Tom Hanks Opens Up About His Career, Family, Self-Doubt, and the “Magic” That Shaped His Life

Key Takeaway

Treat preparation as a way to create freedom: before any important meeting, presentation, or difficult conversation, know your material so well that you can stop managing yourself and start responding to the moment. Tom Hanks’s standard is simple: arrive on time, be prepared, and bring an idea. Today, choose one upcoming interaction, review the context and key facts, rehearse your opening, and write down one useful contribution or question to bring forward.

Episode Overview

Tom Hanks reflects with Guy Raz on a chaotic but imaginative childhood, his accidental path from school theater to professional acting, and the collaborations that shaped his career. He also explains how preparation, curiosity, creative partnership, and persistent self-doubt continue to inform his work and life.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Tom Hanks Opens Up About His Career, Family, Self-Doubt, and the “Magic” That Shaped His Life from How I Built This. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

He looked out the window and daydreamed . I looked out the window and imagined stories in my head. I rarely have a conversation like this, frankly, about what we do for a living . They shout "Wilson!" at me. quite often. Run, Forrest, run! That 's another one. I have worked with some of the best actors on planet Earth. And when I see them, I notice that they fight in a refreshing way against the same insecurity that I feel every time I start a job. Hi, I'm Guy Raz, your host of The Great Creators podcast, where each week I talk about creativity with some of the most prominent and iconic actors, musicians, and artists of our era.

I'm very excited about the conversation you 're about to hear and see. It is probably with one of the greatest and most iconic actors of all time. His name is Tom Hanks. And if you're like me, you've probably seen more Tom Hanks movies than you can imagine, because he's made over 80, including some of the biggest and most iconic in history. Big , Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Philadelphia, Toy Story, Apollo 13, and many more. In my conversation with Tom Hanks, you'll discover how not being chosen for a role ended up leading him to a great opportunity.

You'll hear how Tom learned the art of acting by playing with his brothers and what he learned from collaborating with directors like Ron Howard, Robert Zemeckis, and of course , Steven Spielberg. Our conversation begins in Northern California, where Tom grew up. He spent most of his childhood moving from place to place. Her parents were divorced and she lived mainly with her dad; By the age of 10, Tom had already lived in 10 different houses. But he says that, somehow, all that change seemed exciting to him.

I want to start by asking you about your childhood, because it's very similar to my wife's: your father married three times , your mother twice, and you have siblings from different marriages. He moved around a lot. It was a very unstable and chaotic childhood. And yet, she is the most emotionally stable person I have ever met. It's surprising, because sometimes people turn out like that and other times they don't. And it seems to me that you turned out to be like that, didn't you ? As if he had had that textbook childhood, troubled and chaotic.

Well, yes. Anything but call child services, you know, that never happened. We just moved around a lot because, well, my joke is that my parents were pioneers in divorce laws in California. You know, it's like they went right after Zsa Zsa Gabor, they got divorced, I think, in 1961. I was five years old. I was the third of four children. Uh, my younger brother was a baby. So he ended up staying with my mom and all of us went with my dad, who was in the restaurant business, and that's why we moved so much.

The restaurant business is, you know, almost nomadic , you know. Um. Yes. Someone calls and says, "Hey, I need someone." They say, "Well, I can't because, well, we'll pay you so much." The next thing you know, you're loading the car and driving off. And then you're there for a while and then he hates the owner, quits, makes a phone call and 48 hours later we're living in a completely different city. And without much explanation of what was happening, we were just moving in and, you know, I think we all reacted in different ways.

My sister, who was five years older, was very extroverted. He had a great personality. My older brother was shy and, well, no, but he's the funniest person I've ever met. And I was the guy who would just say, "Hey, where do we go from here? Hey, this isn't bad." I guess I had the joy gene. And I was never intimidated by starting at a new school or living in a new place . You know, we live in every housing combination you could possibly have. You know, big rental houses with lots of people, small apartments, and huge apartment complexes with just the three of us.

We were children with keys around our necks. We had stepfathers who were sometimes always home and sometimes not, and they also put us on a Greyhound bus four times a year to go spend time with my mom in her small American town. I mean, literally almost like a human comedy. She was in Redding, right? Well, it started in Redding, then he moved to a town called Red Bluff, California, which is the county seat of Tehama County. And, but it was, like, honestly, you could have left Red Bluff in Kansas or, uh, you know, Missouri.

