Tom Hanks’ Siblings: All About His Sister and 2 Brothers

Before Tom Hanks became a famous actor, he was growing up in Northern California with his three siblings: brothers Jim Hanks and Larry Hanks and sister Sandra Hanks Benoiton.

According to the New York Times, their father, Amos, worked in several restaurants, and they moved around often. The kids were frequently home alone, and they’d tell the time based on what was on TV.

These days, all of Tom’s siblings have moved on and made careers out of their respective passions: Sandra is a writer; Larry is an entomology professor; and Jim is an actor and a filmmaker. Jim was actually Tom’s body double in Forrest Gump, and he voiced Tom’s character Sheriff Woody for a variety of Toy Story merchandise.

So who are Tom Hanks’ siblings? Read on to learn all about Jim Hanks, Larry Hanks and Sandra Hanks Benoiton.

They grew up in Northern California

Tom and his siblings grew up in several towns across Northern California. The actor was 5 years old when his parents got divorced, and the kids were separated: Tom, Larry and Sandra lived with their father, while Jim lived with their mother, Janet. Amos and Janet struggled financially and often worked long hours.

“No one told me how to brush my teeth,” Tom told the New York Times. Nevertheless, he doesn’t resent his late parents. “They were so racked with self-loathing and guilt and et cetera, all that stuff that went along, and there were four of us, for God’s sake, and they just, you know, couldn’t do it,” he reflected.

Tom used Larry’s tape recorder to make radio news reports

In 1984, Larry told the Washington Post that his younger brother hadn’t changed much since finding success in Hollywood. He shared that Tom had “always been outgoing, always liked talking to people.” He also noted that Tom was an imaginative kid.

Larry recalled that when they were younger, Tom used to borrow his tape recorder to make radio news reports. “They were pretty awful,” Larry said. “I would find it later. You know, like he would announce urgently that an earthquake was coming, ‘Leave the city immediately,’ that type of thing.”

The entomologist joked: “I still have the tapes — it's great bribing material, probably, that'd come in handy someday.”

Jim joked about being Tom’s brother during stand-up comedy routines

During an April 2022 interview with the podcast Canned Air, Jim shared that in the ‘80s, he did stand-up comedy and cracked some Tom-related jokes. “When I first started doing it ... I refused to address the elephant in the room, being the famous guy,” he recalled, referring to his brother. Jim explained that there were always whispers and curious expressions in the crowd when he got on stage since he resembled his brother so much.

After a year of performing stand-up without any mentions of Tom, Jim started acknowledging his brother in routines. “I would be introduced, I’d walk out and I would literally not say a word. I would just stand there for about 30 seconds or so,” he said.

He’d let the audience speculate before answering their questions with his opening line: “I know what you’re thinking.” Everyone would laugh, and then Jim would tell a few jokes about being Tom’s brother before moving on to the rest of his set.

Jim is also an actor and a filmmaker

Jim’s first major role in a film was Jeeter Buford in the 1993 comedy Buford’s Beach Bunnies. He actually auditioned with the name Jim Matthews so that he’d get hired on his own merit. In addition to acting in a variety of films and TV shows, Jim has also written, directed and produced short films with his production company, Feet First Films.

The actor has collaborated with Tom on a few occasions, as their physical and vocal resemblance often comes in handy. Jim often voices Tom’s Toy Story character, Sheriff Woody, for dolls, video games and other merchandise. In 2011, Tom appeared on The Graham Norton Show, where host Graham Norton pulled the string on a Woody doll and asked the actor if that was his voice.

“No, it’s my brother, Jim,” Tom laughed. “There are so many computer games and video things and Jim just works on those all year long.”

Jim also served as Tom’s body double in the 1994 film Forrest Gump. “Tom had other doubles, but they couldn’t do the run,” Jim told PEOPLE in 1995. “That’s a stupid Hanks thing.”

Larry is an entomology professor

Tom's older brother Larry is an entomology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he began working in 1996. Tom joked on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2017 that his brother “insists on being called Professor Lawrence” around the house.

Larry has earned several awards for his work in the field, including the National Recognition Award in Urban Entomology from the Entomological Society of America in 2000. According to his lab page, Larry teaches insect ecology and behavior, chemical ecology, plant-insect interactions and invasive species.

Sandra is a writer and a world traveler

Though Sandra has had a variety of different jobs over the years, including bartending, hosting a radio show, managing a rock band and more, writing is her favorite, she told the Seychelles News Agency in 2016.

Tom’s sister worked as a writer for several companies before starting her own blog, Paradise Preoccupied, covering topics ranging from adoption to celebrities to politics.

Sandra also opened up to the outlet about her upbringing. “We lived in England for a while, then moved here, opened a café in Baie Lazare, built a house and called it home."

In 2020, she told the Daily Mail she was currently living in Italy.

Tom was humbled by college students who knew Larry

When Tom and his wife, Rita Wilson, celebrated their anniversary at Joshua Tree National Park one year, the actor was unexpectedly humbled by a few students they met there. The actor told the story during his April 2017 appearance on The Late Show.

“We saw these college students that had these odd little suction-cuppy kind of things, and they were at the base of cacti,” he recalled.

When the couple asked about their project, the students explained that they were entomology students at the University of California, Riverside — where Tom’s brother, Larry, had earned his doctorate and previously taught. The A Man Called Otto star excitedly told the group, “You know, my brother is an entomologist.” He then added, “Well, I’m Tom Hanks,” to which the students replied, “Yeah, and your brother’s Dr. Larry Hanks.”

“So I was the famous guy’s brother,” Tom told host Stephen Colbert. He joked, “And it rattled me just a tiny bit.”