ITV News’ Arts Editor Nina Nannar sat down with the Hollywood star to talk about the new space exhibition he’s a part of
Tom Hanks has reunited with NASA’s Artemis II at a new immersive art exhibition charting the Apollo space mission, admitting he would sign up to live in space “in a minute” – as long as his wife let him.
ITV News met with Hanks – who famously played one of the astronauts on the ill-fated 1970 lunar mission Apollo 13 – as he sat down with two of the next astronauts to travel to the moon.
The Moonwalkers: A journey with Tom Hanks is billed as a chance to immerse yourself in space with a Hollywood A-lister as your guide – Hanks co-wrote and narrates the exhibition at The Lightroom in London’s King’s Cross.
It is a celebration of Apollo missions of the past, with a nod to the ones to come courtesy of NASA’s Artemis space programme.
“They were not even born when Neil and Buzz walked on the moon – so I have that over them,” Hanks said to ITV News about the NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Reid Wiseman.
“I get to be an elder statesman here, because I watched it live on TV, you guys weren’t even here yet.”
No one has stepped foot on the moon since 1972. Hanks has timed this new show in preparation for the Artemis mission to orbit the moon and then land in the next few years.
“Is the flight plan going to tell you exactly when you will witness the earth rise again from the far side of the moon?” he asks Koch and Wiseman.
“Make use of that moment, man, because no one’s seen it now since December of 1972.”
Wiseman said: “Each one of us will have thought what that would feel like, but none of us have experienced what that will feel like.”
Koch added: “The same reason that we’re in this, right here, we’re sharing that mission and bringing that wonder so that people have an individual relationship with it.”
And if Hanks had an option to live on the moon, would he take it? “Absolutely.”
“There’s probably going to be water there so you could start helping (with) all of that, we’re going to need some jokes every now and again,” he said.
“And you can host movie night. As long as my wife lets me go, I would sign up for that in a minute.” Hanks married fellow actor Rita Wilson in 1988.
The show opens on Wednesday, December 6.
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