesson. When your instinct says, ‘Uh oh! Danger! Warning sign!’ you do not question your tummy.
“You can question your brain, but never your tummy. I went completely against my tummy, and it hit me in the face with a two-by-four.”
After going against his intuition and accepting the job, Winkler and Hanks, 70, were involved in the casting process together.
He recalled: "I now meet the puppies, and I meet with Tom [Hanks], and we auditioned women together, and he settles on Mare Winningham, who’s a very good actress. He has a connection, an electricity with Mare.”
However, Winkler has suggested that the issued started once everyone got on set.
He said: "And I guess, at that time being insecure, I talked too much and I gave them direction, what I thought was my job, and I wanted to do [the scene] over again and apparently that p***** them off.
"And in 13 days of filming, I’m called into [studio executive] Jeff Katzenberg’s office and he said, 'It’s not in the dailies.'
"I then go to the set. I get my things. I drive home. I’m fired as a director."
Winkler, who was replaced by Roger Spottiswoode, hinted that there has been tension between him and Hanks ever since.
He revealed: "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."
Winkler played Arthur 'Fonzie' Fonzarelli on the iconic sitcom from 1974 to 1984, while Hanks had a memorable guest role in 1982 as a character who got into a bar fight.
Asked about his "perspective" on his relationship with Hanks at this point, he admitted: "I am still working on my perspective."
But he did have a positive response when Bensinger wondered if the situation will "repair itself" one day.
Winkler replied: "Sure."
He has even kept a signed model plane Hanks built for him as a gift during their time working on Turner and Hooch before he was axed.
He said: "It was a model plane… While we were having meetings he built a plastic Piper Cub or something like that."
In 1993, Winkler told PEOPLE magazine that he "got along better with Hooch" than Turner, but in 2020, he denied any bad blood between him and Hanks.
He told TMZ: "I don't have a feud with Tom Hanks. What everybody says and what is true are two different things."
