Tom Hanks is honoring the real-life hero whom he once portrayed in a popular, Oscar-winning film.

After the death of astronaut Jim Lovell was announced on Friday, Hanks shared a poignant social media post to his Instagram , writing, “There are people who dare, who dream, and who lead others to places we would not go on our own.”

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“Jim Lovell, who for a long while had gone farther into space and for longer than any other person of our planet, was that kind of guy,” Hanks added in the post.

The actor portrayed Lovell in the 1995 Ron Howard-directed film “Apollo 13,” which told the story of Lovell’s failed lunar space mission which almost cost him and his crew their lives in 1970.

Apollo 13 would have marked NASA’s third successfu

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