Eight-time Golden Globe winner and 15-time nominee, Tom Hanks, will receive the coveted Cecil B. deMille award at the 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) announced.
The renowned actor is known for films like Big, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Cast Away, and the upcoming release of A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood.
He will accept the honour at Hollywood’s Party of the Year scheduled for 5 January 2020.
“The HFPA is proud to bestow the 2020 Cecil B. deMille Award to Tom Hanks,” said the 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 honoured to include Mr. Hanks with such luminaries as Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Martin Scorsese, and Barbra Streisand to name a few,” he added.
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. Honourees over the decades 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 honour 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 lead role of Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest 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 starred in the Golden Globe-nominated film Captain Phillips, for which he received a Golden Globe, SAG, and British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) nominations.
He also received the American Film Institute’s (AFI) Movie of the Year for Saving Mr. Banks with actress Emma Thompson.
Hanks was most recently seen alongside actress Meryl Streep in the filmmaker Steven 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.
In Hanks’s next film, he will be portraying Mr. Fred Rodgers in the A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood. Additional upcoming projects include the WWII drama Greyhound, which he also wrote, the post-apocalyptic BIOS, and Director Paul Greengrass’ pre-civil war drama News of the World.
His other feature credits include Tom Tykwer’s Cloud Atlas, Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, as well as the the animated adventure The Polar Express, which he also executively produced. He also worked with the Coen brothers’ The Ladykillers, Spielberg’s The Terminal and Catch Me If You Can, Sam Mendes’ Road to Perdition, Frank Darabont’s The Green Mile, Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle, Penny Marshall’s A League of Their Own.
He also starred in Apollo 13, The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, Splash , Hologram for a King, Inferno, Sully, and the computer-animated blockbusters Cars, Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3, and Toy Story 4.
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 Actress Julia Roberts. Hanks and production company 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 AFI’s Life Achievement Award, and was later honoured by the Film Society of Lincoln Center with the Chaplin Award in 2009. In 2014, Hanks received a Kennedy Center Honor.
