THE HANKS BOYS : Hey, Even Big Brother Wasn’t Always Big

From Jim Hanks’ perspective on his acting career, there is both good news and bad news in his bloodlines.

The good news: Jim Hanks is Tom Hanks’ younger brother. The bad news: Jim Hanks is Tom Hanks’ younger brother.

“Some people are really great about it, some aren’t,” says Hanks, 33, as yet another waiter pops by to see if everything is all right. “I auditioned for something recently and heard back later the casting director could not get over the fact that I looked so much like Tom that she didn’t even hear me. She did not hear my audition.”

T.L. Lankford, screenwriter, novelist and now director, is one who was not distracted by Hanks’ amazing similarity to his brother, and cast him in “Dark Red,” a low-budget thriller due early next year.

“At first I wanted to cast him as one of the leads, a character who has suffered brain damage,” Lankford says. “But when he read it, I realized it was far too close to ‘Forrest Gump’ and neither one of us wanted to exploit Tom’s name or that character.” (Incidentally, Jim doubled for Tom in several of that film’s jogging scenes.)

The director, who loved Hanks’ reading but not the irony, felt awkward asking him to play a cop--a much smaller part than that of the brain-damaged character--but Hanks had no qualms about it.

“At this point, a job’s a job,” Hanks says. And the jobs, while not exactly the next “Forrest Gump,” “Sleepless in Seattle” or “Philadelphia,” are coming: National voice-over spots for Hyundai and Jack in the Box have already aired; a part in a small film he recently completed called “Night Skies” in which he was blown to smithereens, and other nibbles, including the lead in a feature called “Body Language,” which will shoot once financing is nailed down.

Hanks wouldn’t even be in Southern California if it weren’t for his actress wife, Karen. They had been living a quiet life in Sacramento since the late ‘80s, until Karen Hanks decided to have a go at making it in Hollywood as an actress. Soon after relocating, she landed a receptionist job for an agent, who coaxed Karen’s husband, who had been waiting tables in the state capital, into the business.

The first auditions were horrific, he says, because he simply wasn’t prepared. Several acting classes later, Hanks soon landed the lead role in . . . “Buford’s Beach Bunnies,” a straight-to-video sex romp that came out in 1992.

“The casting director said you should go in and not tell them your real name,” recalls Hanks of the audition for that film. “So he took my headshot and cut my name off and I used my middle name. I went in as Jim Mathews.” The audition went well, Hanks landed the role and the filmmakers laughed when learned of their star’s famous lineage.

The temptation to exploit his relationship and resemblance to his brother, however, constantly looms.

“I was approached about doing a television remake of ‘Splash,’ ” he says. Then came tales of torment when some studio wanted to do a series inspired by Tom’s first blockbuster, “Big.”

“I was contacted five different times,” says Hanks, a little irritated at the memory. “Then one time somebody from one of the studios called me at home on Saturday morning pleading me to come in and read it. I said no.”

When he told Tom about it, his big brother concurred.

“ ‘You’re right. You’re absolutely right,’ ” Jim says Tom told him. “ ‘It would be the most stupid thing you could possibly do.’ ”