A native American, Thomas Jeffrey Hanks has been working in the cinema and television industries since 1956. His humorous and tragic roles have made him a global phenomenon, and he is widely recognized as a cultural icon in the United States. When it comes to American cinema actors, Hanks ranks fourth in terms of earnings. In addition to his many nominations and wins, he has received two Oscars, seven Emmys, four Golden Globes, five BAFTAs, and a Tony. Among his many accolades are the 2002 AFI Life Achievement Award, 2014 Kennedy Center Honor, 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom, and 2020 Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award.
Splash(1984), The Money Pit(1986), Big (1988), and A League of Their Own (1992) were the comedies in which Hanks first gained widespread recognition. For his roles as the titular character in Forrest Gump (1994) and an AIDS-stricken gay lawyer in Philadelphia (1993), he won back-to-back Best Actor Oscars. The Post(2017), Bridge of Spies(2015), Saving Private Ryan(1998), The Terminal (2004), Catch Me If You Can (2002), and The Terminal are among films in which Hanks has cooperated with Steven Spielberg. The two have worked together on three miniseries based on World War II: Band of Brothers (2001), The Pacific (2010), and Masters of the Air (2024). Along with Nora Ephron, Robert Zemeckis, and Ron Howard, he has worked with them on several occasions.
Lead roles in romantic comedies Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You've Got Mail (1998), dramas Apollo 13, The Green Mile (1999), Cast Away (2000), Road to Perdition (2002), and Cloud Atlas (2012) helped establish Hanks as a film star. He also appeared in biographical dramas such as Charlie Wilson's War (2007), Captain Phillips (2013), Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Sully (2016), A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), News of the World (2020), and Elvis (2022). From 1995 until 2019, he was the voice of Sheriff Woody in the Toy Story films and series and portrayed the lead role in the Robert Langdon mysteries. The That Thing You Do! comedy starred and were directed by Hanks. He has voiced and done motion capture for a number of characters in the animated holiday film The Polar Express (2004), as well as Larry Crowne (2011).
The position as co-lead in the ABC comedy Bosom Buddies (1980–1982) was his big break in television. From the Earth to the Moon (1998), Band of Brothers, John Adams (2008), The Pacific, Game Change (2012), and Olive Kitteridge (2015) are just a few of the limited series and television movies created by his production firm, Playtone. He has also hosted Saturday Night Live 10 times. He debuted on Broadway in Lucky Guy (2013) by Nora Ephron and was nominated for a Tony for Best Actor in a Play for his performance.
Life in childhood and the home
The son of a traveling cook named Amos "Bud" Hanks and a hospital worker named Janet Marylyn (née Frager), Hanks came into this world on July 9, 1956, in Concord, California. He inherited the surname "Fraga" from a Portuguese family and was born into it. Hanks is distantly related to President Abraham Lincoln and children's presenter Fred Rogers (whom he would later play in a film) via his father's line of English lineage. He was born into a broken home in 1960.
Jim stayed in Red Bluff, California with their mother, while their three eldest children—Sandra (later Sandra Hanks Benoiton, a writer), Larry (now an entomology professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), and Tom—went with their father. Hanks had lived in 10 different residences by the time he was ten years old since his family moved about a lot when he was a kid. After marrying Rita Wilson, Hanks switched to Greek Orthodox Christianity, despite the fact that his family had a history of Catholicism and Mormonism.
When Hanks was a teenager, one journalist said he was a "Bible-toting evangelical" for a while. Despite his unpopularity in school, Hanks went on to tell Rolling Stone magazine, "I was a geek, a spaz. I was horribly, painfully, terribly shy. At the same time, I was the guy who'd yell out funny captions during filmstrips. But I didn't get into trouble. I was always a real good kid and pretty responsible." Hanks attended Skyline High School in Oakland, California, where he participated in school plays such as South Pacific.
The Alameda Theatre was one of Hanks's earliest cinematic experiences, as he grew up in the Bay Area. After two years of theatrical studies at Hayward, California's Chabot College, Hanks switched to Sacramento State. Hanks was asked by sportscaster Bob Costas in 2001 if he would prefer a Heisman Trophy or an Oscar. His preferred method of winning the Heisman Trophy would be to play halfback for the Golden Bears of California, he said. He wrote in 1986 for New York magazine, "Acting classes looked like the best place for a guy who liked to make a lot of noise and be rather flamboyant. I spent a lot of time going to plays. I wouldn't take dates with me. I'd just drive to a theater, buy myself a ticket, sit in the seat and read the program, and then get into the play completely. I spent a lot of time like that, seeing Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Ibsen, and all that."
