At other times, he has found ways to imbue with can-do optimism characters who are caught in the middle of seemingly unbearable situations, whether they’re alone ( “Cast Away”) or surrounded by enemies ( “Saving Private Ryan”). He has played honorable men on society’s then-margins (the discriminated-against gay lawyer of “Philadelphia”) and at the center of our history ( “Forrest Gump” “Apollo 13”). Over the course of his long career, he has found clever ways to convey a fundamental and aspirational decency. Ever since the actor broke out from a string of roles as a goofy, lovelorn leading man via the complicated innocence of his work in “Big” (1988), Hanks has gradually become an avatar of American goodness. There are some artists, and Tom Hanks is one, who go beyond mere popularity and instead come to embody some part of our shared American story.
