Tom Hanks says Disney could keep Woody going with AI after he’s gone, and he finds that “scary”
Promoting Toy Story 5, Hanks pointed out the obvious: 31 years of his voice is sitting on a hard drive somewhere. Pixar could build a new Woody without him. He’s not thrilled about it, and he’s not wrong that the tech is already here.
Tom Hanks has been Woody for 31 years, and he just said the quiet part out loud: Pixar may not need him to keep being Woody.
Promoting Toy Story 5, which opened to a franchise-record $312 million worldwide, Hanks was asked about a sixth film and ended up somewhere more unsettling, talking about how the studio could carry the character forward without him at all.
What Hanks actually said
His point was simple, and a little chilling coming from the man himself.
“Time is undefeated,” Hanks told Entertainment Weekly. “The question would be whether or not we could cobble together some version of me. Every word we have ever recorded in time in Toy Story is on digital media somewhere, so they could put together anything they would want.”
Three decades of Hanks voicing Woody, every line, every reading, all of it archived. Enough raw material for AI to stitch together new dialogue in his voice without him ever stepping to a microphone. He and longtime co-star Tim Allen both landed on the same two words for the idea: “a scary thought.”
To be clear, Hanks was raising a worry, not pitching a plan. He wasn’t volunteering Woody for the algorithm. He was pointing at a door that’s already open and admitting it makes him uneasy.
This isn’t hypothetical, and James Earl Jones proved it
The reason Hanks’s worry has teeth is that a legend already did exactly this.
James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader for 45 years, signed over the rights to his voice in 2022, letting the company Respeecher recreate it with AI from archival recordings. When Jones died in September 2024, Vader didn’t have to. The voice has carried on in Star Wars projects since, built by software from the sound of a man who’s gone.
So when Hanks talks about a digital Woody outliving him, he’s not spinning a sci-fi what-if. He’s describing a thing that has already happened to one of the most famous voices in movie history. The technology works, the legal framework exists, and at least one icon has said yes to it.
The wrinkle: there’s already another Woody, and he’s family
Here’s the part that complicates the whole “Disney would need AI” assumption, and it’s a genuinely charming one.
Woody already has a backup, and he’s a Hanks. Jim Hanks, Tom’s younger brother, has voiced Woody for years in the spots where Tom doesn’t, the video games, the theme-park attractions, the toys and the talking dolls. Their voices are close enough that most people never notice the handoff. In fact, it was Jim who first confirmed Tom would return for Toy Story 5 back in 2023.
So the franchise already solved the “what if Tom isn’t available” problem the old-fashioned way, with a human who happens to share his DNA and his timbre. That’s the quiet rebuttal sitting inside Hanks’s own worry. Pixar has a living, breathing alternate Woody on call. Whether a studio would reach for a brother or an algorithm, when the day comes that Tom Hanks can’t or won’t do it, is the actual question under all of this.
What it means for Woody, and the rest of us
Hanks set a condition on any Toy Story 6, and it doubles as his answer to the AI question.
“If you’re gonna do another Toy Story, it better be worthwhile,” he said. “It better be great. You better be examining some theme that is not just dragging it out because people like the title.” He acknowledged it’s “a huge corporate business,” but his line held: no good reason, no movie.
That’s really the heart of it. The tools to keep Woody talking forever already exist, whether through Jim Hanks’s voice or a model trained on Tom’s. What they can’t manufacture is a reason to. Hanks isn’t worried the technology will fail. He’s worried it’ll work, and a beloved character will keep going long after anyone has something to say with him. The cowboy can be kept alive. The trick, as ever, is making sure there’s a soul in there worth the trip back to the toy box.
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Hat Tips:
Variety and Entertainment Weekly (June 2026), verified for Hanks’s “time is undefeated” and “cobble together some version of me” quotes, the “scary thought” reaction shared with Tim Allen, and the “it better be worthwhile” condition on Toy Story 6
Variety (2022–2024), verified for James Earl Jones signing over his Darth Vader voice rights to Respeecher for AI recreation, and its continued use after his September 2024 death
Wikipedia and franchise records, verified for Jim Hanks regularly voicing Woody in games, parks, and merchandise, and for Jim confirming Tom’s Toy Story 5 return in 2023
Variety and Box Office Mojo (June 2026), verified for Toy Story 5’s $312 million franchise-record opening