How old is the boy in big?

The second audition of David Moscow’s career involved Penny Marshall, Robert De Niro, and a script about a 12-year-old Jersey boy who wishes “to be big.”

Though De Niro passed on the role made iconic by Tom Hanks, “Big” became the most recognized film on Moscow’s career resume.

“Personally and professionally, it was a complete change,” Moscow said in a recent interview marking the classic comedy’s 25th anniversary. “At that period of time I was 12, and my mom would be scolding me for being bad on the street, and then suddenly people would come up to me and be like, ‘Hey, can I have your autograph?’ … It was a wild time, it was a wild way to be introduced into the business.” 

Moscow has since turned his focus from acting. He produced indie horror comedy “Hellbenders” (“‘Ghostbusters meets ‘The Hangover'”), which premiered during TIFF 2012’s Midnight Madness screening series, and hopes to shoot “Desolation,” his Roman Polanski-influenced directorial debut, in early 2014. But “Big” remains, in many ways, his defining role.

“Having that on your resume when you walk into an audition, someone just glances over and they land on that film and go, ‘Wait a minute. You were young Tom Hanks,'” he said. “And then, suddenly, it changes. I think that, compared to any of the other stuff I’ve done — I did “Newsies,” I was in “Honey” — I mean, they all had some level of success, but there’s nothing like that.” 

A quarter-century later, he’s still recognized — or, more accurately, misrecognized — as protagonist Josh Baskin: Hanks’ performance as an adolescent in a man’s body is so convincing that people remember Moscow in scenes where he didn’t actually appear.

“Depending on the scene, people will ask, ‘What was it like to touch her breasts when you were that young?'” he said. “And I’ll be like, ‘I didn’t, that was Tom.’ Or, ‘What was it like to dance on the piano?’ ‘That’s not me, that was Tom.'”

If the generation brought up on “Big” sometimes bungles the details, Moscow’s memory of the production is remarkably vivid. He quickly learned how Marshall (“Awakenings,” “A League of Their Own”) gained her reputation as an actor’s director.

“Tom came by the set one day just to see how everything was going and I think he could tell that I was a little bit nervous,” Moscow said. “And he came over and he was like, ‘No, no, Penny just likes to have everything she can possibly have in the editing room, to make sure it’s all there.” And then he said that he’d done like 37 takes the day before. But that’s what Penny likes to do. She wants to give you time to play.”

Appropriately enough, for a film about the tension between childlike wonder and adult responsibility, “play” proved central to the experience. While Moscow rode the carnival rides from the film’s opening sequence and stayed up all night for the first time (“I ate so much cotton candy,” he said), Marshall made a decision that explains the naturalistic ease of Hanks’ rangy performance.

“When we were rehearsing, Penny would send an AD [assistant director] out with a camera with me and my friends and we would sort of playact some of the scenes so Tom could study the tape of how kids interacted with each other,” Moscow recalled. “So there are a couple moments in the movie where he is… mimicking things that my friends did, used to do. Watching it, you’re like, ‘My God, that’s crazy!'”

Moscow caught the film’s moving denouement on cable recently, and marveled at his teenage self.

“It seems like a completely different person, that child, back then,” he said. “I had green contacts in, my hair was dyed black, I had lost two teeth during shooting… When you’re looking at that kid you’re like, ‘Oh, he looks sort of like me, but he’s also very strange right now.'”

Despite this distance, however, Moscow, who celebrated his 39th birthday in November, understands why “Big” continues to resonate with viewers young and old.

“Everybody goes through that,” he said. “Everyone at some point in their life wishes that they had more power, that they were taller, that they were older, that they were stronger, and so everyone can kind of connect.”

“Big” is now available in a 25th Anniversary Blu-ray/DVD Combo Edition from Twentieth Century Fox.

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See Young Josh From "Big" Now at 47

He's 15 years older than Tom Hanks was when the movie came out.

By Lia Beck

June 21, 2022

June 21, 2022

When David Moscow delivered the line, "I wish I were big," in 1988, he became a part of movie history forever. Moscow played young Josh—the kid version of Tom Hanks' character before his magical wish is granted—in Big, the beloved coming-of-age comedy. "The best line in the movie is 'I wish I were big,'" Moscow told Today in 2018. "I had the best line in the film."

Moscow was just a kid when he shared the role with Hanks, but now, he's 47—15 years older than the film's star was when the movie came out. Following his child star days, Moscow continued acting, and he's also worked as a producer, director, and the host of a travel and food show. Read on to find out more about his life today.

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He kept acting into adulthood.

Big was Moscow's first movie role, and he continued acting for years to come. In 1992, he starred in Newsies, and as an adult he went on to play roles in 2001's Riding in Cars with Boys and 2003's Honey. He still acts onscreen today, but not quite as frequently as he once did. His most recent film role was in 2018's One Last Night.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb

He's also a producer and director.

Moscow has produced and directed both theater and film. In 2006, he directed a movie titled Desolation. The actor also co-produced Lin-Manuel Miranda's first Broadway musical In the Heights. He was connected with composer Miranda through a friend of his father.

"I went around town and knocked on doors to raise money," Moscow told Yahoo! of producing the play. "There was something really cool about helping a creative person, giving comments, helping them, and not having to be onstage. So it sort of snowballed into a producing career."

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He hosts a food show.

Moscow hosts and produces From Scratch, a travel and cooking show in which he visits chefs and sources the ingredients for their recipes from the people who produce them.

"I go around the world and and meet with food producers, and we harvest and grow and fish and hunt," he told Yahoo! in 2021. "And then I take it to a chef and we make a meal from it. It's a blast."

Moscow is releasing a book related to the series, also titled From Scratch, which he co-wrote with his father, Jon Moscow.

"My dad and I are very excited to share with you our upcoming book From Scratch, Adventures in Harvesting, Hunting, Fishing and Foraging on a Fragile Planet," Moscow wrote on Instagram in May. "As many of you already know, I have spent the better part of the last four years traveling around the world in an attempt to reconnect with the food that sustains our lives. The result is this travel journal."

He's a husband and father.

Before marrying his wife, Moscow was in a relationship with a major star: He was engaged to Kerry Washington in the '00s, but they broke up in 2007.

Now, Moscow has been married to Karen Riotoc since 2014. The couple have a son and recently welcomed a new baby in June 2022.

"Maddie and the Moscows want to thank all our family and friends who helped us sleep, fed us, prepped us for baby 2, and spent time with Harrison this first week," Moscow wrote in a recent Instagram post. "We made it, on to week two!"

READ THIS NEXT: The Worst Tom Hanks Movie of All Time, According to Critics.

Lia Beck

Lia Beck is a writer living in Richmond, Virginia. In addition to Best Life, she has written for Refinery29, Bustle, Hello Giggles, InStyle, and more. Read more

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