It’s not hard to imagine the pressure that comes with following in the footsteps of a famous father who’s universally regarded as one of the best actors of his generation. But for Colin Hanks, his dad wasn’t always the wealthy Hollywood A-lister everyone knows today, because he was born long before the Saving Private Ryan actor hit the big time.
Here’s what you need to know about Tom Hanks’ eldest son Colin:
Not quite Hollywood royalty
Colin is the son of Tom Hanks and his first wife, the late actress Samantha Lewes. The couple married and shared their first child when Tom was just 22 years old. At the time, the budding actor was still trying to get a footing in the film industry and described himself as “just a guy trying to, you know, make the rent” in an interview with The New York Times.
Following his parents’ divorce, Colin spent time between Sacramento, where his parents met as acting students, and Los Angeles, where his dad worked. Unlike his half-siblings, Chester and Trumanwho were born after their father had become famous, Colin and his mother struggled when he was growing up.
“I don’t know how much money my mother was getting in alimony, but what I heard was, ‘We don’t have the money for that. Your dad has that. We don’t have that,” he shared candidly on a podcast in 2018.
Despite seeing first-hand the struggles his father had breaking into a highly competitive industry, Colin followed in his father’s footsteps, dropping out of Loyola Marymount University to pursue a career in acting, according to Metro.
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