Tom Hanks

The son of Amos, a cook by profession, and Janet, a hospital worker, Thomas J. Hanks was born in Concorde, California, on July 9, 1956. At the age of five his parents separated, and he went to live with his father, who continually changed his place of residence. He remembers it as an unhappy childhood, and that he did not suffer mistreatment or abuse. In high school he tried to join the theater group, but failed in the casting. Instead of being discouraged, he joined an amateur theater group, whose director encouraged him to drop out of school and come with him to Cleveland, where he began his career. He did not do badly, because in 1980 he made his film debut with He knows you are alone , a B-series thriller with a psychopath. Soon after, he was given one of the leading roles in the sitcom Bosom Buddies ., which swept and gave him some popularity. After the telefilm The Threshold of the Game , which warned of the supposed dangers of role-playing games, she succeeded in the cinema for falling in love with a mermaid in 1, 2, 3 Splash . He shared the screen with a stunning Daryl Hannah , and with John Candy , who would accompany him again in Volunteers . During filming he fell in love with the female co-star, Rita Wilson , whom he married in 1988, and with whom he has two children. Hanks also has another son, Colin Hanks , also an actor, from a previous marriage.

At the end of the 80s, Hanks did not stop working, but they only offered him comedies that, although they were light, met a minimum of quality and laughter. This is what happened with Bachelor party and This house is a ruin , where his face while everything was collapsing around him was a show. The first turn towards more complex roles was Big , where he clearly had the look of a child who, after making a wish to grow up from a machine, rose up in a thirty-something body. In Joe Against the Volcano , he reprized with John Candy, and collaborated for the first time with Meg Ryan , with whom he would work again soon after in the romantic comedy Something to Remember , and years later inYou have an e-mail , on the same wavelength.

His first drama was Bonfire of the Vanities , but it flopped, so the turning point in Hanks’ career was Philadelphia , in which he played a lawyer fired from his job when his bosses found out he was HIV-positive. And his work offered the Academy an excuse on a silver platter to give him the Oscar for best actor. He also won it the following year with Forrest Gump , a sharp critique of the brief history of the United States in which, thanks to the magic of special effects, Hanks taught Elvis to dance or met Kennedy and Nixon. Although he had already made his debut as a director with television episodes of series such as Tales from the Crypt , in 1996 he directed The Wonders, a nostalgic feature film about a musical group from the 60s. “As a director I learned what is expected of me as an actor, to be more productive, because now I make better use of my time,” he said.

Steven Spielberg ‘s Saving Private Ryan is perhaps his best work, though he also wasn’t bad at his performances in The Green Mile , Road to Perdition, and his recent collaborations with Spielberg, Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal . For Castaway , where most of the footage was on his own, he was again nominated for an Oscar. Now, he is in a great moment, after playing several characters in Polar Express, shot with a system that transforms the real image into digital animation. He himself admits feeling good. “If I were 20 years old, I would be jumping for joy; If I were 30, I’d be eating my head thinking about my next job decision. Fortunately, I am in the second half of my 40s. I feel fulfilled and sure of myself. For me, now, work is a pleasure”, commented the actor, who will soon star in The Da Vinci Code .