**Related Video Above: Tom Hanks throws first pitch at Guardians home opener in 2022

(WJW) -- Following the recent passing of the Cleveland-born astronaut he played in the movie "Apollo 13," actor Tom Hanks took to social media Friday evening.

"There are people who dare, who dream, and who lead others to the places we would not go on our own," Hanks said on Instagram of James Lovell, who died at age 97 Thursday. "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 went on, "His many voyages around Earth and on to so-very-close to the moon were not made for riches or celebrity, but because such challenges as those are what fuels the course of being alive."

Hanks met Lovell when he played the NASA c

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