Tom Hanks Used This Expletive to Describe Movie Critics as He Defended That Thing You Do!: ‘Can I Say That?’

Tom Hanks used an eyebrow-raising expletive while describing movie critics on Conan O’Brien’s podcast.

When O’Brien, 61, asked Hanks, 67, about the actor and filmmaker’s 1996 feature directorial debut That Thing You Do! during the Monday, Nov. 5 episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, Hanks — who was promoting his new movie Here on the podcast — used the phrase “c—suckers” while recalling a film critic who wasn’t initially a fan of the musical comedy.

“Let me tell you something about these c—suckers who write about movies,’ Hanks said, prompting O’Brien and his cohosts to laugh. “Can I say that?”

“My father writes about movies, and his name is C—sucker,” O’Brien joked in response.

“Somebody who wrote about [That Thing You Do! wrote] that ‘Tom Hanks has to stop hanging around on with veterans of TV because this is just like it’s shot on TV, and it’s not much of anything,’ ” Hanks recalled a critic writing at the time of That Thing You Do!. “That same person then wrote about the cult classic That Thing You Do!. Same exact person. All you need is 20 years between now and then, and it ends up speaking somewhere.”

While Hanks used strong language to describe film critics initially, he conceded that poor reviews — and the potential for time to reshape someone’s opinion on a movie — is “the thing we all signed up for.”

“That’s, you know, that’s the carnival. That’s the contest,” Hanks said. “Right? I got faith in that, that’s alright.”

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The two-time Academy Award winner is currently promoting his new movie Here, which reunites him with his Forrest Gump costar Robin Wright and their director Robert Zemeckis for a new film 30 years after Gump‘s release. During the podcast, Hanks even referred to Forrest Gump as an example of a movie he worried would not land with audiences during production.

“We had worked so hard so much and we were only about 40% done with the movie,” Hanks recalled of a time where he doubted Forrest Gump would succeed. The movie is remembered at one of the pivotal films of the 1990s, taking home Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actor. “We had shot 27 straight days in a row in which included helicopter rides to places in America where Forrest runs across the country with a beard, without a beard. You know, we’ve been all over the place. And I’m exhausted.”

Here is in theaters now.