‘I embrace the mystery’: Tom Hanks on his obsession with space, from Stanley Kubrick to The Moonwalkers

A fascination that began in childhood led to the Apollo 13 star launching his spectacular immersive experience of the moon landings in London

Tom Hanks became obsessed with space travel at almost exactly the moment that he became obsessed with film. Listening to him talk, the two events – their ability to manufacture wonder – remain interchangeable in his mind.

The first awakening came when he went to watch Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. “I can tell you the day,” he says. “It was a Sunday, it was kind of rainy and it was cold. It was the day the Oakland Raiders beat the Kansas City Chiefs, November of 1968.” He’d have been 12 years old.