Tom Hanks the star of Columbia Pictures’ “Captain Phillips.”
  • Cecil B. DeMille

Tom Hanks, Recipient of the 2020 Cecil B. deMille Award

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) announced that eight-time Golden Globe winner and 15-time nominee, Tom Hanks, will be honored with the Cecil B. deMille Award at the 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards. The highly-acclaimed star of such legendary films such as Big, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Cast Away, and the upcoming release of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood will accept the honor at Hollywood’s Party of the Year® on Sunday, January 5, 2020 airing LIVE coast-to-coast from 5-8 p.m. PT/8-11 p.m. ET on NBC.“The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is proud to bestow the 2020 Cecil B. deMille Award to Tom Hanks,” said HFPA President Lorenzo Soria. “For more than three decades, he’s captivated audiences with rich and playful characters that we’ve grown to love and admire. As compelling as he is on the silver screen, he’s equally so behind the camera as a writer, producer, and director. We’re honored to include Mr. Hanks with such luminaries as Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Martin Scorsese, and Barbra Streisand to name a few.”Chosen by the HFPA Board of Directors, the Cecil B. deMille Award is given annually to a talented individual who has made a lasting impact on the film industry. Honorees over the decades also include Jeff Bridges, Robert De Niro, Audrey Hepburn, Harrison Ford, Jodie Foster, Sophia Loren, Sidney Poitier, Steven Spielberg, Denzel Washington, Robin Williams, and many more.Hanks’ complex and moving performances have earned him the honor of being one of only two actors in history to win back-to-back Best Actor Academy Awards®, he won his first Oscar® in 1994 for his moving portrayal of AIDS-stricken lawyer Andrew Beckett in Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia. The following year, he took home his second Oscar for his unforgettable performance in the title role of Robert ZemeckisForrest Gump.  He also won the Golden Globe Award for both films, as well as a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award® for the latter.In 2013, Hanks was seen starring in Golden Globe-nominated film Captain Phillips, for which he received Golden Globe, SAG, and BAFTA nominations as well as in AFI’s Movie of the Year Saving Mr. Banks with Emma Thompson. Hanks was most recently seen alongside Streep in Spielberg’s Golden Globe and Oscar-nominated film The Post, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe and won Best Actor with the National Board of Review. He will next be seen portraying Mr. Fred Rodgers in the upcoming biopic A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Additional upcoming projects include the WWII drama Greyhound, which he also wrote, the post-apocalyptic BIOS and Paul Greengrass’ pre-Civil War drama News of the World.His other feature credits include the Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski film Cloud AtlasStephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly CloseThe Polar Express, which he also executive produced and which reunited him with director Robert Zemeckis; the Coen brothers’ The LadykillersThe Terminal and Catch Me If You CanSam MendesRoad to PerditionFrank Darabont’s The Green MileNora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in SeattlePenny Marshall’s A League of Their OwnRon Howard’s Apollo 13The Da Vinci CodeAngels & DemonsSplash Hologram for a KingInfernoSullyCars, Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3 and Toy Story 4.Of his life devoted to cinema he recelty told HFPA journalists: “When I go to the movies, I want to have some mysterious hint given to me about why things are the way they are, why we act the way we are?  What is the human condition all about, why do bad things happen to good people, why do good things happen to bad people?  If I have, and I am not saying I do, but if I have a credo or a philosophy of the choices I make, that’s what it is, is that what new clue can we get about how we live our lives and what the world is like today?  And it can come out in motion pictures and it can come out in movies like “Toy Story” as much as it can come out in movies like “Captain Phillips,” because you end up examining something about why things happen.  (…) I was always trying to get to someplace where we all have inside us this childlike hurt, or this childlike fear, in which we are seeking answers for things that we don’t understand.”In 1996, Hanks made his successful feature film writing and directing debut with That Thing You Do!, in which he also starred.  More recently, he wrote, produced, directed and starred in Larry Crowne, with Julia Roberts.  Hanks and Playtone produced 2002’s smash hit romantic comedy My Big Fat Greek Wedding, with his wife Rita Wilson.  Other producing credits include Where the Wild Things Are, The Polar Express, The Ant Bully, Charlie Wilson’s War, Mamma Mia!, The Great Buck Howard, Starter for 10, and the HBO series Big Love, Band of Brothers, The Pacific and From the Earth to the Moon.In 2002, Hanks received the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award.He was later honored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center with the Chaplin Award in 2009. In 2014, Hanks received a Kennedy Center Honor.