Washington Post staffers have floated the idea of asking celebrities like Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep to pressure owner Jeff Bezos into reversing looming layoffs, Status ’s Oliver Darcy reported . The actors portrayed famous Post figures Ben Bradlee and Katharine Graham in the 2017 Steven Spielberg film The Post , and Hanks previously recorded a Super Bowl advertisement promoting the newspaper under the recently sidelined "Democracy Dies in Darkness" banner. The plans do not seem to have worked.