Tom Hanks has hilarious reaction to ‘Toy Story 5’ Woody look

After the trailer of Toy Story 5 dropped, there were unexpected reactions from fans to celebrities.

When it dropped, fans were stunned to see the ravages of time laid bare on its characters, particularly for cowboy sheriff Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks), who was revealed to have a bald spot!

As it’s been 31 years since the first Toy Story film introduced us to Woody and the likes of Buzz (Tim Allen), Rex, Hamm and Slinky Dog, perhaps audiences shouldn’t have been so unprepared for this change.

“Oh, I heard!” new star Greta Lee, who plays Bonnie’s new tablet Lilypad, tells Metro of the fan reaction to Woody’s need for a brown marker, as her character suggests. “But it’s so cool that it’s the passage of time – they’re really going there.”

But what was the reaction from Hanks himself to this when he first read the script? “Tom’s okay with it!” Toy Story 5 producer Lindsey Collins confirmed as she chuckled speaking to Metro.

“With Tom, I just told him this is what’s happening,” noted the film’s director and co-writer, Andrew Stanton.

“Tom just couldn’t stop laughing,” he added.

It’s not the only change Woody has experienced, as he’s shown to have developed a little softening and expanding around the waist while out living in the wild with Bo since Toy Story 4, helping abandoned toys find owners.

“He’s in his dad-bod era!” Collins joked.

Stanton reveals there was, of course, a much deeper reason behind exploring Woody’s ageing in the new movie, after admitting that the team at Pixar were ‘running out’ of things that Woody hadn’t been up against over the years.

“He’s been through a lot, and I wanted the pressure taken off him having to have some huge major inner development. But you live long enough, you realise your life has chapters, no matter what. Things shift every four or five years, and some are great shifts, some are minor shifts,” he said.

In Toy Story 5, Woody’s shift is to his “been outside, been retired” era where he doesn’t care so much to keep up his appearance for a child.

“It’s just showing the wear and tear of how free and excited he is to be in his new stage of life, helping other toys, that he doesn’t care that he’s lost a string, he’s worn off on the back of his head and he’s let the dust settle a little,” he added.

But the filmmaker, who was Pixar’s second-ever animator hired, and directed Finding Nemo as well as WALL-E, also recognised the fertile ground for humour with reactions.

“I also enjoyed the idea of when he comes back for the reunion with his old family, it’s like when you come back for Thanksgiving dinner – the old habits come in right away, no matter how long you’ve been apart, and I knew there would be some sibling rivalry with Buzz.”

But even knowing the creative possibilities Woody’s ageing offered, Stanton exclaimed that he “didn’t expect it to be so huge.”