The true story behind Tom Hanks movie ‘The Terminal’
Having collaborated almost a dozen times in a creative partnership that’s spanned almost 40 years, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg have proven to be powerhouses both individually and as a duo, with each of the stars among the most popular and respected talents in their chosen profession.
From Spielberg executive producing Hanks’ 1986 comedy The Money Pit to their upcoming behind-the-scenes reunion on miniseries Masters of the Air – marking their third episodic World War II epic after Band of Brothers and The Pacific – the dynamic duo never tend to stay apart for too long. True stories have inspired most of their film and television projects, but arguably none are as fascinating as the inspiration behind 2004’s The Terminal.
Hanks stars as Viktor Navorski, a tourist from the fictional country of Krakozhia who isn’t allowed to either enter or exit the United States after war breaks out in his home nation. As a result, he finds himself trapped indefinitely at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and even finds love with Catherine Zeta-Jones’ flight attendant as he gets used to his expansive new residence.
Comfortably among the lesser Spielberg/Hanks projects, The Terminal featured a typically charming performance from the leading man but suffers on account of the filmmaker’s descent into cloying sentimentality. However, the inspiration behind the film – namely, the plight of Iranian Mehran Karimi Nasseri – wasn’t quite as heart-warming and whimsical as the thinly-veiled big-screen adaptation.
Arriving at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in 1988, opinion varies as to whether Nasseri’s papers were stolen or he’d mailed them to Brussels while on a ship heading towards the United Kingdom. Either way, when he first arrived in London, he was returned to France but was unable to prove either his identity or status as a refugee, leaving the authorities with no other choice but to detain him.
He decided to remain at the airport by choice and would ultimately live in the terminal until 2006, repeatedly refusing the possibility of seeking asylum elsewhere. In 1995, he was granted permission to travel to Belgium and live under the supervision of a social worker, but he refused because he wanted to go to the UK. France and Belgium both offered him residency, but Nasseri rejected it on account of his preference to be listed as a British national named Sir Alfred Mehran on the official documentation, a request that neither nation would grant.
He was only removed from an 18-year uninterrupted stint in the airport when he was hospitalised in 2006 before moving between various charity shelters. Prior to his death at the age of 76 in November 2022, though, it was reported by the French press that he’d returned to the terminal to resume his day-to-day life as its most famous – and only – permanent resident.
Spielberg’s DreamWorks had originally paid for the rights to use Nasseri’s life story to make a more conventional biopic, but that plan was abandoned in favour of the saccharine stylings of The Terminal instead. It makes sense the director would alter the events to keep it inside his wheelhouse because telling the story as it unfolded isn’t quite as cinematic.
