Tom Hanks is saying farewell to late Apollo 13 astronaut James Lovell … who Tom famously played on the big screen.

In 1995’s “Apollo 13” Tom plays Lovell, who died Thursday at 97.

Tom is remembering Lovell in a heartfelt post on social media, saying … “There are people who dare, who dream, and who lead others to the places we would not go on our own. Jim Lovell, who for a long while had gone farther into space and for longer than any other person of our planet, was that kind of guy.”

Hanks adds … “His many voyages around Earth and on to so-very-close to the moon were not made for riches or celebrity, but because such challenges as those are what fuels the course of being alive — and who better than Jim Lovell to make those voyages.”