Tom Hanks shades Vladimir Putin at D-Day memorial: 'Funny how often it comes out of the ego of one human being'

"I never thought there could be a land war in Europe in my lifetime... because it had proven to be so disastrous for all of humanity the last time somebody tried."

Tom Hanks is likening Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler.

The Forrest Gump star spoke with CNN Thursday while attending a commemorative event honoring the 80th anniversary of D-Day at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France.

"I never thought there could be a land war in Europe in my lifetime, once again, because it had proven to be so disastrous for all of humanity the last time somebody tried that," Hanks opined about the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.

"Funny how often it comes out of the ego of one human being," he continued. "One guy, back in the 1930s says, 'No, I'm gonna solve all of these problems 'cause I know what works and what does not work.'"

The actor, who describes himself as a "lay historian," has starred in several World War II films, including Saving Private Ryan, Greyhound, and Ithaca, and also produced a number of TV series chronicling the war, such as Band of Brothers, The Pacific, and Masters of the Air.

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Hanks said that he believes the American public could once again rally around a cause as significant as a world war, but that it might take a while to get everyone on the same page.

"I have absolute 100% faith in the American people and the concept of what is right and what is wrong, and if something as definitive as what happened in Europe back then [happened now], I don't think there'd be any question," he said. "It would take time, it would not be overnight, it would be thought out."

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When asked about the possibility of a second Trump presidency come January, the Sleepless in Seattle actor said he remains optimistic about the country's long-term persistence.

"I think there's always reason to be worried about the short term," he conceded. "Over the long term, however, we inevitably made progress toward, I think, [a] more perfect union."

He continued, "It comes out of the slow melding of the truth to the actual practical life that we end up living. It comes down to the good deed that is practiced with your neighbor, with your local merchants, and I will always have faith that the United States of America, and the Western societies that have adopted more or less the same sort of democracy, cannot help but turn towards what is right."

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Hanks also expressed awestruck admiration for the young soldiers who fought on D-Day.

"They left absolutely all of the comforts of a very comfortable America, safe America on the other side of the ocean, and they put themselves here, for what?" he said. "Because it was the right thing to do. They were not defending a status quo, they were not gaining territory, they were not here for riches, they were not here to conquer anything. They were really here in order to mend the future."

Later in his talk with CNN, Hanks reflected on filming Saving Private Ryan, which opens with a harrowing sequence depicting the nightmarish chaos of D-Day in brutal detail.

"Part of [acting] is glamorous fun, you know, but at the other time, as soon as the camera started rolling and everything started happening, there was a tactile quality to the confusion," he said of the scene. "As actors, we're just pretending. But there comes a moment where the reason we're there [is] to capture the truth as the film rolls, and to be cold, wet, scared, and have it be awful noisy for an awful long time."

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Hanks remains proud of Saving Private Ryan.

"For good or for bad, that movie is a document that has to accurately reflect the tenor of that day, and I'd like to think that we did," he said. "And hearing it from a number of people [who] said, 'As confusing as that is, multiply that — we did not have the smell of cordite, or burning flesh, or you know, blood on the sand — but we did have some version of whatever you can get out of a motion picture, I think we captured that, to Steven [Spielberg]’s credit. And I will also go along with the audience's credit as well. They were willing to suspend whatever disbelief of it, and say, if you’ve ever wondered what it was like, that's as close as somebody in Davenport, Iowa, or Oakland, Calif., or Minneapolis, Minn., was going to get to it.”

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