Tom Hanks is an award-winning American actor, best known for his roles in films such as Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan and Road to Perdition.
Born on July 9, 1956 in Concord, California, he first acted in school plays, and watched a lot of stage plays while in college. He was forced to drop out after he was offered an internship at the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland—experience that proved vital in his acting career. He made his film debut in the low-budget 1979 film He Knows You’re Alone. That same year, he appeared in a stage production of The Mandrake, which helped him land an agent, and helped him get a gig in the television comedy Bosom Buddies. In 1984, director Ron Howard cast him as one of the leads in the comedy Splash, which became a box-office hit.
Hanks’ next major box-office hit was the 1988 film Big, which established him as a major Hollywood talent. After appearing in 1992’s A League of Their Own, he made the transition to dramatic roles, with two films in 1993: Sleepless in Seattle, with Meg Ryan, and his Oscar-winning portrayal of HIV-positive gay lawyer Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia. In 1994, Hanks played the title role in Forrest Gump; it won him another Best Actor Oscar.
He next appeared in the 1995 film Apollo 13, and in the 1996 comedy That Thing You Do!, which was Hanks’ debut as a director and producer. That same year, he provided the voice for Sheriff Woody in the Disney/Pixar film Toy Story. In 1998, he appeared opposite Edward Burns and Tom Sizemore in the acclaimed Steven Spielberg film Saving Private Ryan. In 1999, he appeared on The Green Mile. The following year, he played a shipwrecked systems analyst in the film Cast Away; he won a Golden Globe, and got another Oscar nomination, for best actor.
In 2001, he helped direct and produce the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers; he won an Emmy for Best Direction. That same year, he appeared in the period drama Road to Perdition, alongside Paul Newman. In 2004, he appeared in Spielberg’s The Terminal, as well as in the Coen Brothers comedy The Ladykillers. In 2006, he played the lead in the Dan Brown novel adaptation The Da Vinci Code. In 2007, he played the title character in the Mike Nichols film Charlie Wilson’s War.