Apollo 13 cast and character guide: Who plays whom in the Tom Hanks docudrama movie

Five years before Tom Hanks got stuck on an island in Cast Away (2000), he was stuck in space in Ron Howard's film Apollo 13, which was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won two of them. It was the third-highest-grossing movie of the year, losing to Toy Story and Die Hard with a Vengeance. Hanks was a part of the former, too.

Apollo 13 is about three astronauts who, due to some technical failure in the titular spacecraft, had to return to Earth as they aborted what would have been the third landing on the Moon.

It was a big movie with an extra-large crew, but it managed to become a commercial and critical success. In this list, we will see the major actors who appear in the film and made it possible.

Rotten Tomatoes' website consensus also mentions the performances of the actors, which reads:

"In recreating the troubled space mission, Apollo 13 pulls no punches: it's a masterfully told drama from director Ron Howard, bolstered by an ensemble of solid performances."

So, let's dive right into it.

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Apollo 13 cast

Tom Hanks as Commander Jim Lovell

Tom Hanks is Jim Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13, and has served as a module pilot of Apollo 8. He is a resistant character, which is clear in one scene where a crew member is being replaced due to an illness, but Lovell clearly doesn't want this to happen. However, his resistance doesn't work, and the member is eventually replaced.

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Gary Sinise as Prime Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly

The Golden Globes winner plays Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly in the film, and he is the one who gets the sickness: German measles, which had to be replaced. Though he is grounded, he turns out to be a great help in bringing the spacecraft down after the damage.

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Kevin Bacon as backup Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert

Kevin Bacon's Jack Swigert is the one who replaces Sinise's Mattingly on the spaceflight, and he is the reason that Apollo 13 is compromised. After the incident, a crew member blames Jack for the incident. However, all the ground and the space crew eventually work together and save the day.

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Bill Paxton as Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise

Bill Paxton plays Fred Haise, who is the one blaming Swigert for the spaceflight's damage. There is a moment in the film where he gets into an argument with him, but thanks to Lovell, he breaks that up. He also develops a urinary tract infection, but that won't affect him drastically as they safely reach home.

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Ed Harris as White Team Flight Director Gene Kranz

If there is a feared but respected character in the movie, it is Ed Harris's Gene Kranz, who is adamant about bringing his astronauts back home. His declaration still fills the fans with hope, which goes like this:

"We've never lost an American in space; we're sure as hell not going to lose one on my watch! Failure is not an option."

Although the real Gene Kranz never said those words during the actual Apollo 13 mission.

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