While pursuing his theater education, Hanks crossed paths with Vincent Dowling, who oversaw the Cleveland, Ohio's Great Lakes Theater Festival. Dowling suggested that Hanks intern at the festival, and he did. After an internship that lasted three years and involved nearly every facet of theatrical production—from lighting to set design to stage management—Hanks decided to forego his college education. At the same time, Hanks' 1978 portrayal of Proteus in Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona—one of his few villain roles—won him the Best Actor award from the Cleveland Critics Circle. Among the "Top 10 College Dropouts" that Time magazine recognized in 2010, Hanks was included.
Work History
After relocating to New York City in 1979, Hanks became the first actor to appear in a low-budget slasher film (1980) and went on to star in the 1982 television thriller Mazes and Monsters. In Daniel Southern's (The Mandrake, Niccolò Machiavelli) production of the Riverside Shakespeare Company's play, he was cast as the lead, Callimaco, in the beginning of that year. In the pilot episode of Bosom Buddies, which aired on ABC the following year, Hanks played the starring role of Kip Wilson. In the film, he and Peter Scolari portrayed two young ad men who were coerced into living as females in order to afford a cheap motel for women. Scolari and Hanks were co-hosts of the game program Make Me Laugh in the 1970s. The part prompted Hanks to relocate to Hollywood. Though it never had great numbers, Bosom Buddies was well-received by reviewers throughout its two seasons on television. According to Rolling Stone, co-producer Ian Praiser stated, "I thought, 'Too bad he won't be in television for long.' I knew he'd be a movie star in two years." This statement was made the very first day Praiser saw him on set.
Hanks met Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, who were writing the 1984 romantic comedy fantasy film Splash about a mermaid who falls in love with a human, during his guest appearance on an episode of Happy Days in 1982 ("A Case of Revenge"). Ron Howard, who had previously appeared on Happy Days, was directing the film. Howard was advised by Ganz and Mandel to think about casting Hanks in the picture. John Candy ended up playing the role of the main character's wisecracking brother, but Howard originally selected Tom Hanks for the part. Hanks, on the other hand, was cast as the lead in Splash, a film that became an unexpected financial success, earning over US$69 million. In 1984, he also had a big hit with the sex comedy Bachelor Party. During the 1983–1984 season of Family Ties, Hanks appeared three times as Ned Donnelly, the drunken brother of Elyse Keaton.
In Nothing in Common (1986), starring Jackie Gleason as a young man estranged from his father, Hanks began to branch out from humorous parts into sad ones. According to Hanks, who spoke about his experience in an interview with Rolling Stone, "It changed my desires about working in movies. Part of it was the nature of the material, what we were trying to say. But besides that, it focused on people's relationships. The story was about a guy and his father, unlike, say, The Money Pit, where the story is really about a guy and his house." Hanks had already signed an acting/producing pact with The Walt Disney Studios in 1987. Hanks' star began to rise after a string of box office bombs including the 1987 comedy Dragnet, which was only moderately successful.
Big (1988), a fantasy comedy, catapulted Tom Hanks to stardom and solidified his position as a significant player in Hollywood. As a result of his work in the picture, Hanks received his first ever Best Actor Oscar nomination. Punchline, in which he and Sally Field featured as two struggling comedians, followed Big later that year. Following The 'Burbs (1989), Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), and The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Hanks had a string of financially disappointing films. The most recent one has him playing a hit-and-run victim who is a greedy Wall Street executive. Hanks' sole commercially successful picture from that era was 1989's Turner & Hooch.
1990–1999: The peak of his career and critical praise
Penny Marshall's A League of Their Own (1992) catapulted Hanks back to stardom with his performance as a former baseball great who became a manager. Hanks has admitted that his performance in his earlier parts was subpar, but that he grew as an actor over the years. Hanks drew attention to his "modern era of moviemaking... because enough self-discovery has gone on... My work has become less pretentiously fake and over the top" in an interview he gave to Vanity Fair. Beginning with Sleepless in Seattle (1993) by Nora Ephron and continuing with Philadelphia (1993) by Jonathan Demme, Hanks entered this "modern era" in 1993.
