“I’ve been around the world, to beautiful places … none of them tops Greece. The land, the sky, the water, it’s good for the soul; it’s a healing place. Particularly if you get into that fabulous, fabulous Greek schedule of sleeping until noon, staying up until 3 o’clock in the morning, and arguing in a taverna until 3 a.m. It’s just the best life one can have,” Hanks said in comments to the press after being presented with the Cecil B. DeMille by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for his “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.”
“I’ve been Hellenic for the better part of 32 years,” said the 63-year-old acclaimed actor and filmmaker, highlighting his marriage to actress and producer Rita Wilson whose mother Dorothea was Greek.
The Hollywood power couple has a home on the Aegean island of Antiparos, where they are known to spend much of their summer holidays.
Hanks was made an honorary citizen by Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos on December 27, 2019.
On Tuesday Greece’s government extended its offer of citizenship to Tom Hanks to his wife and their two children, in recognition of the family’s help in assisting victims of a deadly wildfire near Athens in 2018.
The decision published in a government gazette and co-signed by Greek Interior Minister Takis Theodorikakos, revealed that the order also includes Hanks’ wife, actress and producer Rita Wilson, and their two sons, Chester and Truman.
The wildfire killed more than 100 people in July 2018, sweeping through the coastal town of Mati and other nearby resorts east of Athens.
“The Hanks family gave a signal all over the world for immediate relief actions to help our fire-stricken fellow citizens,” the order signed on Dec. 27 said. It added that in their effort to assist charity efforts they had provided “exceptional services to Greece.”
Honorary naturalization, under Greek law, may be granted to people “who have provided exceptional services to the country or whose naturalization serves the public interest.”
Hanks became an Orthodox Christian before his second marriage in 1988 to Rita Wilson, who is of Greek and Bulgarian descent.
Hanks, Wilson, and Hollywood producer Gary Goetzman co-produced the 2002 romantic comedy, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which received an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay.
Sources: Greece Is, TIME
* Thanks Marianna S. for the story!
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