Mark Harmon Wanted Tom Hanks to Replace Him in ‘Summer School’

Mark Harmon starred in a few notable projects beyond NCIS. Years before he was cast as Jethro Gibbs in the police procedural, Harmon starred in the cult classic comedy Summer School. But he initially wasn’t interested in doing the project, and urged for another star in mind to take his place.

Mark Harmon didn’t think he was funny enough for ‘Summer School’

Harmon took a role that many felt was a departure from his usual work in Summer School. The feature was a 1987 comedy movie where Harmon played a high school teacher assigned to a remedial class during the summer. One of the reasons Harmon did the project was because he was intentionally looking for a lighthearted movie to do.

Harmon was coming off the feature The Deliberate Stranger where he played Ted Bundy. He felt Summer School was the exact kind of film he wanted to be in after playing such a sinister role.

“The last thing I had done was Deliberate Stranger, and that was certainly a very heavy duty serious dramatic piece. And I thought, during the production of that was when this is over I want to do something lighter. That lighter thing ended up being a major comedy for Paramount and Carl Reiner called Summer School,” Harmon once said in an interview with The Bobbie Wygant.

According to Harmon, Reiner wanted to cast the Freaky Friday star in the feature after seeing him in Stranger. But when he was first offered the role, he wasn’t confident he’d be able to deliver on the film’s comedy.

In an interview with Daily Beast, Reiner confided that he tried convincing Reiner to hire Tom Hanks instead.

“’I’m not funny,’” Harmon remembered telling Reiner.

But Harmon would soon settle into the part, and it ended up becoming one of the actor’s most memorable roles.

Mark Harmon opened up on what it was like on the set of ‘Summer School’

Harmon praised his on-set experience working alongside Reiner in Summer School. In an interview with The View, he quipped that many of the kids he taught in the film were already adults themselves. Because of this, his co-stars had plenty of creative ideas that they wanted to share with Reiner.

“I remember all the kids in that movie were probably in their mid-30s,” Harmon said. “And they all had ideas. The way Carl works is a little bit of a spin, a little improv. Let the camera run a little longer everyday. And every scene, every day, there was always one of those kids and sometimes me going, ‘Hey, how about this?’ And Carl going, ‘no.’”

But that kind of interaction actually worked for Summer School, with some of it even making it into the movie.

It wouldn’t be the only time the NCIS star collaborated with Reiner on the project. He enjoyed his time with Reiner so much that Harmon couldn’t wait to provide a commentary track for Summer School with the director.

“Years later, they came back and said, ‘We want you to [do commentary].’ I said, ‘Absolutely, is Carl gonna do it?’ And they said, ‘He will do it.’ And I said, ‘For me, at this point, to sit in a room with Carl Reiner for three hours, are you kidding? Sign me up,” Harmon remembered.

Mark Harmon on what made ‘Summer School’ unique compared to other comedies

It wasn’t only Summer School’s lighthearted spirit that attracted him to the project. The veteran actor thought that the film was a very different portrayal than similar comedy films. Reiner’s movie didn’t have a traditional Hollywood conclusion, which Harmon felt made the movie even more special.

“It’s the fact that, at the end, not everybody wins. You know, they improve. And that’s the important thing,” Harmon said. “I think that’s part of the reason that I was attracted to this is it seemed like a very real story to me wrapped into what it is. And I know that’s part of the reason Carl Reiner liked it, the fact that it isn’t all tied up in a nice little bow in the end.”