Tom Hanks has spent more than four decades as Hollywood’s most trusted everyman, the actor audiences follow from a mermaid comedy to a war epic without blinking. A two-time Oscar winner, director, producer and author, he is still everywhere in 2026, from the record-breaking Toy Story 5 to a surprise return as David S. Pumpkins on Saturday Night Live.
| Full name | Thomas Jeffrey Hanks |
|---|---|
| Born | July 9, 1956 |
| Age | 70 (as of November 2026) |
| Birthplace | Concord, California, USA |
| Occupation | Actor, director, producer, writer |
| Known for | Big, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Toy Story, Saving Private Ryan, Cast Away |
| Major awards | 2 Academy Awards for Best Actor (Philadelphia, Forrest Gump) |
| Other honors | Presidential Medal of Freedom (2016), Cecil B. DeMille Award (2020) |
| Production company | Playtone (co-founded with Gary Goetzman) |
| Spouse | Rita Wilson (married 1988) |
| Children | Four |
Early Life
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born on July 9, 1956, in Concord, California, to Janet Marylyn, who worked in hospitals, and Amos “Bud” Hanks, an itinerant cook. His parents divorced in 1960, and his childhood was one of constant motion: he moved from home to home with his father and siblings, living in a string of different homes as a boy.
He attended Skyline High School in Oakland, then studied theater at Chabot College in Hayward before transferring to California State University, Sacramento. The real turning point came in Cleveland. An internship at the Great Lakes Theater Festival turned into roughly three seasons on stage, and his 1978 performance as Proteus in The Two Gentlemen of Verona earned him the Cleveland Critics Circle Award for Best Actor. He left college to chase acting full time.
Career
1980s: From Bosom Buddies to Big
After moving to New York and then Los Angeles, Hanks landed his breakthrough on the ABC sitcom Bosom Buddies (1980–1982), in which he and Peter Scolari played young admen who dress as women to live in an affordable, women-only building. The show was short-lived, but it put his comic timing on the map.
Ron Howard’s Splash (1984) made him a movie star. A run of comedies followed, and in 1988 Penny Marshall’s Big, about a boy who wakes up in an adult body, earned him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and a Golden Globe win. The famous floor-piano scene at FAO Schwarz remains one of the most replayed moments of the decade.
1990s: Back-to-back Oscars
The 1990s turned the comedian into a dramatic heavyweight. In Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia (1993), he played a lawyer fired after his employer learns he has AIDS, one of the first major Hollywood films to tackle the epidemic. The role won him the Academy Award for Best Actor. A year later, Forrest Gump (1994) won him the same award again, making him one of only a handful of actors to win the Best Actor Oscar in consecutive years.
The hits kept coming. In 1995 he starred as astronaut Jim Lovell in Apollo 13 and voiced Sheriff Woody in Pixar’s Toy Story, the first fully computer-animated feature film. He made his feature directing debut with That Thing You Do! (1996), a story about a one-hit-wonder band, and the fictional record label in that film later gave its name to his production company, Playtone, co-founded with Gary Goetzman. Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) cemented his status as the face of a certain kind of American decency on screen.
2000s–2010s: Producer, director and Broadway debut
Robert Zemeckis reunited with him for Cast Away (2000), in which Hanks spent much of the film alone on a desert island with a volleyball named Wilson. Through Playtone, he also became one of television’s most important producers of World War II history, beginning with HBO’s Band of Brothers (2001).
The 2000s also brought a wide range of collaborations: he chased Leonardo DiCaprio in Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can (2002), played a Depression-era hitman in Sam Mendes’s Road to Perdition (2002) and became symbologist Robert Langdon in The Da Vinci Code (2006). Later, he leaned into real-life heroes and public figures, from pilot Chesley Sullenberger in Clint Eastwood’s Sully (2016) to Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in The Post (2017) and children’s television host Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), a role that earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
In 2013 he played the hijacked captain Richard Phillips in Paul Greengrass’s Captain Phillips, and the same year he made his Broadway debut in Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy, which earned him a Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Play. He also directed Larry Crowne (2011) and kept returning as Woody across the Toy Story sequels.
