When Tom Hanks has trouble containing the waterworks, you know some deep emotions are at work. On Monday night, the Oscar winner was near tears as he accepted a standing ovation for his Broadway debut in "Lucky Guy," written by his longtime friend, Nora Ephron, who died last June at the age of 71.

"That was a tough moment," Hanks tells the New York Post of the post-performance applause. "We were going to do this, and Nora and [show director] George C. Wolfe were going to walk out onstage. I miss her. What more can you say?"

A little more, if you would.

"Nora was just a magnificent hang," he adds to the paper. "You could be working, and you could be talking about personal things, you could be on vacation and talking about cultural history, you could be having a very lazy breakfast and you would be talking about Saddam Hussein. Nora was … fascinated by everything. She was always doing things that were so interesting. She told me, 'Never turn down a front-row seat for human folly.'"

Among the big names on hand to cheer on Tom were Barbara Walters, Brian Williams, Sting and Meg Ryan, who starred with the actor in two of Ephron's most successful rom-coms, "Sleepless in Seattle" and "You've Got Mail."

And here's Tom paying tribute to Nora onstage on opening night ...


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