Actor Tom Hanks has starred in some of our favorite films. He will forever be loved as the voice of Woody in the Toy Story films. Director Bob Zemeckis has directed a host of movies that are no doubt in our video or DVD collections (the Back to the Future films, Castaway, Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit,Romancing the Stone, etc.) When these two friends get together to film a holiday classic, you know you are in for quality and something that will have a good deal of heart. The Polar Express, adapted from the short classic book of the same name, breaks digital ground and the actor and filmmaker got together recently in New York to tell us about the challenges and benefits of computer-generated motion capture acting and the processes they faced to translate this loved book to film.

TeenHollywood: Tom, this is your third animated movie (although this one is a different process). How does this compare to say voicing Woody?

Tom: Looking at myself in the Toy Story movies, it's a little puppet. He sort of looks like me, but his head was nine-feet-tall. The difference between that and The Polar Express was extraordinary because The Polar Express really is me as opposed to some rendering of a character that's supposed to be me.

TeenHollywood: What drew you to this particular story?