A widower discovers love again through the magic of radio in the romantic comedy Sleepless in Seattle. Hanks and Meg Ryan were co-stars. Hanks' depiction solidified his position as one of the leading romantic comedy stars of his time, according to Richard Schickel of TIME, who described it as "charming." The majority of critics also agreed with this assessment. Acting as an AIDS-stricken gay lawyer who sues his employer for discrimination, he was seen in Philadelphia. In order to play the character, Hanks trimmed his hair and shed 35 pounds (16 kg). Leah Rozen wrote in her People review, "Above all, credit for Philadelphia's success belongs to Hanks, who makes sure that he plays a character, not a saint. He is flat-out terrific, giving a deeply felt, carefully nuanced performance that deserves an Oscar." As a result of his work in Philadelphia, Hanks was awarded the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1993. Rawley Farnsworth, his high school theater instructor, and John Gilkerson, a former classmate, were two persons he was close with; he came out as homosexual during his victory speech.
After Philadelphia, Hanks starred in Robert Zemeckis's 1994 film Forrest Gump, in which he played the lead role of a 75-IQ man who becomes embroiled in pivotal moments in American history. Over $600 million was its overall gross on a global scale. Upon reading the script for Gump, Hanks stated, "When I read the script for Gump, I saw it as one of those kind of grand, hopeful movies that the audience can go to and feel... some hope for their lot and their position in life... I got that from the movies a hundred million times when I was a kid. I still do." With his performance in Forrest Gump, Hanks became the second actor to win consecutive Best Actor Oscars. (The first was Spencer Tracy, who won in 1937 and 1938 for Captains Courageous and Boys Town, respectively. Hals and Tracy were both 37 years old when they earned their Oscars; Tracy was 38 when he won his second.)
For the 1995 film Apollo 13, Hanks and Ron Howard teamed up again as astronaut Jim Lovell and commander. Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan were among the actors praised by critics for their roles in the picture. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won two. Hanks voiced Sheriff Woody in the 1995 Pixar film Toy Story. That Thing You Do! was Hanks' first feature film as a director. about a musical trio from the 1960s; he co-starred as the film's music producer in 1996. After working together on the film, Hanks and producer Gary Goetzman founded Playtone, a production firm for both films and records that was named after the fictional record label.
After that, in 1998, Hanks was involved with the HBO documentary From the Earth to the Moon as an executive producer, co-writer, and co-director. From the humble beginnings of the space program to the emotional roller coaster that was the actual landing on the moon, this 12-part documentary covered it all. With a budget of $68 million (about $127 million in 2023 dollars), the Emmy-winning project was among the most costly television undertakings.
Even his subsequent undertaking was not cheap. Along with Steven Spielberg, he produced the 1998 picture Saving Private Ryan, which dealt with the recovery of a soldier from a war-torn France following D-Day. Critics, audiences, and members of the film industry all gave it high marks. Spielberg received his second Oscar for directing and Hanks received another Best Actor nod for the critically acclaimed picture, which was widely considered to be among the best war pictures of all time. Hanks reunited with Ephron and Ryan later that year for You've Got Mail, a remake of The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Ernst Lubitsch's film. He played the lead role in Frank Darabont's 1999 film adaptation of Stephen King's The Green Mile. Toy Story 2 (1999) saw him return as Woody.
From 2000 to 2009, the star was established and expanded.
Playing the role of a marooned FedEx systems expert, Hanks teamed up with Zemeckis for Cast Away (2000). Hanks co-directed and produced the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, which won an Emmy Award. Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "Hanks proves here again what an effective actor he is, never straining for an effect, always persuasive even in this unlikely situation, winning our sympathy with his eyes and his body language when there's no one else on the screen." (1991). Rescued From the Closet, a documentary, and America: A Tribute to Heroes, a September 11th television special, both featured him. His anti-hero portrayal as a hitman fleeing with his son was brought to life in 2002 by his collaboration with Sam Mendes for Road to Perdition, an adaptation of the comics by Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner. Based on the life of con artist Frank Abagnale, Jr., Hanks and Spielberg worked together again in 2002's Catch Me If You Can, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio. My Big Fat Greek Wedding was produced (2002) by Hanks and Rita Wilson, who is his wife. To get their fair part of the movie's earnings, Hanks, Wilson, Gary Goetzman, and Nia Vardalos went to court in August 2007 against Gold Circle Films, the production firm. In 2002, on June 12, Hanks became the youngest person to ever receive the Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute; she was 45 years old at the time.
