Robert Langdon

Professor Robert Langdon is a fictional character created by author Dan Brown for his novels Angels & Demons (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2003), The Lost Symbol (2009), and Inferno (2013). He is a Harvard University professor of religious iconology and symbology (a fictional field related to the study of historic symbols, which is not methodologically connected to the actual discipline of Semiotics).

Tom Hanks portrayed Robert Langdon in the 2006 film adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, reprised the role in the 2009 film adaptation of Angels & Demons, and will play the role again in the 2016 film adaptation of Inferno.

Character development

Dan Brown created the character as a fictional alter ego of himself or "the man he wishes he could be". Brown himself was born June 22, 1964 in Exeter, New Hampshire, and the fictional Langdon is described as having been born on June 22, also in Exeter, and attending the same school as Brown did, Phillips Exeter Academy. Initially it is established that Langdon is a successful scholar who Brown named after John Langdon, a professor of typography at Drexel University who is known for his creation of ambigrams. An example of Langdon's ambigrams appeared on the cover of the first edition of Brown’s novel Angels & Demons, and other ambigrams featured throughout that novel were also designed by Langdon. On the acknowledgments page, Brown calls Langdon "one of the most ingenious and gifted artists alive … who rose brilliantly to my impossible challenge and created the ambigrams for this novel". John Langdon also created the logo for the fictional Depository Bank of Zurich, which appears in The Da Vinci Code film.

Tom Hanks

Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his roles in Splash (1984), Big (1988), Philadelphia (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), Saving Private Ryan, You've Got Mail (both 1998), The Green Mile (1999), Cast Away (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2006), Captain Phillips, and Saving Mr. Banks (both 2013), as well as for his voice work in the animated films The Polar Express (2004) and the Toy Story series.

Hanks has been nominated for numerous awards during his career. He won a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia, as well as a Golden Globe, an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a People's Choice Award for Best Actor for his role in Forrest Gump. In 2004, he received the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).

Hanks is also known for his collaboration with film director Steven Spielberg on Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Terminal (2004), and Bridge of Spies (2015), as well as the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers, which launched Hanks as a successful director, producer, and writer. In 2010, Spielberg and Hanks were executive producers on the HBO miniseries The Pacific (a companion piece to Band of Brothers).