It didn't feel like California at all, except for the license plates on the cars that had a big...the Sacramento River ran through it , and we'd grab our bikes to go to the river, pawn our money and go to the A&W root beer stand, and uh, it was uh...it was fun , uh, except for the various mix-ups about the marital status of all my parents. I had, we had many step-siblings who were all actually great. In other words, sometimes we were just a large group of children, but other times there was no one else but us.

So, by the time I turned 10, I had lived in 10 different houses in probably four distinct variations of "The Brady Bunch" meets "My Three Sons" in the style of "The Waltons". And I was just one, I was just one of many mouths at the table. I knew what time it was because of what was on television and I liked going to school. So I'd say we were pretty close and there was no malice. There wasn't, you know, there was no alcoholism . There was no mistreatment.

There was no, there was no , there was no sense of danger in any of the homes. But there was a lot of confusion because nobody was talking about what was happening. And perhaps that was the key: that there was no abuse, no drug or alcohol abuse. Because, I mean, you could look at that upbringing in many different ways; We could be having a different conversation, and you could be talking about your childhood traumas and resentments, and...And I want to...and obviously, you're an incredibly normal and nice person who has a very stable family.

You have been in a stable marriage for many years. Do you think it's a choice you made, or one that people make to avoid carrying that baggage? I think anyone in that type of family's food chain makes peace with their situation in a very individual way. Uh, my stepmother recently passed away and she was the great love of my father's life. They truly were, they were the couple destined to be together. And, well, I met up with my stepsister, she is 5 years younger than me, and we actually lived in the same house, although on different levels, so to speak; We had different entries and we've gone back to comparing notes about those years, from when my parents got married until, essentially, we were old enough to go our own way.

And when comparing notes, we just said, "Oh yeah, that was a really strange house." They did a very bad job as parents, in terms of including us and being all together in this . They didn't do that. There just wasn't a sense that we were all in this together. What there was was a "where have you been?". And a "come for dinner". That was pretty much it. So, what follows after that, if I had to put it as I perceived it, is that magic always appeared.

Magic in the sense of "we're moving," magic in the sense of "we're going to leave these people and start completely over." And when you're young and you think that life has a certain degree of permanence, and that permanence isn't necessarily a good thing, you know, I'm not having fun in this house, in this school, in this neighborhood. Yes. And then one of your parents comes along and says, "We're leaving." And you get in the car and drive off, and it's like, "Well, that solved the problem." You already know.

That's settled, right? And now we'll go to a new place, there will be new furniture and maybe, you know, there will be new friends to make. And my joke is that my dad would take the three of us to the driveway and say, "Well, kids, excuse me." "Well, children, your school is in that direction." " Why don't they walk over there?" "And look at children your own age, follow them and they will lead you to the place where you will go to school from now on ." That's a joke, but it's not that far from the truth.

So this concept of magic, if you just wait, something new will come and alter your situation, your status, and your time in the neighborhood. So, look, I've been married twice. The mother of my children passed away in 2002. Um, uh, Rita and I have been married, well, 34 years, and you just end up having the same faith in that magic. Oh, this magic happened and here it is, and, uh, it's like you finally arrive at a place that doesn't need changes. Yes. And I don't know if that's it, is it a choice or is it just the natural flow towards, you know, what you want?

Uh, I'd say, uh, it kind of fits exactly with what I do for a living, which is to walk into a room and seduce everyone in there. That's what I did, uh, every time, I would imagine that your wife went to a lot of schools. And if that's it, if that's a socially awkward situation, as I would say it was for my brother, uh, it's a lot to adapt to, it ends up being an internal battle you have to fight. I didn't feel that. I simply started a new school in first grade, and then I started another new school in second grade, and halfway through second grade I started at a new school and stayed there, and then I started another school in fifth grade and another one in seventh grade.

And, uh, I just thought, hey, I like the mix, man. I knew I had friends who literally lived in the same house where they were born and who went to the same school. And honestly I thought, how can you stand that, man? No...Yes. Where is the variety in life? You have to, you have to leave. And I have a lot of, uh, variety in life right now. But, uh, on the other hand, I don't know if you're 10, 11 or 14 years old and you're aware that you're making a decision, right?