The Ladykillers (Coen brothers), The Terminal (Spielberg), and The Polar Express (Zemeckis), a family picture in which Hanks had several motion capture parts, were the three films in which he was featured in 2004. In an interview with USA Weekend, Hanks spoke about his selection of endeavors: "[Since] A League of Their Own, it can't be just another movie for me. It has to get me going somehow ... There has to be some all-encompassing desire or feeling about wanting to do that particular movie. I'd like to assume that I'm willing to go down any avenue in order to do it right" . Hanks was elected as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' vice president in August 2005. The Da Vinci Code (2006), in which Hanks featured, went on to earn nearly US$750 million worldwide. Among 1,500 "most trusted celebrities" named by Forbes magazine in 2006, Hanks came out on top. The Ant Bully, an animated kids' film, and Starter for Ten, a comedic film about working-class students trying to win University Challenge, were both produced by him.
Hanks provided the voice for Al McIntosh's writings from the time of World War II in the 2007 Ken Burns documentary The War. During an announcement in The Simpsons Movie (2007), Hanks voiced himself saying that the US government is purchasing some of his as it has lost credibility. In the credits, he said that he prefers to be alone while he's out in public. He played the role of Charles Wilson, a Democratic congressman from Texas, in Mike Nichols's 2007 film Charlie Wilson's War. Hanks portrayed the role of a fictional father in the 2008 comedy-drama film The Great Buck Howard, whose son Colin played the lead role. Colin chose to work as a tour manager for a failing mentalist, played by John Malkovich. Concerned about his son's choice of profession, his character was anything but enthusiastic. He was also an executive producer on the hit musical Mamma Mia! that same year. together with the John Adams miniseries.
After that, in 2009, Hanks worked on Angels & Demons. Hanks allegedly received the highest compensation ever for an actor when it was announced on April 11, 2007, that he will reprise his role as Robert Langdon. In the Celebrity Jeopardy comedy that aired the next day, he made his tenth appearance on Saturday Night Live, this time mimicking himself for NBC. Where the Wild Things Are(2009), directed by Spike Jonze and adapted on a children's novel by Maurice Sendak, was produced by Hanks.
[2010–2019]: Making my Broadway debut and starring in various roles
After seeing a full story reel of the film with Tim Allen and John Ratzenberger, Hanks reprised his role as Woody in Toy Story 3 (2010). It surpassed all previous animated films in terms of box office receipts. The 2010 miniseries The Pacific was executive produced by him. The romantic comedy Larry Crowne, in which he co-starred with Julia Roberts and directed in 2011, was released that same year. Only 35 percent of the 175 reviews for the film were positive on Rotten Tomatoes. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a drama, was another 2011 film in which he appeared. He developed the web series Electric City in 2012 and voiced the character Cleveland Carr. He was the executive producer of the miniseries Game Change and had various roles in the 2012 film Cloud Atlas, which was adapted from David Mitchell's novel of the same name.
Both Captain Phillips, directed by Paul Greengrass, and Saving Mr. Banks, written and directed by John Lee Hancock, were highly praised in 2013, with Hanks receiving nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the BAFTA and Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama at the Golden Globe awards for his work in the former. Based on the real-life hijacking of the Maersk Alabama, he co-starred with Barkhad Abdi as Captain Richard Phillips in the film Captain Phillips. His portrayal of Walt Disney in the popular picture Saving Mr. Banks, which co-starred Emma Thompson, made him the first actor to do so. Hanks debuted on Broadway that year in Lucky Guy, Nora Ephron's play, for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play.
A short tale by Hanks titled "Alan Bean Plus Four" appeared in the 2014 edition of The New Yorker. This lunar adventure tale is named after Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean and follows four companions on their lunar journey. "Hanks' shopworn ideas about technology might have yet sung if they hadn't been wrapped in too-clever lit mag-ese," said Katy Waldman of Slate magazine of his first published short tale, calling it "mediocre." Hanks revealed his lifelong fascination with space in an interview published in The New Yorker. In an interview with the magazine, he recalled his interest in rockets from his childhood, when he constructed plastic models and watched space flights on television in the 1960s.
Hanks had an appearance in the March 2015 music video for "I Really Like You" by Carly Rae Jepsen, lip-syncing the majority of the songs while going about his everyday activities. Playing the role of lawyer James B. Donovan, who helped arrange the Soviet Union's release of pilot Francis Gary Powers in return for KGB spy Rudolf Abel, was his next feature after Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies (2015). Based on the 2012 book of the same name, Hanks portrayed Alan Clay in the 2016 April comedy-drama A Hologram for the King. Tom Tykwer has directed him twice before, in Cloud Atlas and now here.
