Tom Hanks says voice actors don’t need separate Academy Awards, arguing they should be eligible for recognition in the existing categories.
“I think they have enough categories,” Hanks told Gold Derby, responding to a question about whether the Academy should introduce a separate Oscars category for voice acting.
“The truth is, a voice actor can win best actor,” he said. “The judgment is, ‘any performance that moved you.’”
The two-time Oscar winner pointed to Andy Serkis’s voice performances as carrying significant acting weight.
“Even though he does not appear as Andy Serkis, he gives all the raw material for it. There’s been people who have been close to being nominated that do not appear on camera,” Hanks said. “That could happen to a pure-vocal actor.”
Serkis is widely credited with pioneering motion-capture performance in mainstream cinema, having brought to life some of its most recognisable digital characters such as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, Kong in King Kong, Caesar in the rebooted Planet of the Apes, and Supreme Leader Snoke in the Star Wars sequel films.
“If they are moved, that means they are moved by a human being’s performance,” Hanks said on what Academy voters should consider. “That’s all the requirement.”
No performer has ever been nominated solely for a voice-only role in any of the four acting categories at the Oscars, although Scarlett Johansson came close for her voice-only performance as AI operating system Samantha in Spike Jonze’s Her, winning best actress at the Rome Film Festival.
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The best animated feature category was introduced in 2002. The best animated short film category goes as far back as 1932, when it was awarded under names such as “short subjects”, “cartoons”.
Zoe Saldaña, who plays Neytiri in James Cameron’s Avatar series, has also previously criticised the Academy’s continued reluctance to recognise motion-capture acting.
“Old habits die hard, and when you have old establishments, it’s really hard to bring forward change,” Saldaña told The Independent in 2024.
“I understand that, so I’m not bitter about it, but it’s quite deflating when you give 120 per cent of yourself into something. I mean, not winning is OK, not being nominated is OK, but when you are overlooked and then minimised and completely disregarded.”
open image in galleryCameron had a similar argument, telling Variety that he had “worked with Academy Award-winning actors, and there’s nothing that Zoe’s doing that’s of a calibre less than that”.
Unlike the Oscars, several major awards bodies already recognise voice performances in dedicated categories.
The Primetime Emmy Awards honour both character voice-over performances and narration while the Annie Awards, which are regarded as animation’s most prestigious awards, have long recognised voice acting in film and television.
Hanks himself received an Emmy nomination for outstanding narrator in 2025 for NBC’s The Americas, though he lost to Barack Obama.
open image in galleryHanks will next be seen in Toy Story 5, reprising his role as Woody and reuniting with Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear.
Directed by Andrew Stanton, the film centres on the toys confronting a new threat to playtime as Bonnie becomes increasingly attached to a tablet-like device called Lilypad, reflecting what Pixar describes as a “Toy meets Tech” story.
Toy Story 5 is set for release in cinemas on 19 June 2026.