Um, beyond that, uh, how do I deal with the reality of what's happening here? I wonder how, how you became interested in theater when you were a teenager. Because, I mean, from what I understand, you basically grew up in Oakland , and you'd cross the bay to San Francisco to see shows like The Iceman Cometh, you know, which is pretty sophisticated for a teenager. How, how did you become attracted to that? Was there, was there a teacher? Was there anyone? There was one . Yes, it was at Skyline High School in Oakland.

And it's a three-year high school; There are three-year high schools in Oakland. So my second year, my first year in high school. You're definitely, you know, last in line. And I just thought that high school in my sophomore year was like a bad version of any TV show you've ever seen about high school. What are you doing? Well, you take chemistry and maybe you run athletics and there's a group and a social hierarchy that you might be part of, and I hung out with more spiritual people.

We talked about lofty things, but as far as going to school was concerned, it was just a place to serve time, six periods, six classes, a total level of disinterest. But then, some friends of mine were in a play, the school play, and I went to see my friends in it. And it was a real work of art. I mean, it was this huge auditorium, and it was like a theater, there were sets, lights, people I knew up there performing in Dracula, and I just thought, "What is this?

Where did this come from? Is this something they do in school?" And the following year I was in a drama class, and my teacher was a man named Raleigh Farnsworth, who was a lifelong theater arts educator. He was gay and I didn't know it. Nobody knew. He was very well dressed, his hair was always perfect, but he was a guy who found great pleasure in teaching theater. We had a class; the room actually had a stage with a curtain and rudimentary lights, and when we did our homework, the lights in the room were turned off, leaving only the stage lights on.

It was like a small theater. And it was like an algebra or math classroom, except it had a theater at the end. Yes. And I thought I'd been lucky enough to find a scam to get through school. This is a place you come to , learn dialogues, play games, and none of it was homework or work. And that was the class that made me not want to wait to get to school every day, because we were going to do some kind of scene, some theatrical game, or some exercise .

And it started right there: we always had something to rehearse and something to perform, or we would watch someone else do it. And, well, if the educational process consists of going to a classroom and listening until you find something that fascinates you, then you will dedicate yourself to that , whether it's accounting or geography. Yes. It could be what you end up dedicating your whole life to, and that's what I saw, and I thought it's the best way to go to school because it's what I already do all the time.

It's what I do on the bus, at home. Acting silly and saying things. Yes. In the loudest and most eye-catching format possible. I know you started in theater in high school and, obviously, decided to pursue it after graduating. But I wonder, why have we had guests who are like top-division athletes? Like most professional athletes who have at least one parent who practiced high-level sports; We had Sigourney Weaver and her mother was a famous actress in Great Britain, so she almost seems to have the gene, does n't she?

And you didn't have any of that in your family. I wonder if there was a moment in high school, because you decided to pursue this path after graduating , right? So it seems there must have been someone who told you, " Tom, you're really good at this." " You should dedicate yourself to this," because it's a somewhat crazy decision. I mean, it's the least stable and least promising career there is. It's very difficult to make a living like that. And I guess someone had to tell you, "You know, you should stick with this." You're good at that.

Well, I didn't know you could make a living from that, did you? Okay, I understand doing construction work in high school; School plays are a fundamental part of American culture, you know. I will say this: Mr. Farnsworth was the one who identified me. Like the energetic man, the guy who came into the room. The guy you could just flip the ignition switch on and I'd start up. Now, that came from two and a half years, I'll say this, that came from two and a half years in which my dad wasn't married.

He worked in the restaurant business, and my sister, my brother, and I were alone almost all day. Until dinnertime, we did our homework and went to sleep. And all we did in that little apartment in Alamo, California, was play and entertain ourselves. Yes. And I was the youngest, and my sister was hilarious, my brother too, and of course fists were flying, there were shouts, and we threw things at each other. Yes. But on an average Saturday, Sunday, or even school night, we'd turn doing laundry into a big production or preparing dinner into a hilarious comedy show.

We did it naturally because we entertained ourselves and there was no supervisor, no one to tell us what to do. So, with that energy, I discovered there was a place to use it, and Mr. Farnsworth gave me roles where I wasn't the protagonist, but the energy of something. We did two shows a year at Skyline. We did an autumn play and a spring musical. And the auditions for the play and the musical were on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. And the cast list was posted on the door of the theater hall on Monday.

