Tom Hanks meets Mr. Met.
While at the New York Yankees vs. New York Mets game on Saturday, Hanks had an epic interaction with the latter team’s mascot, who dressed up as Wilson, the volleyball companion to Hanks’ character in “Cast Away.”
In a video from the game at Citi Field, Hanks, 69, popped up on the jumbotron and was surprised by Mr. Met, who had a large red handprint on his face to look like the bloody volleyball.
After the pair shook hands, Hanks shouted “Wilson” — the famous line uttered by his character, Chuck Noland, in the 2000 film.
Hanks then pulled out a notebook and jokingly went over game pointers with the mascot.
The Oscar winner previously reunited with Wilson in 2022, when he held a blood-smeared volleyball over his head as he threw out the first pitch at a Cleveland Guardians vs. San Francisco Giants game.
In “Cast Away,” Hanks plays Chuck, a FedEx troubleshooter who ends up stranded on a deserted island after his plane crashes in the South Pacific.
During his fight for survival, Chuck gets blood on a volleyball, which he names Wilson and adopts as his surrogate companion.
Later in the film, Wilson ends up accidentally washing off Chuck’s raft during a storm and drifts away from Chuck into the ocean.
During a 2024 interview with ReelBlend, Hanks explained how Wilson ended up becoming vital to the film’s plot.
“We had a different sort of screenplay in that Chuck Noland spoke all the time,” he said. “We got to the island and literally, the very first shot, we say [to director Robert Zemeckis], ‘I don’t see any reason for Chuck to talk here, unless you think somebody is there.’”
“And Bob said, ‘You know, that’d be great because you’re not really going to have any lines until Wilson shows up.’ I said, ‘Perfect,’” Hanks recalled.
Hanks previously revealed in a 2009 interview with the BBC that he was hospitalized and almost died of a staph infection while filming “Cast Away.”
“I was there for three days with something that, believe it or not, almost killed me,” he explained. “I got an infection from a cut, and it was eating its way through my leg.”
Hanks was nominated for the 2001 Best Actor Oscar for “Cast Away.” He lost to Russell Crowe for “Gladiator.”
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