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NEED TO KNOW
Tom Hanks will play Abraham Lincoln in a screen adaptation of George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo
Duke Johnson will direct the biopic, with Hanks also serving as producer
The Oscar-winning actor is distantly related to Lincoln
Tom Hankswill play a former U.S. president — and distant relation — in an upcoming biopic.
Lincoln in the Bardo, based on George Saunders' bestselling 2017 novel of the same name, will star Hanks, 69, asAbraham Lincoln. PerDeadline, it will be a hybrid movie combining live-action filmmaking and stop-motion animation.
TheForrest GumpOscar winner is a distant cousin of the 16th president's mother, whose name was Nancy Hanks, according toAncestry.com.
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In addition to starring, Hanks will produceLincoln in the Bardothrough his Playtone label with partner Gary Goetzman. The film will be directed and produced by Oscar-nominatedAnomalisafilmmaker Duke Johnson.
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Deadline reports that the film will "explore one of the most intimate moments of Lincoln's life, centering on his relationship with his recently deceased 11-year-old son. The movie will explore themes of love, empathy and human capacity in the face of grief as the story unfolds through an ensemble of characters, both living and dead, historical and invented."
Hanks is no stranger to playing real people on the big screen. Among his dozens of credits are Walt Disney in 2013'sSaving Mr. Banks, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger in 2016'sSullyand Fred Rodgers in 2019'sA Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. He served as narrator on the 2011 television programKilling Lincoln, a docudrama about John Wilkes Booth's assassination of Lincoln.
In a 2021op-ed forThe New York Times, Hanks wrote that he considers himself "a lay historian who talks way too much at dinner parties, leading with questions like, 'Do you know that the Erie Canal is the reason Manhattan became the economic center of America?' Some of the work I do is making historically based entertainment."
Among Hanks' other upcoming screen projects are reprising his voice role as Woody inToy Story 5(in theaters June 19) and asequelto his 2020 WWII naval dramaGreyhound.
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