In Clint Eastwood's Sully (2016), Hanks played the role of Chesley Sullenberger, an aircraft captain. After Inferno (2016), in which he played Robert Langdon again, he was in The Circle (2017), a science fiction drama, co-starring Emma Watson. He reprised his role as Saturday Night Live regular David S. Pumpkins in the October 28, 2017, NBC Halloween special, The David S. Pumpkins.
Toy Story 4 (2019) by Pixar included Hanks' return to the character of Sheriff Woody. Hanks received his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 2019's A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, a biographical picture written and directed by Marielle Heller, for his role as Fred Rogers.
Hanks hosted Saturday Night Live on April 11, 2020, marking his return to television after being diagnosed with COVID-19. In the opening monologue, Hanks used his residence, but he didn't really present in any of the pieces. This is the first Saturday Night Live episode to air again following the COVID-19 pandemic break, and it comprises several skits recorded remotely from the houses of the show's cast members. Hanks had two films released in 2020, and this is the second consecutive season of Saturday Night Live that has not been shot in Studio 8H. Additionally, this is the first season for the program to consist completely of prepared content before broadcast. Greyhound was a military film in which Hanks not only appeared but also penned the screenplay. Sony Pictures had planned to distribute the picture in theaters in June 2020, but the COVID-19 epidemic forced them to postpone its release until July 2020. Apple TV+ then acquired the distribution rights to the film. For Western News of the World, he was back with Paul Greengrass. The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney praised Hanks' acting: "Hanks has built a career out of playing thoroughly decent men, so his casting here is entirely to type. But the soulfulness and sorrow, the innate compassion that ripple through his characterization make this an enormously pleasurable performance to watch, with new depths of both kindness and regret that keep revealing themselves."
Directed by Miguel Sapochnik and aired via Apple TV+ in 2021, the science fiction drama Finch stars Tom Hanks. The third season finale of Connor Ratliff's podcast Dead Eyes will feature an interview with Tom Hanks, as Ratliff announced during his March 2, 2022, appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers. Two decades after Ratliff was sacked from Band of Brothers—allegedly due to Hanks' belief that Ratliff had "dead eyes"—he had a chat with Hanks, who had just begun filming an episode. In addition to being a "rare show that gives you a perfect conclusion," "surprisingly funny and empathetic," and "thrilling" event, the 90-minute conversation was praised as a significant accomplishment in podcasting.
In 2022, Hanks saw the release of three films. His breakout role was as Elvis Presley's manager Tom Parker in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. Production began in 2020 in Queensland, Australia, and the picture didn't come out until 2022. In the live-action Pinocchio film produced by Walt Disney Studios, Hanks played the role of Geppetto. After his longtime partner Robert Zemeckis formally confirmed his involvement in the film in December 2020, Disney+ released it on September 8, 2022. The English-language adaptation of the Swedish film A Man Called Otto, which starred Tom Hanks, was the year's last film. Among the 2023 cast members of Wes Anderson's Asteroid City were Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Adrien Brody, Bryan Cranston, and Jeffrey Wright. After an uneventful premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, the picture finally hit theaters in June of that year.
In January 2013, HBO announced that it was working on a third WWII miniseries with Hanks and Spielberg, following Band of Brothers and The Pacific. The project would be based on Donald L. Miller's book Masters of the Air. The Mighty Eighth was the working title when production began in March 2017, according to NME. Due to financial restrictions at HBO, the miniseries will stream on Apple TV+ and will retain the title from the novel, as revealed on October 11, 2019. The original budget for Masters of the Air was $200 million, and the projected running time was eight hours. On January 26, 2024, the series debuted. In the Garden of Beasts, starring Tom Hanks, is based on Joe Wright's nonfiction 2011 book of the same name, which is about William Dodd, an American ambassador. Robert Zemeckis's feature film version of Richard McGuire's graphic novel Here, which stars Tom Hanks, was announced in February 2022.
Many have called Hanks "America's Dad" and drawn comparisons to James Stewart while describing him. After each performance of Lucky Guy, directed by Nora Ephron, which he starred in on Broadway in 2013, he would have 300 admirers waiting to see him. After any Broadway play, this is the largest crowd of anticipating fans ever.
