Go Behind the Scenes of ‘Splash’ With 9 Whimsical Photos of Daryl Hannah, Tom Hanks and Ron Howard on Set

Daryl Hannah, Tom Hanks and Ron Howard are clearly having some fun in the sun in this adorable photo from the set. You gotta love that bathtub parked on the sand and Howard’s wicker chair and bottle of champagne!

Howard, who got his start playing Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show as a child and later gained further popularity as Richie Cunningham on Happy Days, switched from acting to directing in the late ’70s, and Splash was one of his defining early successes as a filmmaker. Having originally been known as a cute little redheaded kid, he chose to grow a mustache in a bid to look older and more serious.

Hannah looks lovely with a fedora perched atop her mermaid hair behind the scenes. In a 2016 interview with Empire magazine, she spoke about the legacy of her character’s unexpected name choice, saying, “I've met hundreds of little girls named Madison and it's really kind of lovely. The whole point of the character's name was a joke because Madison is the name of a street, so it’s a bit like naming yourself 'Pacific Coast Highway.’ But it's such a common name now that people don't even get the joke.”

It’s hard to imagine now given how long he’s been in Hollywood’s A-list, but Splash was one of Hanks’ very first movies and helped make him a star. Here, he looks boyish as he poses for a portrait. Hanks got his breakout role after appearing in a 1982 episode of Happy Days, remembering, “I kicked Fonzie. I got dressed up in a judo karate outfit. And I think I’m legendarily the first guy to actually strike Fonzie. I kicked him through the stained glass window of Al’s Drive-in. Ron Howard had already left the show, and he was directing, and they had written this movie called Splash, And it was at Disney, and no one wanted to work for Disney, and no one would take the job. And eventually they said, ‘Hey, this guy who kicked Fonzie through a plate-glass window might be good.’ And so I ended up auditioning for that.” The rest is history!

Hannah and Howard may be smiling in this behind-the-scenes photo, but making Splash wasn’t all fun and games. In a 40th anniversary interview with People in 2024, Hannah said wearing her mermaid tail was a drag, admitting, “It weighed so much and it put pressure on spots where it shouldn't have pressure. So almost every day, my feet came out bloody and stuff.” The costume was so unwieldy that she couldn’t take it off during lunch breaks, and instead stayed in the water and let Hanks feed her french fries. Even if being a mermaid could be challenging, she said, “I loved filming the whole thing.”

Splash marked the beginning of a long creative partnership for Hanks and Howard, seen here in a casual set portrait. After Splash, Hanks starred in four more of Howard’s films, Apollo 13 (1995), The Da Vinci Code (2006), Angels & Demons (2009) and Inferno (2016).

Here, Howard and Splash’s producer, Brian Grazer, set up a scene on location in New York. Howard and Grazer started working together on the 1982 film Night Shift, and have been a team ever since then. In 1985, they founded their production company, Imagine Entertainment, which became wildly financially successful and is still around 40 years later.

Howard looks intently focused as he studies one of Splash’s shots. While the movie became a classic, it wasn’t easy getting it made, as the director recalled, “When we were trying to sell Splash, Brian Grazer and I, we were going to every studio, they were all turning us down, and one said, 'Does it really have to be a mermaid?' We didn't go with that company. We decided, yeah, it really should be a mermaid."

This portrait of Howard, Hanks and Hannah with Splash’s supporting actors, Canadian comedians John Candy (who played Hanks’ brother) and Eugene Levy (who played a scientist) looks straight out of an ’80s sitcom!