Tom Hanks experienced an unexpected reunion while attending a New York Mets home game on Saturday.
The Oscar winner was shown sitting along the baseline at Citi Field in New York City for the Mets’ match-up against the New York Yankees. After noticing himself on the baseball stadium’s jumbotron, he turned and saw Mets mascot Mr. Met walking toward him with a red handprint on the side of his baseball head.
The mascot’s unique, one-night-only design was done to evoke the bloody handprint that Hanks’ character in “Cast Away” uses to make a face on the side of a volleyball he names “Wilson” while stranded on a deserted island in that 2000 film. The SNYTV Instagram account shared a video of Hanks’ “reunion” with Wilson online.
In the video, Hanks can be seen wearing a Mets cap and shirt and then standing in excitement when he sees Mr. Met’s red handprint. The actor is shown in the video shaking hands with Mr. Met and then shouting “Wilson!” like his “Cast Away” character Chuck Noland famously does in that film.
You can watch the fun moment yourself in the Instagram video below.
Hanks stars in “Cast Away” as a FedEx worker who ends up stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash in the South Pacific. It follows him as he struggles to maintain his sanity in isolation, all while trying relentlessly to find some way home. The film was directed and co-produced by Robert Zemeckis, marking a reunion at the time between the filmmaker and Hanks, following their immensely successful, Oscar-winning collaboration together six years prior on 1994’s “Forrest Gump.”
Hank carries the majority of “Cast Away” on his own without any human scene partners for much of the film. His biggest “co-star,” in fact, is Wilson, the bloody volleyball that, thanks to its role in “Cast Away” and Hanks’ iconic cries of its name throughout the movie, has become a legendary and iconic cinema character.
Unlike “Forrest Gump,” “Cast Away” did not take home any Oscars. Hanks did, however, secure a Best Actor nomination for his performance in the film.
The drama was a major box office success, grossing over $429 million at the worldwide box office, making it the third-highest-grossing film of its release year. Its legacy has lived on in the 26 years since its release, as is evidenced by the Mets’ homage to it Saturday night.
