Tom Hanks

Submission 21,005

About

Tom Hanks is an American actor best known for his Academy Award winning roles in Forrest Gump and Philadelphia, in addition to appearing in dozens of other films and voice-acting as the main character Woody in Pixar’s movie Toy Story trilogy.

Acting Career

From 1980-1982 Hanks starred in Bosom Buddies, a sitcom about two men that dress as women to qualify for their apartment.^[1] He acted in several films in the mid-80s, but his break-out role was in the film Big (1988), a comedy about a pre-teen boy who wishes to be big and wakes up in the body of a grown man. The film earned Hanks his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He went on to win two Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role; one in 1994 for Philadelphia and one in 1995 for Forrest Gump. He voiced the role of Woody in the animated film Toy Story in 1995, going on to reprise the role in the trilogy's second and third film.

Online History

On February 27th, 2011, Jimmy Kimmel Live uploaded a segment from their show to their YouTube channel featuring Hanks and an actress playing his young daughter competing in a beauty pageant. The video is parody of the TLC reality show Toddlers and Tiaras. As of February 2014, the video has more than 7.9 million views.

On October 7th, 2013, Official Comedy uploaded a video to their YouTube channel titled, "Tom Hanks: The Movie." The video is a mash-up of many of Hank's most famous roles, such as Forrest Gump and Jim Lovell (Apollo 13) stitched together to form a single narrative. As of February 2014, the video has over 480,000 views.

On October 12th, 2013, The Jonathan Ross Show, a British talk show, uploaded a segment from their show featuring Hanks dancing on giant floor keyboard like he did in the film Big. As of February 2014, the video has over 4.8 million views.

As of February 2014, Hank's Facebook page^[2] has over 4.1 million likes and Twitter acount^[3] has over 7.8 million followers. Popular Tumblr blogs dedicated to the actor include hellyeahtomhanks^[4] and fuckyeahtomjhanks.^[5]

Ask Me Anything

On September 30th, 2013, Tom Hanks joined Reddit to host his very first Ask Me Anything (AMA) interview.^[10] During the Q&A event, which was self-admittedly started to promote his then-upcoming film Captain Phillips, the actor offered candid, witty, and at times surprising, answers to a selection of 86 questions from a vast pool of more than 13,200 comments submitted by his fans, from his favorite films and food to his thoughts on Friends and dating advice for men on Reddit.

Reddit Hangout

On September 28th, 2015, almost exactly two years after joining Reddit to host his first and only AMA event, Tom Hanks returned to the site, without any prior announcement, and randomly chimed in with replies to a total of 13 unique threads^[12] on /r/AskReddit, /r/movies and /r/AskHistorians. On the following day, Redditor Roadr submitted a post titled "Tom Hanks has not posted in a year, and today post 13 times to multiple subs" to /r/movies^[13], where it garnered nearly 4000 upvotes and more than 890 comments in the following 48 hours.

Tom Hanks Is a Bunch of Animals

On January 27th, 2011, the Tumblr blog Tom Hanks Is a Bunch of Animals^[6] was created. The blog features pictures or GIFs of animals with Hanks' face superimposed on the animal's face. The blog was reported on by several websites including Buzzfeed,^[7] The Laughing Squid,^[8] and The Chive.^[9]

On February 1st, 2011, Tom Hanks tweeted a link to the blog from his own Twitter account.

I am flattered. I think. Hanx "Tom Hanks is a lot of Animals" – http://say.ly/MmS7GG
— Tom Hanks (@tom hanks) February 1, 2011

Personal Life

Tom Hanks was born on July 9th, 1956, in Concord, California. He attended Chabot College and California State University, but never graduated. Hanks is married to actress Rita Wilson. They have two children and Hanks has two more children with ex-wife Samantha Lewes.