One of the world’s most admired and respected actors today, Tom Hanks also holds the distinction of being the first actor in 50 years to be awarded back-to-back Best Actor Academy Awards®. In 1993, he was rewarded for his compelling performance as the AIDS stricken lawyer in Philadelphia, and the following year he won the Oscar® for his outstanding performance in Forrest Gump. He also won Golden Globes for both of these performances. Throughout the success of Forrest Gump, Hanks has won a Golden Globe Award, a Peoples Choice Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Chicago Film Critics Award, a National Association of Theater Owners Male Star of the Year Award, and the Hollywood Women’s Press Club Award. In addition to the many honors Hanks has received, he was named Man of the Year by Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals (the nation’s oldest undergraduate dramatic group), for his performance as astronaut Jim Lovell in Ron Howard’s Apollo 13.

In 1996, Hanks made his feature film writing and directing debut with That Thing You Do! for Twentieth Century Fox. That Thing You Do! follows the meteoric rise to fame of a local rock band named The Wonders from Erie, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1964. The film’s signature song, "That Thing You Do!", not only reached the top 10 in many contemporary music charts, but was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Achievement in Music (Original Song). In addition to his other responsibilities, Hanks also appeared in the film.

Born and raised in Oakland, CA, Hanks first became interested in acting during high school. He attended California State University in Sacramento, where he appeared in the production of The Cherry Orchard, and met director Vincent Dowling, the resident director of the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Cleveland. Dowling invited Hanks to intern with the company, where he made his professional debut, portraying Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew. Hanks appeared in other Great Lakes productions, including Two Gentleman of Verona, for which he received the Cleveland Critics Award for Best Actor. From Cleveland, Hanks went on to New York, where he appeared in his first feature film, He Knows You’re Alone, and onstage in The Taming of the Shrew.

After moving to Los Angeles where he performed in a production of The Dollmaker, Hanks got his first big break when he was cast as the lead in the ABC television comedy series Bosom Buddies. This led to starring roles in Bachelor Party followed by Ron Howard’s Splash – a box office hit that started him on his path to becoming one Hollywood’s busiest and most sought-after actors. Hanks’s many film credits include Volunteers, Nothing in Common and A League of Their Own. In 1988, with his box office success established, Hanks found himself a critical success with highly acclaimed work in Punchline and Big – the latter for which he earned his first Academy Award® nomination and his first Golden Globe Award. The same year, the Los Angeles Film Critics recognized the two performances by bestowing on him their coveted Best Actor Award. In 1993, he received a Golden Globe nomination for his work in Sleepless in Seattle, starring opposite Meg Ryan.

Constantly challenging himself, Hanks served as Executive Producer for HBO’s From the Earth to the Moon – an ambitious 12-hour dramatic film anthology that explored Americas Apollo space program. Not only did Hanks personally help make this show a reality, he directed the first episode and wrote and appeared in the final episode.

Hanks starred in Steven Spielberg’s feature film Saving Private Ryan for Paramount and DreamWorks SKG®, which was released in July 1998. Hanks played a soldier who went deep behind enemy lines to save a trapped private during the Allied invasion, for which he received an Oscar® nomination. He also starred in 1999, in Castle Rock’s The Green Mile. This film was written and directed by Frank Darabont and is based on the six part serialized novel by Stephen King.

In 2000, Hanks starred in Cast Away for which he received another Oscar® nomination. Hanks played the sole survivor of a plane crash that lands on a deserted island. Cast Away was directed by Robert Zemeckis, and the screenplay was written by William Broyles Jr. In 2000, he served as executive producer (as well as having directed one of the episodes), for another epic HBO miniseries, "Band of Brothers", based on Stephen Ambrose’s book of the same title. The miniseries aired in the spring of 2001 to widescale critical acclaim, leading to a Golden Globe win for the miniseries in 2002. This series chronicled a group of paratroopers beginning with their training in Georgia, through their subsequent battles on D-day, the Battle of the Bulge, and their eventual capture of Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest.

In 2002 Hanks starred in the gritty depression era drama The Road to Perdition opposite Paul Newman and Jude Law, and directed Sam Mendes. Hanks then followed up Perdition with the stylish capper Catch Me If You Can for Dreamworks, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. The Dreamworks film is based on the truelife exploits of international confidence man Frank Abagnale Jr. Hanks portrayed Carl Hanratty, an FBI agent who gained notoriety for having tracked down and captured Abagnale, who as a counterfeiter and imposter cashed $2.5 million worth of bad checks between 1964 and 1970.

Hanks recently finished work on the animated film adaptation of the Caldecott Medal-winning children’s book The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg. Hanks portrays The Conductor in this beloved children’s book and re-teams with Cast Away director Robert Zemeckis. The film is scheduled for a 2004 release date.

Hanks currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Rita Wilson, and their family.