With almost $4.9 billion in North American box office receipts, or $100.8 million per picture, Hanks is the seventh highest-earning actor of all time in the industry. He has amassed almost $9.96 billion in box office receipts from his flicks. Tom Hanks is the namesake of the asteroid 12818.
On Channel 4's 100 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time poll in 2003, Hanks was ranked third; on VH1's "200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons of All Time" list, he is ranked twenty-two. The three years that Forbes ranked him among the world's ten most powerful celebrities were 2000, 2002, and 2003. The May 8, 2016 episode of BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs had Hanks as the special guest. In the last moments of the show, the guest gets to pick his favorite of the eight discs (songs) that have just been played, a book, and a luxury item. He picked Richard Strauss's Alsosprach Zarathustra performed by the Vienna Philharmonic, William Manchester's A World Lit Only by Fire, and a Hermes 3000 typewriter and paper, respectively.
Fresh Air, hosted by Terry Gross on Philadelphia's WHYY-FM, included five interviews with Hanks. Included in the discussion were two parts centered on his performance as the captain of a ship kidnapped by Somali pirates in the film Captain Phillips. Hanks served as executive producer and received 17 Emmy Award nominations for the 12-part miniseries From Earth to the Moon, which is discussed in two interviews. Hanks shares stories from his acting career in the final portion of the conversation.
Roger Ebert wrote "of actors who are not 'bigger than life,' but somehow just like life—people who we feel we know and understand, and are comfortable with. We sense that these actors embody not our fantasies, but our lives. Watching them we feel congratulated, because we are watching ourselves. They reassure us that in our ordinariness we also have a kind of importance. The actors who can do that—Buster Keaton, Spencer Tracy, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Robert Duvall, Gene Hackman, and Tom Hanks, occupy a special category... The central triumph of Tom Hanks as a movie actor is that, most of the time, we believe he thinks a lot like us, and does more or less what we would do, but that he somehow does it on a larger or more ennobling scale. It is the James Stewart quality. But few actors can obtain it; with most, you see their egos peeking through, or you catch them trying too hard. The camera is a lie detector, and Hanks must be a fundamentally good person to play such roles—either that, or he is an even better actor than we think."
="life outside of work"
Actress Samantha Lewes (1952–2002) of the United States was Hanks's spouse in 1978. They were blessed with a son, Colin, who is an actor, and a daughter, Elizabeth, who was born in 1982. In 1987, Hanks and Lewes filed for a divorce. Lewes passed away in 2002 from bone cancer when he was 49 years old.
On the filming of the 1980s–1982 TV sitcom Bosom Buddies, Hanks met Rita Wilson, an actress, in 1981. In 1985, while filming Volunteers, they were reunited. Wilson is a devout follower of the Greek Orthodox faith and has family ties to both Greece and Bulgaria. Hanks became a believer in her religion before to their marriage. “I must say that when I go to church—and I do go to church—I ponder the mystery. I meditate on the 'why?' of 'why people are as they are' and 'why bad things happen to good people,' and 'why good things happen to bad people.' The mystery is what I think is, almost, the grand unifying theory of all mankind." Hanks and Wilson were married in 1988 and have two sons. He heavily attends church. In 2011, their eldest son Chet dropped a rap single and went on to have recurring appearances on Shameless and Empire. A Man Called Otto (2022) included Truman, who was born in 1995, as a younger version of his father's character. Hanks and his family split their time between Ketchum, Idaho, and Los Angeles, California.
On David Letterman's Late Show in October 2013, Tom Hanks announced that he had type 2 diabetes. According to the CBS News medical contributor, the patient may have been diagnosed due to substantial weight changes that occurred while filming films like Cast Away and A League of Their Own. Hanks went on to say in an interview from 2018 that his ailment was due to a mix of his genes and his lifestyle. A healthy diet and staying away from acting jobs that demand extreme weight loss are just a few of the ways he has adjusted his lifestyle to control his illness.
Although Hanks was a supporter of the Oakland Athletics and the Raiders during their time in Oakland, he said in April 2017 that he will abstain from watching NFL games for two years following the Raiders' request to move to Las Vegas. Hanks has supported Aston Villa, a team in England's Premier League, since 1984.
