Actor Tom Hanks is My Hero

If I had to choose a celebrity who always seems to be enjoying what he does, who plays a wide range of fun and challenging roles, and who has had more hit movies and mini-series than you can count on your fingers and toes put together, then my hero would be Tom Hanks.

I can't think of a single movie in which Tom Hanks has been involved, whether as an actor, producer or director, that I didn't like, and many of his productions are amongst my most favorite of all time.

Going back a few years, the 1988 movie Big was one that I could watch over and over. Whether it was the scene with Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia playing the floor piano in FAO Schwarz, Tom's horror on tasting caviar at the office Christmas party, Elizabeth Perkins having a sleepover with the trampoline scenes, and Tom wanting to be the one on top - of the bunk beds. The whole movie for me is a classic.

Tom Hanks must have had great fun working on Big, and being able to play a teenage boy in a man's body, the same as he must have had fun working with Daryl Hannah in the 1984 movie Splash, where he meets a mermaid who helped to save his life when he fell overboard as a boy, she returns and they fall in love.

1989 brought another movie where you can just see that Tom Hanks is enjoying every minute, working as a cop alongside a slobbery co-star in Turner And Hooch. Tom struggles with this big ugly slobbering monster of a dog, who chews up everything and tears his home apart, but ends up falling in love with him, as does the audience.

A League Of Their Own in 1992, which like Big was also directed by Penny Marshall, showed Tom Hanks in a different light, as a drunken crippled once hopeful star baseball player, who ends up coaching a women's team during World War II. With a wonderful cast, and great roles by Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell, Tom really shows off his star quality and ability to play many different characters in this often humorous, yet often sad movie.

Sleepless In Seattle (1993) and You've Got Mail (1998) saw Tom Hanks co-starring with Meg Ryan in a pair of romantic comedies, that you can't help but love, and indeed many of Tom Hanks's movies do center around love, even his Oscar winning Forrest Gump from 1994 had him in love with Jenny, played by Robin Wright, for most of his life, although she sadly didn't have the same feelings about him.

Tom Hanks has also starred in some truly dramatic movies, including Apollo 13 (1995) where he played astronaut Jim Lovell, on the Apollo mission where everything went wrong on the way to the moon. Even though those of us who are old enough to remember this event know the outcome, the movie is one of those where Tom Hanks just plays the role perfectly, and the director still has me on the edge of my seat every time I watch it.

Not many action movies get much more dramatic than Saving Private Ryan from 1998, with accurate depictions of what it was like to land on Omaha Beach on D-Day, 6^th June 1944. Again this is a great movie, with Tom Hanks playing get another different type of role.

From the mentally challenged Forrest Gump, to the man without a country, in The Terminal Tom Hanks manages to capably transform himself into every character that he plays, and then of course there is Philadelphia, where he plays probably the most heart wrenching role of his life, as a man who is dying of Aids.

It's not just acting that makes Tom Hanks so amazing, it's his directing and production on movies, and mini-series that leaves his audiences amazed at his endless talent.

From The Earth To The Moon was a great documentary about the space race and the American attempt to be the first to put a man on the moon. It was appropriate that Tom should Produce, Direct and host this series, having done such a wonderful job on Apollo 13, but it was his next mini-series, Band Of Brothers in 2001 that really put Tom Hanks's name on the map in my opinion as a great Producer and Director.

Band Of Brothers, which tells the story of the 101^st Airborne from their formation during World War II through to the end of the war, was filled with action, drama, emotion, and changing relationships, as the men of C Company fight to help win the war, but most importantly to stay alive, as they are thrown from one major battle into another.

Tom Hanks's World War Two mini-series continues with the epic The Pacific in 2010, and it's hard to imagine who would have taken his place in any of these productions.

There are so many other great Tom Hanks movies, like The Da Vinci Code, Cast Away, The Green Mile, it would be easy to just create a huge list of the amazing roles that this great actor has played.

Finally, how much fun Tom Hanks must have had as the voice of Woody in the Disney Toy Story animated movies, or in Cars or The Polar Express.

Tom Hanks has played so many great roles, has been to so many wonderful places, and experienced so much through his acting career, I just wonder how many of us have had the opportunity to experience anywhere near as much in our lives, and to enjoy it as well.

I do know one thing though, if I had the chance to go back and live my life over again, I think I would like to come back as Tom Hanks.

Sources:

Personal Opinion

The Top 25 Tom Hanks Movies

Top 25 Tom Hanks Movies