Tom Hanks has voiced Woody in the Toy Story franchise for over thirty years. He has played the character through four films, countless promotional appearances, and now a fifth installment that just had one of the biggest opening weekends in Pixar history. And until this week, he did not know Woody’s last name.Credit: DisneyThe moment was captured during a BBC Radio 1 interview with film critic Ali Plumb, who dropped the revelation mid-conversation. “By the way, I only recently discovered that Woody has a surname. Are you aware that Woody has a surname?” Plumb asked. Hanks’ response was immediate and genuine. “I had no idea,” he said, before guessing that the courageous sheriff doll’s last name might literally be “The Sheriff.”It is not. Woody’s full name is Woody Pride. It has been since the earliest days of development on the original Toy Story, confirmed publicly years ago by Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich, who posted about it on the platform then known as X. “Woody’s actual full name is ‘Woody Pride,’ and has been since the earliest days of developing the original Toy Story,” Unkrich wrote. Official Disney merchandise and commentary tracks from home video releases have since confirmed the name for fans who went looking.But the BBC Radio 1 interview did not stop there.Plumb kept going. “Double twist. Jessie’s full name is Jessica Jane Pride.” The implication landed before he even finished the sentence. Tim Allen, who has voiced Buzz Lightyear since the original 1995 film and was part of the same interview, immediately connected the dots. “I’d heard this, that they might be related,” Allen said.Hanks’ reaction to the suggestion that Woody and Jessie might be siblings was priceless and immediate. “No! Distant cousins, please. Please!” he exclaimed.The entire exchange captures something that has made Toy Story special for thirty years. There is real warmth between these actors and their characters. The fact that Hanks could play Woody for three decades without knowing his own character’s surname, and respond to learning it with exactly the kind of humor and affection that defines his relationship with the role, is a reminder of why these films feel the way they do.A Name That Has Been There All AlongCredit: PixarWoody’s last name has not been a closely guarded secret. It has been available to fans willing to look for it, surfacing in official merchandise, commentary tracks, and the Unkrich post from 2009. What makes the BBC Radio 1 moment special is less the revelation itself and more the confirmation that even the person who has lived inside this character for thirty years did not know it.Hanks addressed this directly in the interview with a joke that perfectly captures the situation. “How did they find this out? I play the guy [and] didn’t realize I had a surname,” he said.The shared last name of Woody and Jessie has fueled fan speculation about their relationship for years. In the Toy Story films, the two characters share a close bond rooted in the cowboy and cowgirl dynamic of the fictional show-within-the-show Woody’s Roundup. Whether the surname connection means they are intended to be siblings, cousins, or simply a narrative coincidence has never been officially confirmed beyond the names themselves.Joan Cusack voices Jessie and has been part of the franchise since Toy Story 2. The character does not have a confirmed backstory that links her to Woody as a relative, but the shared Pride surname has given fans a thread to pull on for years.Toy Story 5 Just Had One of the Biggest Animated Openings in HistoryCredit: Pixar Animation StudiosThe BBC Radio 1 interview happened in the context of Toy Story 5 opening in theaters this month, and the film has arrived with significant momentum.Toy Story 5 opened to $160 million domestically from 4,425 North American theaters. That number is the biggest domestic debut of the year, surpassing Universal’s Super Mario Galaxy Movie which opened to $131.7 million. It is also the largest opening in the Toy Story franchise, not adjusted for inflation, clearing the previous franchise record of $120 million set by Toy Story 4 in 2019. Globally, the film opened to $152 million overseas for a combined opening weekend of $312 million against a $250 million production budget.The film holds a 94 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and earned an A grade on CinemaScore exit polls. Directed by Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton, the fifth installment follows Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Jessie, and the rest of the toys as their owner Bonnie becomes increasingly attached to a new kiddie smart tablet called Lilypad. Taylor Swift contributed a new song to the soundtrack titled “I Knew It, I Knew You.”For context on what those numbers might mean for the film’s eventual total, Inside Out 2 finished its theatrical run with $1.6 billion and Zootopia 2 closed with $1.8 billion. If Toy Story 5 follows a comparable trajectory, it is positioned to become the highest-grossing film in the franchise, surpassing Toy Story 4‘s final total of $1.07 billion.David A. Gross, who publishes the box office newsletter FranchiseRe, offered his read on the broader context. “Family moviegoing has been leading the industry since it came roaring back from the pandemic in 2023. A lot of the genre’s success is coming from sequels and live-action remakes. Pixar and Disney are particularly good at growing their series from episode to episode. It’s extremely impressive.”The Toy Story Legacy and What It Means Right NowCredit: PixarThe Woody Pride revelation and the Toy Story 5 opening weekend together tell a story about a franchise that has somehow maintained its emotional grip across thirty years. The films do not feel like sequels in the way most franchise continuations do. They feel like returning to something you care about, and the cast has matched that energy across every installment.Hanks has been candid and funny about the toll thirty years of playing Woody has taken, at least on the character. After a photo of Woody with a shiny new bald spot went viral, Hanks addressed it with characteristic humor during an April interview with Entertainment Weekly. “You put a rubber hat on top of a rubber head again and again and again and again, something’s gonna chafe. He has been played with to excess.”The franchise that began in 1995 is now in its fifth chapter and breaking box office records. And the man at the center of it still had to be told his character’s last name by a BBC journalist.That is Woody Pride. It always has been.If you want to share your reaction to the Woody Pride reveal or your thoughts on Toy Story 5 now that it is in theaters, drop a comment below. We are keeping up with everything surrounding the franchise and are happy to talk through any of it.The post Disney Publicly Alters Woody’s 1995 Name After ‘Toy Story 5’ Drop appeared first on Inside the Magic.