Tom Hanks Reveals Untold Bond with Apollo 13 Astronaut in Poignant Farewell

How many movie stars get to say they actually hung out with the real-life heroes they portrayed—and then got to fly their plane at night? Here’s a little brain teaser: If Tom Hanks had crashed Jim Lovell’s aircraft, would we have ever gotten the beloved Captain Miller in Saving Private Ryan? (The butterfly effect, people—look it up!) News just broke that famed Apollo 13 commander James Lovell has left our Earthly orbit at age 97, drawing heartfelt tributes—including one from Hanks himself, who may still be thanking his lucky stars (pun very much intended) that the astronaut trusted him enough to hand over the cockpit controls, both on set and in the sky . Theirs was a friendship forged across the stratosphere—where movie magic and real-life moonshots meet . It’s not every day you see someone transform a near-disaster into a cosmic teachable moment, or inspire an Oscar winner to go full space cowboy . So, how do you say goodbye to a man who proved, quite literally, that failure is not an option? I’d say you start by looking up at the night sky—maybe during a full moon—and tip your hat . LEARN MORE

Tom Hanks has paid an emotional tribute to the famed astronaut he portrayed in Apollo 13.

It was announced yesterday (8 August) that James Lovell had died in Illinois the age of 97. A cause of death has not yet been reported.

One of the most travelled astronauts in Nasa’s first decade, he was the commander of the infamous Apollo 13 flight in 1970 when he helped to turn a failed Moon mission into a triumph of on-the-fly can-do engineering.

And, of course, that’s the very astronaut Hanks took on the role of in the 1995 docudrama film. The critically acclaimed movie told the story of those aboard the ill-fated flight that was intended to be the third to land on the moon.

In the announcement of his death, Nasa reflected on the historic mission.

Hanks and Lovell in 2010. (Frank Polich/Getty Images)

“Jim’s character and steadfast courage helped our nation reach the Moon and turned a potential tragedy into a success from which we learned an enormous amount,” the agency said in a statement.

“We mourn his passing even as we celebrate his achievements.”

Tributes came in for Lovell, with Hanks taking to social media to share his own.

“There are people who dare, who dream, and who lead others to the places we would not go on our own,” the actor wrote.

“Jim Lovell, who for a long while had gone farther into space for longer than any other person of our planet, was that kind of guy.

“His many voyages around Earth and on to so-very-close to the moon were not made for riches or celebrity, but because such challenges as those are what fuels the course of being alive – and who better than Jim Lovell to make those voyages.

“On this night of a full Moon, he passes on – to the heavens, to the cosmos, to the stars. God speed you, on this next voyage, Jim Lovell.”

Lovell was one of Nasa’s most famous astronauts. (Bettmann)

Hanks and Lovell met during production of the film and the astronaut apparently ended up inviting the actor out to his home in Texas.

There, he’d apparently let him fly his airplane at night so he’d get an idea of what it was actually like navigating a spacecraft.

Telling this to Conan O’Brien back in the 90s, the host asked: “You let Forrest Gump take the controls of the plane?”

And Lovell responded: “Yeah, yeah, I was worried about that.

“But my niece went to see the movie and she said, ‘Well I knew that they’d make it okay because Forrest Gump was flying.”