Tom Hanks has been part of many renowned movies and the actor knows how to bring life into a character with his great acting skills. The 67-year-old legendary actor has come out with many stories in his career through his movies and he is still remembered for some of those amazing characters.
One of the characters that left a remarkable impression on Hanks’s career was Jim Lovell from Apollo 13. The historical drama movie was based on NASA’s third moon-landing mission. For this movie, the Big actor went to great lengths to attain perfection for his character.
Tom Hanks spent 13 days in a weightless environment during the filming of Apollo 13
The movie Apollo 13 was released on 30 June 1995 and was directed by Ron Howard. Tom Hanks played the role of the American Astronaut Jim Lovell, Bill Paxton portrayed the character of Fred Haise, and Ed Harris was seen as Gene Kranz. The cast and crew spent 13 days in a weightless environment during the filming of the movie. While talking about the shooting experience for the movie, the 67-year-old actor said,
“All the blood goes into your head, and it feels like when you’re on a Rock-O-Plane at the amusement park, it just feels like you’ve got spun upside down. Then you realize, oh, I guess this is weightlessness.”
During an interview, the Cast Away actor said he still has the helmet and the pressure suit that he was given during the making of the movie. The actor went on to say that he brought many souvenirs home with him from the sets of Apollo 13.
Tom Hanks talks about Apollo 13
During an interview, the Elvis actor mentioned that watching this movie on the big screen can be an emotional experience. When the interviewer asked Hanks if he ever dreamed of going into space, the Greyhound actor said,
“Sure. You bet. I used to — I would put a brick in the bottom of my pants and sit at the bottom of the pool breathing through a, breathing through a garden hose and kind of, like, float. And I would have these little plastic tools; to take apart the pool ladder and put it back together again because I wanted to be doing a service in zero gravity of outer space and also hearing the (heavy breaths) through the garden hose because that was as close as I could get to the tactile feeling of being in space.”
Howard’s movie budget was $52 million and a lot of time and effort were invented to bring perfection into the movie. The worldwide box office collection of Apollo 13 was $355.2 million.