Tom Hanks and Tim Allen have been meeting up to do press once every few years for a new Toy Story franchise project since the original Toy Story came out back in 1995. That’s nearly 25 years of talking about what it’s like to be Woody and Buzz on the big and small screens, and both men have a unique shared experience because of it.
However, you may be a little surprised to hear the two men are actually friends in real life. Toy Story 4’s Tom Hanks told CinemaBlend and other reporters ahead of the release of the movie that he and Tim Allen actually hang out a fair amount and pal around outside of work. Per Tom Hanks:
We actually have become very close simply because of the union of Woody and Buzz. After we made the second one, we began to have regular lunches about every three months or so in which he and I sit down. And alcohol is not involved. It’s just we sit down and we talk for about three and a half hours straight every time we get together and we do seek each other out in order to touch on all the aspects of our lives. Certainly professionally.
Still, Tom Hanks went on to tell reporters at the conference in Orlando that he’s well aware this relationship would never have been fostered without the common bond of Woody and Buzz.
But it would not have come out were it not for him being Buzz and me being Woody. I think the newbies, I guess you’re the only new one here [talking to Tony Hale]. There is a profound thing that comes from being Forky or Bo or Woody.
Tom Hanks went on to talk about how when you are able to be a character in a Disney or Pixar movie, the character lives to infinity and beyond the work the actors put in to voice that character and bring it to life. Thanks to the Disney parks, those characters are bringing joy to families every day outside of the actors who play them.
The relationship between the two major names is interesting to think about. Although Tim Allen was in a lot of family-friendly movies in the early nineties, for the most part, his career has been based around long-running and very popular TV characters. He currently stars in Last Man Standing, a show that was incredibly pulled from the cancellation grave in order to make more episodes.
On the other hand, Tom Hanks has enjoyed a long and prominent movies career with roles in a slew of different types of genres. If it hadn’t been for Toy Story, the two actors may never have really crossed paths, except for maybe polite exchanges at public events on occasion. Instead, they meet to hang out and spend hours talking about all kinds of things.
Related: Tom Hanks and Tim Allen Explain Why They're Like Woody And Buzz
Tom Hanks also mentioned ahead of Toy Story 4 that it was at Disneyland where he first pondered and realized how important Woody would be not only in the present, but for future generations. So the importance of the Pixar gig really does not seem to be lost on the actor.
You can catch him in the well-reviewed Toy Story 4, out in theaters now.
