Tom Hanks' Oscar record is safe for 1 more year
Tom Hanks speaks onstage during the 66th GRAMMY Awards Pre-GRAMMY Gala & GRAMMY Salute to Industry Icons Honoring Jon Platt at The Beverly Hilton on February 03, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
Tom Hanks can rest easy knowing no one is coming for his title this year.
The actor is one of only five performers to win two consecutive Academy Awards for acting. He won his first Oscar in 1994, for his performance in "Philadelphia," and again in 1995 for his performance in "Forrest Gump."
When Hanks won his second Oscar, three of the other four actors to reach that career milestone were still alive. However, after Luise Rainer passed away in 2014, Hanks became the only living actor to win an Oscar two years in a row. He has managed to keep that status for the past decade.
Along with Hanks and Rainer, Jason Robards, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy also took home the award in consecutive years.
TOM HANKS THOUGHT NO ONE WOULD 'CARE' ABOUT 'FORREST GUMP' WHILE SHOOTING OSCAR-WINNING PICTURE
Tom Hanks, center, is one of five actors to have won an Academy Award two years in a row. (Getty Images)
Hanks has come close to losing his record over the last 10 years since he earned his status.
Eddie Redmayne won in 2015 for playing Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything," and was nominated in 2016 for his portrayal of transgender artist, Lili Elbe in "The Danish Girl," but he lost out to Leonardo DiCaprio's performance in "The Revenant."
Actor Sam Rockwell won for his performance in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" in 2018, and he was nominated the following year for his role in "Vice," losing to Mahershala Ali for his role in "Moonlight."
Eddie Redmayne won the Oscar in 2015 for playing Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything." (Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images)
Hanks' first win in 1994 was for his leading role in "Philadelphia," in which he played Andrew Beckett, a lawyer who is fired when one of his coworkers outs him as gay and reveals his HIV positive status. The character would go on to sue his former employers for discrimination. While the role earned him an Oscar, he is doubtful he would choose to star in the movie today.
"Let's address ‘Could a straight man do what I did in ’Philadelphia' now?' No, and rightly so," he told The New York Times Magazine in June 2022. "The whole point of 'Philadelphia' was don't be afraid. One of the reasons people weren't afraid of that movie is that I was playing a gay man. We're beyond that now, and I don't think people would accept the inauthenticity of a straight guy playing a gay guy."
Tom Hanks played a lawyer who sued his ex-employers after they fired him for being gay in "Philadelphia." (Photo by TriStar/Getty Images)
He won his second Oscar for playing the titular character in "Forrest Gump," a film which follows a neurodivergent man as he inadvertently finds himself at the center of many historical moments.
During a June 2023 appearance on "The Graham Norton Show," Hanks shared how he came up with the character's iconic voice.
"Bob Zemeckis came to me and said, ‘Hey, we got a problem on this!’ You got to teach this kid how to talk the way you want to talk,’" he said on the show. "I thought, why don’t I just talk the way he talks right now?" After speaking with Michael Conner Humphreys, the child actor who played the younger version of Hanks' character, Hanks thought, "well, this is it," and the character found his voice.
While previous Academy Award winners are nominated again this year, none of them won at last year's ceremony, so Hanks' record is safe for another year.
Some of this year's Academy Award nominees include, Emma Stone for her role in "Poor Things," Cillian Murphy for his role in "Oppenheimer," Robert De Niro for his role in "Killers of the Flower Moon" and Jodie Foster for her role in "Nyad."