Viktor Navorski from ‘The Terminal’

The Character: Tom Hanks played Viktor Navorski, a man who finds himself stuck living in a terminal at the JFK airport in New York -- he can't return to his home country because of an ongoing revolution, and the revolution has caused the US to no longer consider his country a sovereign nation, making his passport invalid, meaning he can't officially enter the US. The airport purgatory becomes his home, where he eventually gets a job as an illegal construction worker, paid under the table. Viktor uses his money to date a flight attendant and tries desperately to get an autograph from a jazz saxophonist.

The Inspiration: Mehran Karimi Nasseri is an Iranian refugee who lived in a terminal in the Charles de Gaulle airport in France from 1988 until 2006, when he fell ill and had to be hospitalized. His autobiography was the inspiration for 'The Terminal,' and told the story of how he was granted refugee status when he was expelled from Iran following his participation in protests, and allowed to move to any country in Europe, but the papers that proved this were lost when his baggage was stolen, leaving him stuck in the airport. Unable to return home and without the papers that would allow him to continue on to the UK, Nasseri made a home for himself in the terminal, getting food and money from airport employees.