Tom Hanks The Terminal True Story

May 24, 2012 | Author admin

Was the movie The Terminal based on a true story?

Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski and is trapped in the New York City airport terminal until the USA can recognize his country. My husband thinks this was based on a true story, but I can’t find anything on it. He also says that wasn’t his real name, and that he was French. Does anyone know anything about this?

Tom Hanks character (Viktor Navorski) was based on Merhan Nasseri, an Iranian refugee that landed in 1988 at the Charles De Gaulle Airport in France after being denied entry into England because his passport and United Nations refugee certificate had been stolen. French authorities would not let him leave the airport for the same reasons. He became then a stateless person with nowhere else to go. He has since been granted permission to either enter France or return to his own country, but instead he chose to continue to live in the terminal and tell his story to those who will listen. When given the opportunity to live in France, he refused to enter because the documents did not name him as “Sir, Alfred”. He also refused to return to his own country claiming that he has forgotten his native Persian language. Reportedly, his mental health has deteriorated over the years and he left the terminal in August 2006 to be hospitalized for an unspecified illness.

Tom Hanks speaks Bulgarian in The Terminal

Philadelphia

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