Meg Ryan thinks Tom Hanks is an acting "master".

Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks

The 54-year-old actress cast the Oscar-winning star for her directorial debut, 'Ithaca' - which is set during the early days of World War II - and Meg is thrilled Tom has supported her by agreeing to feature in the movie.

Meg - who previously starred opposite Tom in the 1998 comedy-drama 'You've Got Mail' - said: "He really did me this huge favour. I mean, he's so great. And he did not have to come all the way to Virginia and do this teeny movie. He's just such a master."

The movie centres on the story of 14-year-old Homer Macauley, who becomes the man of the house after his father dies and his older brother joins the military.

'Ithaca' stars Meg's real-life son Jack, who she had with ex-husband Dennis Quaid.

In the movie, Jack plays the part of Marcus, Homer's older brother, and he also narrates parts of the plot.

Of her son, Meg told People: "Jack is a blast and he's a really hard worker so it was fun to have him around the set.

"And he has such an expressive voice. We knew we needed to make the relationship between the two brothers really strong so we put the pieces of wisdom from the book in Marcus' mouth. I thought it worked beautifully."

The movie is based on William Saroyan's 1943 novel 'The Human Comedy' and Meg thinks it was the ideal script with which to make her directorial debut.

She shared: "I knew I could tell the story simply with pictures - the whole movie is like a poem on a postcard.

"I felt like I could manage something this size."

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