Two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday night, and was asked if it were true that he was offered William Shatner‘s seat to space first before the Star Trek legend signed on for the voyage.
“Well yeah, provided I paid,” Hanks said sarcastically.
Shatner’s pricey seat aboard Jeff Bezos‘ New Shepard spacecraft last month was evidently donated. That was not the case for Hanks, Tom revealed.
“It costs like 28 million bucks or something like that,” the actor said. “I’m doing good, Jimmy…But, I ain’t paying 28 [million] bucks!”
The Apollo 13 star has pretended to go to space before, so he demonstrated a much more economical way to experience the New Shepard flight.
“You know what, we could simulate the experience of going to space right now. It’s about a 12-minute flight? Is that about it?,” Hanks asked, before miming the vibrations of the launch and then weightlessness from his chair on Kimmel’s set.
“Whoa! This is fabulous!” he exclaimed, then added, “What? Get back in [my seat]? OK.”
Hanks admitted that he’d go through the flight for free, if it were possible just to see “what it was like to be a billionaire.”
The actor did get serious, however, when asked about the death of his longtime friend and former Bosom Buddies co-star Peter Scolari, who died from cancer on October 22.
“I’ll miss him every day,” Hanks said, adding, “I don’t know how many people truly do change your lives when you crossed paths with them,” expressing that Scolari was one of those people.
Their chemistry was undeniable, Hanks said, noting, “We were molecularly connected.”
After Kimmel screened a scene from a 1981 Bosom Buddies episode, Hanks got choked up thanking the host for playing it.
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