Tom Hanks On the Road to Religion
by Judy West (Number: 5723 / Date: June 24, 2004)

He's as American as apple pie, but Tom Hanks likes to keep a distance between his private and professional lies.  His latest movie, the Coen brothers' version of The Ladykillers, opens this week and marks his return to comedy, but as always, there is a spiritual undercurrent that reflects on his own life.

The young Tom Hanks was born in California, and has something of an unorthodox childhood as his mother left home when he was just five years old.  His father, an itinerant cook, took his children from place to place in search of work and Tom found himself coping with a new stepmother.  Although his real mother brought him up a Roman Catholic, his stepmother introduced him to Mormonism.

She commented that Tom's father, Amos, was deeply suspicious of religion in any form and was hostile to her interest in Mormonism.

"It was funny because the kids enjoyed going to church.  But after we had split up, Mr. Hanks and I were at a friend's wedding and Tom ran up to me and said, `Mum, mum, guess what?  I'm not a Mormon anymore.  Now I am a darned old Catholic."

The young Tom later moved in with an Aunt, who was a member of the Nazarene Church.  At high school he was friendly with Jewish students but got involved with born-again Christians.  He took it so seriously that for four years he led a mid-week Bible study group.

In 1998 he told George magazine: "The major religion I was exposed to in the first 10 years of my life was Catholicism.  My stepmother became a Mormon.  My aunt, whom I lived with for a long time, was a Nazarene, which is kind of ultra-super Methodist, and in high school all my friends were Jews."

"For years I went to Wednesday night Bible studies with my church group.  So I had this peripatetic overview of various faiths, and the one thing I got from that was the intellectual pursuit involved.  There was a lot of great stuff to think about.  What were the four spiritual laws?  Are you post-tribulationist of a pre-tribulationist?"

However, he dropped out of college to pursue his career in acting and was initially successful, landing a part in a TV sitcom.  He found fame, however, with the 1984 film Splash, in which he starred opposite Darryl Hannah who played a mermaid.  From that role there was no stopping him.  After Harrison Ford and Robert DeNiro turned down the lead role in Big, Hanks stepped up and won an Oscar nomination for his trouble.

He has continued that winning streak ever since.  In fact, he is the only actor in over 50 years to win two successive Oscars for his leading role, in 1994 he won for his part in Forrest Gump and the following year scooped another for Philadelphia.

But perhaps his most decisive role was in the 1988 film Volunteers, for it was while working on that film that he met the actress Rita Wilson, whom he was to marry.  His earlier marriage to Samantha Lewes had ended amicably three years earlier.

Wilson was highly influential, because it was through her that Hanks joined the Greek Orthodox Church, although he has said little about it since.  But the Orthodox religion was to play a large part in another film they were to make together, this time as producers.  My Big Fat Greek Wedding was a smash hit, and reflected the faith of Wilson.  Hanks' own films, however, have tended to reflect spiritual messages rather more subtly.

When he made the film Road to Perdition he commented that he found inspiration for his character of Michael through the Bible verse "He who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind."  In that film the message is that the sins of the father are visited on the sons and Michael tries, in vain, to keep his son away from the sins of gangland.

In this week's film a strong element of divine justice – and of reaping and sowing – is once again at the forefront.  It seems that even if Tom Hanks wants to keep his faith to himself, he still wants to convey a message through his movies, even if they are comedies.

* from the eMail Forum of Holy Trinity Church, Los Angeles CA