Actor Tom Hanks is best known for his acting roles, but fans may not know that he is also a director, writer, and producer. He is one of the most famous actors in Hollywood, which means he is also one of the highest paid stars. The Blast recently reported that the “Star Wars” alum and Oscar nominee Adam Pilote worth $23 million. How much is Tom Hanks worth? The answer might surprise you!
Tom Hanks’ Net Worth Combines Four Decades in the Entertainment Industry
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Hanks is worth $400 million. This figure is not that surprising when you take into account that its current box office is around $11 billion, as reported by the website. However, after the release of “Toy Story 5”, this figure is expected to increase further.
As of 2020, Hanks was ranked as the fourth highest-grossing American film actor of all time, having won two Academy Awards, seven Emmy Awards, and four Golden Globes. He has also been nominated for a Tony Award and five BAFTA Awards. In addition to these honors, he received several other distinctions.
He received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2014, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2020.
Inside the actor’s rise to fame
Tom Hanks was born Thomas Jeffrey Hanks in July 1956, but he actually has quite a famous lineage. Hanks is a distant cousin of Nancy Hanks and her son, President Abraham Lincoln. He is also related to children’s entertainer Fred Rogers, whom Hanks played in 2019’s “A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood.”
After growing up in the Bay Area, Hanks studied theater at Chabot College in Hayward, California, then transferred to California State University, Sacramento. He then dropped out after meeting Vincent Dowling, director of the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, Ohio, and began working at the festival. His theater work earned him the Cleveland Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his 1978 portrayal of Proteus in Shakespeare’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.”
From theater to films and television
The following year, Hanks moved to New York. His first appearance in the cinema dates back to the 1980s, in “He Knows You Are Not Alone”. Two years later, he landed a leading role in the TV movie “Labyrinths and Monsters”. He continued to balance his career in theater and television, landing one of the lead roles on ABC’s “Bosom Buddies.”
After several small guest roles, Hanks found success in 1988’s “Big.” This performance earned him his first Academy Award nomination. After some box office failures, Hanks found success again with “A League of Their Own” and “Sleepless in Seattle” in 1992. He then won the Academy Award for best actor for his role in “Philadelphia,” in which he played a gay lawyer with AIDS who sued his company for discrimination.
Tom Hanks is best known for roles like ‘Forrest Gump’ and ‘Toy Story’
From there, Hanks became a household name. He won his second Academy Award for Best Actor for “Forrest Gump” in 1994, which remains one of his best-known and most-quoted roles. He also starred in the Oscar-winning film “Apollo 13” before lending his voice to Sheriff Woody in Pixar’s “Toy Story.” The franchise was so successful that “Toy Story 5” was released in June 2026.
Other well-known works include “Saving Private Ryan”, “You’ve Got Mail”, “The Green Mile”, “Cast Away”, “The Terminal”, “The Polar Express” and many more.
Inside the personal life of Tom Hanks
Hanks married actress Samantha Lewes in 1978. The couple welcomed a son, Colin, also an actor, and a daughter, Elizabeth. They divorced in 1987 and Lewes died in 2002 at the age of 49 from bone cancer.
In 1981, Hanks met the actress Rita Wilson on the set of “Bosom Buddies”. They worked together in 1985 on the set of “Volunteers”. The two married in 1988 and have two sons together: Chet and Truman.
Hanks is also a big fan of manual typewriters and has quite an impressive collection. In 2014, Hanks released an iOS app called Hanx Writer, designed to mimic the experience of using a typewriter. In 2017, he published a collection of short stories titled “Uncommon Type,” based on his typewriter collection.
