Tom Hanks – The Hero Behind the Mask
“National treasure,” “Hollywood’s go-to WWII hero,” and “America’s dad” are only a few of the ways the press describes Tom Hanks. And lately, the Oscar-winning actor and coronavirus survivor has stepped into the culture wars. He’s urging people to follow the advice of health experts and wear a face mask in public—and saying “Shame on you” to those who don’t.
Americans are collectively being scolded for their negligence, in the most disarming way, by Woody the Cowboy, Forrest Gump, Mr. Rogers, and seemingly half the heroes of history, all rolled into one.
“Literally the least” we can do
In a recent remote appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Hanks discussed his harrowing experience with COVID-19 and bluntly told the audience that they need to take the disease seriously and follow public health experts’ advice—to keep themselves and everyone around them safe.
Hanks told Colbert that when he had the virus, his bones seemed like they were “made out of soda crackers.” He addressed the disturbing trend of Americans who aggressively refuse to wear face masks and believe that mandatory mask-wearing is an infringement of their rights. Wearing a mask to help stop the spread of the highly communicable, sometimes-deadly disease is, Hanks said, “literally the least” anyone can do.
In March, Hanks and his wife, actor-singer Rita Wilson, both fell ill with COVID-19 while they were in Australia, where Hanks was filming. Hanks and Wilson both had painful, but very different, symptoms. They went through hospitalization and quarantine together before recovering within two weeks. The couple were the biggest names among the celebrities infected in the early days of the pandemic, and they helped bring its dangers into the forefront of discussion among Americans.
While there was early equivocation on this issue, the consensus among doctors worldwide has come down squarely on the side of regular mask-wearing as essential to preventing virus spread. Hanks said he cannot respect anyone who refuses to take the simple measures—mask-wearing, regular hand-washing, and social distancing—that are proven to save lives.
Hanks questioned the patriotism of today’s anti-mask crowd in his appearance on Colbert’s show. “Are they Americans?” he asked. He joked that George Washington and the troops at Valley Forge would have worn masks. “They’d love it,” he told Colbert, and masks would also have kept them “a little bit warm.” If the snow hadn’t been freezing, Hanks went on, Washington’s men would have been glad to wash their hands, too.
As a survivor of the virus, Hanks recently donated his plasma, hoping his antibodies will help other coronavirus victims.
A star and a patriot
Over the past four decades, Hanks has endeared himself to the public, thanks to the many times he’s appeared on camera in heroic roles and off-camera as a genuinely down-to-earth, public-spirited, and patriotic American.
He is the winner of two Academy Awards for Best Actor, for his roles in Philadelphia (1993) and Forrest Gump (1994), and has been nominated multiple times, most recently for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, the 2019 film in which he portrays beloved children’s television host Fred Rogers. Hanks’ latest film is the World War II drama Greyhound, originally scheduled for theatrical release June 2020, but shunted directly to streaming on Apple TV+ by the coronavirus.
Hanks himself adapted the Greyhound screenplay from C.S. Forester’s classic 1955 adventure novel The Good Shepherd, about a Naval commander’s desperate mission to safeguard the passage of supply ships from the U.S. to Great Britain through the wolfpacks of German submarines prowling the North Atlantic.
Greyhound and Hanks’ other WWII projects are important to him because they highlight the moral values that have traditionally guided Americans in times of war and sacrifice—times when everyone’s help was needed to save democracy.
Honoring the Greatest Generation
In 2015, the National WWII Museum in New Orleans honored Hanks, alongside renowned TV anchor Tom Brokaw, both among the earliest supporters that got the museum off the ground. Both men have performed an immense public service by using their celebrity status to keep alive the memory of the sacrifices ordinary people made during the war.
The museum presented Hanks and Brokaw with its American Spirit Award for playing this essential role as “public historians” who have helped it fulfill its educational mission. The title of Brokaw’s 1998 book, The Greatest Generation, has become shorthand for the many American soldiers and civilians whose acts of heroism, both large and small, helped forge a more secure and stable world for their children and grandchildren.
Meanwhile, Hanks has produced, directed, and acted in a host of World War II-themed projects. These include the 1998 film Saving Private Ryan, which earned him a fourth Oscar nomination and is often described as the greatest war movie ever made. He and Steven Spielberg were co-executive producers on Band of Brothers, the 2001 HBO miniseries based on the book by historian Stephen E. Ambrose. Hanks also served as a narrator for Ken Burns’ documentary feature The War.
Hanks and Spielberg teamed up again to make The Pacific for HBO in 2010, another World War II history miniseries. For the past few years, they have also been working together on a third series based on Donald L. Miller’s Masters of the Air, about American fighter pilots.
Becoming America’s hero
Hanks, who recently celebrated his 64th birthday, had his first big break as an actor in the early 1980s, when he starred in the television sitcom Bosom Buddies.
He moved to film in 1984 when he starred in Splash, about a man who falls in love with a mermaid. His performance as a child in a man’s body in Big (1988) earned him an Academy Award nomination and set him on a trajectory toward becoming one of the most popular and admired actors of his generation.
Romantic comedies Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You’ve Got Mail (1998) teamed him with fellow icon Meg Ryan. His other well-known films of the 1990s include The Green Mile and Apollo 13, along with Forrest Gump and Philadelphia. Young fans probably know Hanks best as the voice of toy cowboy Woody in Pixar’s Toy Story movies.
In 2015, he took on a role in Spielberg’s Cold War drama Bridge of Spies, and the following year he portrayed heroic real-life commercial airline pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger in Clint Eastwood’s film Sully.
In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded Hanks the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The biography of Hanks read at the ceremony said that his work has “revealed the character of America, as well as his own,” and that he has “inspired a new generation of young people to ‘Reach for the sky.’”