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As history would have it, writer/director Cameron Crowe had originally written the role of “Jerry Maguire” for Hanks. Considering the film’s overwhelming success, is Hanks disappointed he passed on the film?

“I think you look at it now and it couldn’t have been anybody other than Tom Cruise,” Hanks admitted to Access Hollywood. “That’s the way movies operate. I don’t think anybody would look at that now and say that movie was not perfect with Cuba and Renee and Tom. Those are the people who needed to be in that movie.”

“[Crowe] said he had this idea about a guy and his agent and that he worked on it for a really long time. But by the time he was ready to do it, I had written and was about to direct ‘That Thing You Do,’” Hanks continued. “So, Tom Cruise owes me a buck.”

Well, Mr. Hanks, allow Access Hollywood to go collect on that bet for you as our Billy Bush asked Cruise to make good on the buck.

“You owe him a dollar. Do you have a dollar? Because I’m going to see him in a few days so I could give it to him,” Billy told Cruise, as he scuffled through his pockets only to come away with nothing but lint. Just then, a passer-by handed the movie star a buck.

“Am I going to have to pay you back?” Cruise joked. “Here, give him a dollar.”

And how did Hanks respond to his newfound fortune when we met back up with him? “Debt paid! This is going to buy me a set of white wall tires,” he laughed.

So now we know that Tom replaced Tom. But would you believe this story gets even stranger. It appears to be a case of six degrees of separation from Renee Zellweger, as the “Jerry Maguire” script also landed in the lap of Renee’s “Bridget Jones” co-star Hugh Grant.

“I do remember them sending me the script for ‘Jerry Maguire,’ and I rang up my agent and I said ‘There must be some mistake because you sent me a good script,’ and they said ‘Sorry, yes, there is a mistake. That was actually meant for Tom Cruise,’” Grant revealed.