Twenty years later and our eyes still get a little misty over a damned volleyball. Tom Hanks’ marooned partner in Cast Away is a Wilson branded volleyball which Hanks ends up anthropomorphising to stave off loneliness. Hank’s rotund co-star very nearly ends up upstaging him (not bad for a volleyball) and was actually inspired by a real life event. Writer William Boyles Jr., as part of his research into the film, stranded himself for a week in the Gulf of California. During his research expeditio