Tom Hanks makes emotional Golden Globes acceptance speech for lifetime achievement award

Actor was tearful in several moments during his speech, as he thanked his family and the people he has worked with

Tom Hanks made an emotional acceptance speech after being awarded the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Cecil B DeMille Award for his impact on the film industry.

The DeMille award is reserved for an individual who has made a lasting impression on the film industry. Recipients are decided by the HFPA’s board of directors, and past honorees include the late Robin Williams, Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Steven Spielberg and Sidney Poitier.

Hanks was introduced by Charlize Theron, who starred in the Hanks-directed movie That Thing You Do.

“While Tom does give us the chance to see ourselves on screen, he also presents a vision of who we could be,” she began.

“He stands for all the qualities we aspire to, both onscreen and off. He gives us enough laughter to weather our storms.”

A montage of Hanks clips was then shown, from films such as The Love Boat and to Oscar-winners such as Forrest Gump and Philadelphia.

Hanks began his speech by making a self-deprecating comment about his work: “Most of the people in this room, I would pay to see them get their cars washed. But how many people in this room have a clip package that includes The Love Boat?”

He paid tribute to the directors of his films: “I have never not been challenged or flummoxed or lost sleep because of the work of the directors that I’ve worked with, every single one of them, Steven [Spielberg] and Ron [Howard], Paul [Greengrass], Bob [Zemeckis], Clint [Eastwood] and every one of those guys at some point or another came up to me in the course of a day and said, tomorrow, if you don’t do your job really well, we don’t have a movie.”

There were two particularly emotional moments – one where Hanks thanked those who had helped him in his career, where he blamed his state on a recent cold, and another where he thanked his family.

“I can’t tell you how much your love means to me,” he told his wife, Rita Wilson, and children who were sitting at a table near the stage.

“There is a saying in motion pictures, back when it was shot on film, that you could not move on to the next scene until the gate was good,” he said, closing his speech. “Thank you all here, thank you all for all your inspiration and all of your work and all of the struggle that you guys all go through in order to hit the marks and, I have checked the gate. The gate is good. Thank you.”

See the full list of winners at the Golden Globes here.