He did n't sleep at all on Saturday or Sunday, anticipating what he might achieve. Never the protagonist, but the guy who had to have energy. I was Sir Andrew Aguecheek on Twelfth Night. Who does Three Kings Day at school? Well, we did it because we had a couple of people who were magnificent. A couple of very talented young people who ended up making it. So that was high school. And then I only went to university because I couldn't get into anywhere else, and I met John Gilkerson, who had played Sebastian in Twelfth Night and was a real artist.

He was a puppeteer. He belonged to the international guild of puppeteers when he was only 15 years old. He was one of those guys who lived in a world of creativity far greater than his age. And he was a drama professor there at the university college. No, no, no. He was just a boy in my class. He was a classmate. And at one point, we were staying in the Bay Area while everyone else went off to their universities and I ran into one of them...What classes do you take at Chabot?

C-H-A-B, Chabot Junior College. And I said, "Well, I'm just taking, I'm taking those accredited classes in case you go to a 4-year university later." And he says, "Are n't you taking acting classes?" I said, "Well, no, no, I don't take them." He says, "How embarrassing." She literally said those words: "How embarrassing." Oh. You should be taking acting classes and you should be doing plays . What a shame. And it left me bewildered and I realized that, well, that's a wonderful vote of confidence, but he also said it in a way that reminded me that I missed him .

I missed the magic of being in a class, learning the lines, receiving feedback, and having to perform for someone. So, since then, I took a theater class every year, every, excuse me, every quarter while I was at Chabot after that, and those theater classes were the big catalyst for getting out... and seeing theater in San Francisco. What was unique about it was that it was professional theater, so I would go, I would see because it was a school assignment, I would see... "The Iceman Cometh" at Berkeley Rep, and I would see "Desire Under the Elms" and "Peer Gynt" and "The Merry Wives of Windsor" at the ACT, American Conservatory Theater.

He went everywhere. Oh. To see professional theatre and that's when something, a bell rang in my head and said: this is a job. Oh. This is what these people get paid for. Yes. And I can't say that at that precise moment I thought it would be a great job. I had no idea how to do it. I was at university. So I decided that maybe it would be best to make performing arts my major in school. Yes. And I ended up doing that and I never finished college because I went to another school and while I was there , well, this is the truth, you can tell, you know, what was the secret to your career?

What was the first job you got? And I said, "That 's not nearly that important." Yes. Like the job I didn't get. I wasn't chosen for a play at my state university in Sacramento. And all my friends were indeed chosen. So I had nothing to do except go audition for another play that was being performed somewhere in the city. And I ended up being cast, directed by Vincent Dowling of the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival . In Cleveland, he hired young people to be interns in his company because he needed...

In Cleveland, because he needed people to move scenery, carry spears, have a line in Hamlet and things like that . So, the role you wanted, do you remember the play you weren't chosen for? Oh, yes. I wasn't chosen for Joe Orton's *What the Butler Saw*. All my friends were. Yes. So you auditioned for a play that was also, I think you were in Sacramento at the time. Yes, I was in Sacramento, in a place that I believe is now called the Sacramento State Theater. It was called something else back then, and it was *The Cherry Orchard*.

*The Cherry Orchard* by Chekhov. Good. So, you were chosen for this Chekhov play. If you hadn't been chosen for that play, your life would have been like in *Sliding Doors*, right? It's like going left or right, you don't get this paper, but you get this other one. It turns out that the director is based in Cleveland and runs that Shakespeare festival there. And he's there because someone from his company came from the same festival. So he's there as a guest director. Oh. And if I had been chosen for the university play, I wouldn't have met that man.

I wouldn't have played Yasha and he wouldn't have told me that. He says, "I love you, I think you could be, I think you could be an actor." " I think you could, if you want, you could be an actor." And then he offered me a job for which he didn't pay anything. But from everything I've read, I mean , that's really where you learned to act. You ended up moving to Cleveland for about two years. I did three seasons there. And for the first season, they needed someone to complete the great cast of *The Taming of the Shrew*.

And so I was expelled from the internship company as Groomio along with Jan Acres, who was also from Sacramento. There were five of us who made the trip. And from that point on, we both had to go on tour with an art grant from the Ohio Arts Council. And it turned out that, in order to do so, all members of the company had to belong to the actors' union. So these two people, who were just interns, were told: "Okay, we'll pay you the minimum. You'll pay the installments and now, thanks to this card in your wallet, you're professional actors." And they invited me back for the next season, and it was during that second season that I met all the people who told me, "Okay, kid.