Hanks proved himself as a writer, too. A lifelong collector of manual typewriters, he published the short story collection Uncommon Type in 2017, with each story featuring a typewriter in some way. In 2016 President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 2020 he received the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement.
2020s: Reinvention in his sixties
In March 2020, Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson were among the first well-known people to announce they had contracted COVID-19. They recovered and later donated blood for antibody research. In December 2019 he had also been granted honorary Greek citizenship, a nod to his wife’s heritage.
He then took on some of his most unexpected roles. In Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis (2022), he played the manipulative manager Colonel Tom Parker opposite Austin Butler. He joined Wes Anderson’s ensemble in Asteroid City (2023) and The Phoenician Scheme (2025). In May 2023 he published his first novel, The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece. In 2024 he executive produced Apple TV+’s Masters of the Air and reunited with Zemeckis and Robin Wright, his Forrest Gump co-star, for Here, a film that ages and de-ages its characters over decades in a single room.
What’s New in 2026
2026 has been one of the busiest years of his late career. In February, reports from Deadline relayed by Syracuse University announced that Hanks will play Abraham Lincoln in a film adaptation of George Saunders’s novel Lincoln in the Bardo. The project, directed by Duke Johnson (Anomalisa) and produced by Starburns Industries, blends live action with stop-motion animation, with a script by Saunders himself. Playtone is co-producing, and it is the first time Hanks will play a U.S. president.
In June, Hanks returned as Woody in Pixar’s Toy Story 5. The film opened with about $160 million in North America, the franchise’s best opening, according to Screen Daily and CTV News. By late July, Complex reported it had topped $1 billion worldwide, making it the year’s highest-grossing film at that point.
Most recently, on October 31, 2026, he surprised viewers by reviving his cult Halloween character, the pumpkin-suited David S. Pumpkins, in the cold open of Saturday Night Live, alongside original skeleton Bobby Moynihan. Read our full story on the SNL Halloween episode.
Personal Life
Hanks married actress and producer Samantha Lewes in 1978. They had two children, Colin and Elizabeth, and divorced in 1987. Lewes died in 2002.
In 1988 he married actress, singer and producer Rita Wilson, whom he had worked with in the 1980s. The couple, one of Hollywood’s longest-lasting marriages, have two sons, Chet and Truman. Colin Hanks has followed his father into acting. Beyond family, Hanks is known for his love of typewriters, which he uses almost daily, and in 2014 he released the Hanx Writer app inspired by them. His height is not officially disclosed.
Net Worth
Tom Hanks’s net worth is not publicly disclosed. Various estimates circulate online, but none has been confirmed by Hanks or his representatives, so we do not repeat them here. What is clear is that his income comes from several sources beyond acting: directing, producing film and television through Playtone, and his books. His films have also earned billions of dollars at the global box office over his career.
FAQ
How old is Tom Hanks?
Tom Hanks was born on July 9, 1956, so he is 70 years old as of November 2026.
How many Oscars has Tom Hanks won?
Two, both for Best Actor: for Philadelphia (1993) and Forrest Gump (1994), in back-to-back years.
Who is Tom Hanks’s wife?
He has been married to actress, singer and producer Rita Wilson since 1988.
How many children does Tom Hanks have?
Four: Colin and Elizabeth from his first marriage to Samantha Lewes, and Chet and Truman with Rita Wilson.
Is Tom Hanks in Toy Story 5?
Yes. He voices Sheriff Woody in Toy Story 5, released in June 2026, which passed $1 billion worldwide.
What is Tom Hanks’s next movie?
He is set to play Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln in the Bardo, directed by Duke Johnson and adapted from George Saunders’s novel.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Tom Hanks
- Britannica: Tom Hanks
- Syracuse University News: Tom Hanks to star in Lincoln in the Bardo adaptation
- Screen Daily: Toy Story 5 opening weekend
- CTV News: Toy Story 5 franchise-best debut
- Complex: Toy Story 5 tops $1 billion