THE ACHIEVEMENT OF TOM HANKS

The trustees of the American Film Institute have selected Tom Hanks to receive AFI's 30th Life Achievement Award.
Although just 45 years old, actor/director/writer/producer Tom Hanks has proven himself an extraordinarily versatile and talented artist. Be it comedy or drama, Hanks' performances are masterful, refined portraits of men intimately recognizable to audiences. While Hanks' complex exploration of each of his characters appears effortless, he consistently creates a three-dimensional personality, devoid of artifice or self-indulgence.
Significantly, many of the roles to which Hanks gravitates embody an aching loneliness. SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, PHILADELPHIA, APOLLO 13, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, THE GREEN MILE, CAST AWAY they're all about ordinary men dealing with agonizing pain, both physical and emotional. The gracefulness of a Tom Hanks performance lies in how delicatelyyet profoundlyhe reveals the inner core of a fully realized human being, complete with warmth, empathy and, invariably, humor.
Both a cerebral and physical actor, Hanks inhabits his characters without overpowering them. Chameleon-like, he literally reshapes himself to fit each singular identity; the results are startlingly believable. In 1989, his astonishing portrayal of a mischievous 12-year-old boy fascinated by his 30-year-old body in BIG earned him his first Academy Award nomination. Five years later, his physical deterioration as a gay lawyer dying of AIDS was agonizingly depicted in PHILADELPHIA. He received the Oscar for Best Actor, a feat repeated just one year later, when he again transformed himself for FORREST GUMP, playing a slow-witted, awkward man who finds himself in extraordinary situations. And, his most dramatic metamorphosis occurred in CAST AWAY, as he whittled his physique down to depict a man shipwrecked for four years.
Because his work is so honest, and because he is incessantly characterized as "nice," we think we know Tom Hanks. Which is