Just before the November 2019 drama film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood—in which Hanks plays Fred Rogers—was released, the actor discovered through Ancestry.com that he and Rogers were sixth cousins. They were both descended from Johannes Meffert (1732-1795), who was born in Schöneck, Hesse, Germany (then a part of the Holy Roman Empire). In the 18th century, Johannes emigrated to the United States, settled in Kentucky, and changed his last name to Mefford. Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, was also related to Hanks. The 2011 TV show Killing Lincoln featured Hanks as the narrator.
Hanks and his family were granted Greek citizenship on December 27, 2019, when President Prokopis Pavlopoulos of Greece acknowledged their "exceptional services to Greece" and issued an honorary naturalization order for them. In July 2018, a terrible wildfire swept through the beach community of Mati, near Athens, killing more than 100 people. Hanks, Wilson, and their children were granted honorary citizenship for their roles in raising attention to the disaster and pleading for relief. “Shown real interest in the people who suffered from the fire in Mati and promoted this issue in the global media,” stated Takis Theodorikakos, Greece's Minister of the Interior. Along with Greece's prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his wife, Hanks and Wilson were seen in July 2020 with their Greek passports.
Activism and political beliefs
During the 2008 US presidential race, Hanks sent a video to his MySpace account promoting Barack Obama, and he has contributed to other Democratic candidates. In 2012, he provided the narration for Obama for America's documentary, The Road We've Traveled. For the 2016 presidential election, Hanks was an ardent supporter of Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state.
Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment to California passed in 2008 that restricted marriage to just man and woman, had Hanks's vocal opposition. Those opposed to the proposal, including Hanks, managed to gather more than $44 million. The actor Tom Hanks attacked members of the LDS Church, who had been strong advocates of Proposition 8, during the January 2009 premiere of a television series, calling them "un-American" and criticizing their marital values and involvement with the law. A week or so after making the comment, he issued an apology, claiming that voting according to one's conscience is the most American thing.
In addition to owning the first AC Propulsion eBox and a Toyota RAV4 EV, Hanks is an investor in electric cars and a strong supporter of environmental causes. In the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?, it is detailed how he was a lessee of an EV1 before its recall. An Aptera 2 Series was on his wish list. Hanks is the head of the Elizabeth Dole Foundation's Hidden Heroes Campaign. The campaign's declared goal is to galvanize a nationwide effort to better assist caregivers for veterans and service members.
Upon discovering that the press corps lacked a coffee pot during his 2004 tour of the White House, Hanks promptly provided an espresso machine. Not once in 2010 nor 2017 did he not contribute machine upgrades. A 2017 contribution came with the accompanying message: "To the White House Press Corps, Keep up the good fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Especially for the truth part." He backed Joe Biden, the former vice president, for president in 2020.
Hanks formerly stated his desire to become an astronaut, and he is now an advocate for NASA's crewed space program. Hanks is a board member of the National Space Society, an educational charity that advocates for space exploration and was founded by Wernher von Braun. He is also a member of the society. In addition, he oversaw production of the Apollo lunar mission miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, which aired on HBO. Another IMAX film on the lunar landings that Hanks was involved with—Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D—was both co-written and co-produced. During the debut of Passport to the Universe at New York's American Museum of Natural History's Rose Center for Earth and Space in the Hayden Planetarium, Hanks supplied the voice-over.
Hanks was presented with the Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach honor in 2006 by the Space Foundation. This honor is presented yearly to an individual or organization that has played a major role in raising public awareness of space activities.
For his convincing depiction of a captain in Saving Private Ryan, Hanks was the first actor to be admitted as an honorary member of the United States Army Rangers Hall of Fame in June 2006. Unfortunately, he was unable to attend the induction ceremony. Besides his work in Saving Private Ryan, Hanks has been recognized for his roles in several other notable projects, such as the World War II Memorial Campaign, the D-Day Museum Capital Campaign, and the Emmy Award–winning miniseries Band of Brothers. The Dave Clark Five were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Hanks on March 10, 2008.
For nearly all of his writing needs, Hanks relies on his collection of manual typewriters. The free iOS software Hanx Writer, developed by Hanks in August 2014 to simulate the feel of using a typewriter, quickly became the most downloaded app in the software Store. Hanks and his wife contributed blood antibodies for viral study after Hanks contracted and recovered from a COVID-19 infection early in the epidemic. According to CBS News' March 24, 2022 story, Hanks, who is an ordained pastor, recently presided over a Pittsburgh wedding. Hanks established the coffee firm Hanx for the Troops in 2023 with the intention of providing financial and other support to military families and veterans.