Tom Hanks

Based on the 2009 Maersk Alabama pirate hijacking of a merchant mariner in the Indian Ocean, Hanks stars as Captain Phillips. During filming, Hanks never met the actors who played Somalian pirates until the action-packed scene where the pirates take the bridge. Director Paul Greengrass believed this would make the meeting more natural as strangers barked commands and pointed guns at the captain and crew.

They were the skinniest, scariest human beings I had ever come across.

Hanks plays Texas congressman Charlie Wilson in this drama directed by Mike Nichols. Wilson  teams up with a renegade CIA agent and a Houston socialite to assist Afghani rebels in their war with the Soviets. Their efforts contribute to the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

I responded to it because I couldn’t believe that this had ever happened. In reading the book, I thought that this was a serious piece of journalism that describes something that’s almost surrealistic hilarious, as well as historically accurate.

Hanks stars in a film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Green Mile, the tale of a death row corrections officer during the Great Depression and the supernatural events he witnessed.

I had a good feeling about what it was going to try to do, but then you had to go off and get it done. You’re not going to make a good movie unless you start out with a good movie on paper and this was that.

Hanks co-stars with Meg Ryan for a third time in You’ve Got Mail, a romantic comedy playing off the trademark AOL greeting of incoming emails. The two play e-mailing lovers who are completely unaware that they know each other.

The ‘Burbs is the beginning of a string of films starring Hanks that gained little box office success. In The ‘Burbs, Hanks stars as an average home owner trying to find out more about his mysterious cul-de-sac sharing neighbors.