If you're going to keep doing this, you have to make a decision: where are you going to go after this season?" You are in Cleveland right now. Where are you going? Well, you know, my son Colin had been born. There were all sorts of other pressures, but my good friends George Maguire and Michael John McCan, who are still good friends of mine... said, "Look, if you're an actor, there's only one place an actor should be. You have to go to New York." Yes. I had never been to New York.

I had seen New York in the movies. The closest I ever got to New York was Shaker Heights, Ohio, which is, you know, east of Cleveland. That's the closest I've ever been to New York. And they guided me through the process of being broke, being poor, and being unemployed in New York City. But they were right. The thing is, if you have that card in your wallet, you can audition for absolutely everything that happens in the theater world. And if I hadn't done that, if I hadn't followed his advice and enjoyed the benevolence of his goodwill, which was considerable, I wouldn't be talking to Guy Raz today on How I Built This.

You know, because I know you arrived in New York around 1979, as you mentioned. I moved there, yes, I moved there in '78, yes, at the end of '78. In '78, you were 22, you'd had your first child, and you were moving there to become a theatre actor, right? So, that's your goal . You're not, you're not thinking about television or film. You're thinking: I'm going to go and become a theater actor. And uh , what do you remember? I mean, that's it, that was it, of course.

What do you remember from that time? And we think about the late 70s , early 80s in New York and it was... it was, if you imagine Taxi Driver, uh, Robert De Niro, that, that was New York City. The Warriors, you know, the Walter Hill movie, The Warriors. That was it, it was literally, that was like living in... I lived right next to Times Square in this small, terrible place, but actually with kind people in it. But, yeah, I was very lucky because, um, I didn't have to accept a regular job since 25 weeks of work in Ohio, uh, with a contract, uh, qualified me for 25 weeks of unemployment benefits from the state of Ohio.

TRUE. So I didn't have to, I didn't have to wait tables. I didn't have to get that kind of job. Um, I was finally able to go and sign and barely survive. Yes. I remember we had these long discussions about how many deductions to take from your weekly paycheck, and I would say zero, because I was following the example of my friends: don't take any, because that way you get a big check, you know, in April. You receive a check in April, and they were right.

I made no deductions from my salary and received a check for $800, which was, oh my God, a fortune of money. Yes, that was a lot. Um, uh, the other thing that happened, uh, what happened there is that you end up trying to do anything just to act, not to get paid, just to act. And you need some kind of professional representation. And I was lucky enough to be in a workshop, a sort of production by a fledgling Shakespeare company that was trying to develop its repertoire and credibility.

And I was in, I did a production of, uh, a kind of commedia dell'arte. Um, once again, I was the loudest guy on stage. They needed someone with volume and, uh, energy. And one of the actresses told me, "Hey, I know a guy who is, who is an agent." And I told him, "You can go and meet him." So I ended up going to meet a classic representative of the entertainment world. So you think you've got what you want, kid? Huh? Is that true? Well, let me tell you what the secret of all this is.

Potential. Potential. That's the secret of this business. And you have potential. So, this old-school representative ended up sending me to some agencies. And agencies that would never have taken me if it weren't for that phone call from someone like my representative. And that ended up being part of a massive audition that the American Broadcasting Company was organizing. And this happened very quickly. I can't explain to you how quickly this happened. It was like a lightning bolt. Yes, I returned to Cleveland for my third season there.

But I even left early so I could come back and take advantage of what they called the pilot season. Yes. I knew nothing about that. But I went in on a whim. ABC had, you know, a lot of money back then. There were three networks competing fiercely, and what happened was that the American Broadcasting Company said, "Let's get started; let's work with the legendary casting director Joyce Selnik, Joyce Selnik, who is connected to those Selniks by the last name." She was a legendary casting director in Los Angeles, which meant nothing to me because to me Los Angeles was where you went to Disneyland.

That's the only reason anyone would go to Los Angeles. And they were conducting this famous talent search for development contracts that they were going to sign with people. I didn't know this. I found out about this later. And they planned to take these people and put them in all their new series. And wouldn't you know it, we were a group. I know Ann Jillian was one and they put her in It's a Living, and John James was another and they put him in Dynasty or something like that, one of those.

