Tom Hanks Can Still Remember Every Word Of His ‘SNL’ Sketch That Bombed

Unless you’re Marlon Brando, a big part of being an actor is memorizing your lines. This is especially true for live entertainment, like Saturday Night Live, where you can tell when someone is using cue cards or not. On Wednesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, former-SNL cast member David Spade discussed how frequent-host Tom Hanks can still remember every word of his sketches, even one that didn’t make it to air.

“He really lights up, he remembers everything he did on there,” Spade said about Hanks. The Tommy Boy star then told a story about the first time he met the two-time Oscar winner, who pitched a sketch about subway surfing. “First of all, I have a legal pad,” he said. “We don’t have computers back then…. I knew how to write a couple of jokes. We wrote it all night, then we did it, and it bombed.” Spade continued:

“I remember being on the subway, surfing, and he was next to me. Our eyes connected. We were like, ‘It’s over, dude.’ We were two minutes into it and we had five more. I’m like, ‘Oh it’s bombing!’ We just did it wrong… He was the host, and he cut it.”

Later on, Spade and Hanks reminisced about the dud sketch, and “he remembered the song. He sang the whole song. He remembered the song. I couldn’t believe it.” Tom Hanks: pretty good actor! Who knew. You can watch the interview with Spade above.