Acting Legend’s Little-known Facts Tom Hanks Is a Well-known Actor!

By John C. Barnard Last updated May 23, 2022 0

Tom Hanks is one of the most well-known performers of his generation, with roles in Big, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, and as the voice of Woody in Toy Story. He’s been designated one of Time magazine’s top ten college dropouts and has won a Kennedy Center Honor, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the French Legion of Honor.

Here Are Some Fun Facts About Tom Hanks, Everyone’s Favorite Captain.

Tom Hanks is a well-known actor who has starred in a number of films

1. The World’s Most Notorious Glare. Hanks is known as “Hollywood’s nicest guy,” and he doesn’t appear to have any major feuds with other actors or directors, as many other performers do. Fans were taken aback when Sarah Jessica Parker was spotted giving Tom Hanks a death gaze at a New York Rangers hockey game, perhaps because of his sterling reputation. Parker tried to brush it off, claiming that the two had been fooling around and that she adores Hanks.

2. Woody This, Woody That, Woody That, Woody That, Woody That, Woody That. Few animated films are more adored than Toy Story, and with multiple sequels, the cast is continually reunited—but behind the scenes, as Tim Allen has revealed, it’s not always fun and games. Allen, who plays Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story films, admitted that working with Tom Hanks is challenging, if only because Hanks’ character, Woody, gets all the nice lines.

3. Unfortunate Loss. In 1978, Tom Hanks married Samantha Lewes, his college girlfriend. They already had a son, Colin, at the time, and a daughter, Elizabeth, was born later. When Lewes was diagnosed with cancer, Hanks paid all of her medical expenditures, despite the fact that they divorced in 1987. How could he not, as the mother of his two children? Despite paying her costs during numerous rounds of treatment, Lewes died of bone cancer in 2002.

4. Chevy, Chevy, Chevy!. Tom Hanks’ Hollywood career could be credited to none other than…Chevy Chase (?). Chase was one of the first choices for the leading roles in two films (Turner & Hooch and Splash), both of which starred a young rising star named Tom Hanks.

Hanks would go on to dominate the 1990s, which was a particularly difficult period for Chase. We can’t blame his refusal of the aforementioned flicks for everything, but it didn’t help.

5. I’ll Take an IOU. Forrest Gump is without a doubt one of Tom Hanks’ career highlights, has earned him an Oscar, and generated approximately $680 million at the box office, making it one of the highest-grossing films of the 1990s. As a result, you might be shocked to learn that Tom Hanks did not accept any payment in exchange for his participation in the film. He was paid in percentage points of the film’s gross because he was so confident in it. His bet came off well, as he was compensated $40 million for his difficulties.

6. He’s Only a Quarter of the Way Through. He was the youngest person ever to receive the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award, at the age of 45, making everyone else on the planet feel remarkably unachieved.

7. Historical Reliability. Tom Hanks agreed to play Forrest Gump after reading the script for an hour and a half, but only if the picture was historically accurate. Initially, he planned to soften Forrest’s prominent Southern accent, but director Robert Zemeckis encouraged him to show the thick dialect underlined in the novel.

8. I Believe That Is Correct. Tom Hanks based his Forrest Gump accent on the real-life accent of Michael Connor Humphreys, the child actor who played young Forrest in the film.

9. What Could Have Been. Spielberg considered Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford for the major part in Saving Private Ryan before casting Tom Hanks as Captain John Miller. It’s difficult to envision anyone else in Hanks’ shoes, given how much heart and emotion he put into the play.

10. This Isn’t a Solo Shot, Saving Private Ryan was Steven Spielberg’s first film that he hadn’t written and directed himself up to that point in his career. Spielberg’s agency actually sent screenwriter Robert Rodat’s script to him. By chance, the script had also been submitted to actor Tom Hanks, who was interested in starring in the film. When they realized they were reading the same script, Spielberg and Hanks, who had never worked together before, called each other and decided to collaborate on the film. They worked together on four more films and a miniseries after that.

11. Is it a fling or the real thing? When Tom Hanks and their wife Rita Wilson met on the set of the sitcom Bosom Buddies in 1981, he was still married to Samantha Lewes. Given that Hanks and Lewes divorced in 1987 and Hanks remarried the following year, it’s widely assumed that Hanks and Wilson had an on-again, off-again relationship in the 1980s. The divorce documents between Hanks and Lewes don’t help to dispel the rumors: they detail a tumultuous split in which each party was ordered not to “molest, attack, strike, threaten, sexually assault, batter, or otherwise disturb the peace” with the other.

12. Show Me the Money, Hanks is the third highest-grossing actor of all time, behind only Harrison Ford and Samuel L. Jackson, with $9 billion worldwide. He recently finished third, just ahead of Morgan Freeman. That’s correct. Tom Hanks triumphed over God.

13. My name is Captain. Always, In four films, Tom Hanks has played a captain: Apollo 13 (1995), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Captain Phillips (2013), and Sully (2013). (2016). That number rises to five if you include Hanks’ portrayal of Captain of the Guards Paul Edgecomb in The Green Mile (1999).