The volleyball from Tom Hanks’ film Cast Away has sold for a record price at auction.
The volleyball, which Hanks’ character named Wilson, was his closest companion during his four years stranded alone on a desert island in the 2000 film.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the film follows Chuck Noland (Hanks), a FedEx deliveryman turned plane crash survivor. After finding the item, Chuck uses his bloody handprint to draw a face onto it and speaks to it regularly throughout the film.
The listing was featured on Prop Store and described the item as “heavily distressed with paint applied to create a worn, dirtied appearance”.
It adds: “There is a dark brown-and-red ‘face’ on the front, representing Chuck’s bloody handprint. It features a faded pair of eyes, nose, and mouth. The top is torn open, and an array of tobacco stalks are inserted to replicate the appearance of hair.”
Alluding to the end of the film, in which Wilson floats away from Hanks’ character, the listing writes: “This version of Wilson was placed in water for long periods during filming.
Now, the prop has sold for £230,000 at auction – much more than earlier estimates had predicted. It was expected to sell for around £60,000.
Tom Hanks was nominated for Best Actor at the 2001 Academy Awards for his role in Cast Away, but lost out to Russell Crowe for Gladiator.
His most recent performance came in Apple TV+ sci-fi film Finch, where he plays a robotic engineer in a dystopian future.