And I kept getting through these four-minute auditions being the loudest guy in the room, you know. And did you know what it was for? I had no idea. It was just a matter of auditioning and reading these lines or saying something. It was something like, tell us a little bit about yourself, read this script, and thanks for coming, and oh, by the way, can you come back next Tuesday and we'll do some more? They were people surrounded by stacks of resumes and takeaway food. They were just watching, and when I say massive audition, I mean they were watching 8 million people.

And I had been to other massive auditions. I had been in things for television commercials and like National Lampoon. Uh, several things . We just...call them equity principles interviews, where they have to do these meetings and see 400 people over the course of the day, and it's all "thank you" and " thank you very much". But for some reason, I do n't know why they kept inviting me back, until they said, "We'll send you to Los Angeles as a sort of quasi-audition to see how you do," in the real grinder, which is going to read for a specific pilot with specific producers and all that.

And I know that at that time they were trying to develop things like the television version of Breaking Away, a television show that was originally called Jack Flash and then they called it The Last American Hero. There were all these sitcoms they were making, some of which were successful and some of which weren't. And then they tell me, 'You're going, we're going to Los Angeles.' We're going to fly to the coast. We're going to fly to the coast, we're going to fly to the coast. And I didn't have a credit card, I didn't have any money, and I didn't even know how I was going to get around.

And they gave me these vouchers for taxis in Los Angeles and it was surreal. And I would go and do what they said. I would stay in a hotel for 3 days and then return. And they said, " Oh, you shouldn't have come back. We have some other things." I kept coming back. But then, lo and behold, I discovered that I had been signed to this talent contract. I was part of the group. I didn't even know. It's a surprising thing to process, because you're a complete stranger at that moment.

As if you were nobody. Nobody knows you. There's an open audition and you're auditioning for the show that would, of course, become Bosom Buddies, and you were coming off a Shakespeare background, as if that's what you'd been doing. for the previous three seasons, and it's almost like you're back in your apartment in Alama joking around with your brothers, like that was the character who... Exactly, yes, yes, that was it. That's it, that's it, uh, there's something to be done. Look, the experience of doing Shakespeare with trained professional actors, uh, is, you know, if you have to go on stage and make sense of saying, "The Duke salutes you, General, and requires your presence urgently, even at this instant," if you can pull that off, uh, uh, it's great training for walking into a room and saying, "What is the intention of this character?" And oh, I see, on one hand it's a lot of fun, but on the other hand you have to be a real guy, yeah, for, in, in, in the matter of the job that I didn't get.

I had been away and was auditioning for everything they wanted me to audition for. And they call you to the network, where you sit, you sit in the waiting room honestly with 27 other actors, and they are literally deciding who will be in what and who will be sent home. And I auditioned for Bob Miller and uh, Tom Miller and Bob Boyett, Miller, Milkus and Boyett Productions, the creative force behind Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy and a bunch of other things. And they had a show they were going to do, it was the television version of Foul Play , the movie Foul Play.

And I went in and read for the television version of Foul Play. Great movie. And they said that was great. Tom, can you go to...? Can you...? Yes. Can you go sit in that office over there and we'll come talk to you in a second? And I said, " Okay." So I sat down at someone's desk at ABC, in Century City, and Bob, Bob Boyett came in and, uh, said, "Well, we don't want you for Foul Play." I said, "Okay." He said, "We want you to do Bosom Buddies ," for which I had already auditioned.

I said, "Okay." Yes. And that was it. I was watching, um, I got into the world of Bosom Buddies the other day, man. How do you find it? Are they on YouTube? You find it. Okay. Very good. You can find it and I remember watching it as a kid and the remarkable thing is that, um, it's a physical role, you're a physical comedian. It's almost like seeing elements of Kramer from Seinfeld or Chandler from Friends that would happen, you know, decades later. There was a real you, you weren't just that funny guy, you know, you were a physical role, and there's a scene I remember watching where you 're with Peter Scolari, the other Peter guy, and you dare him to slap you, and then he hits you, and you're like, "Do it again," and he keeps hitting you while you just stand there, and then, well, you're kind of wrestling with him, and, um, I mean , that was a...

you probably remember what I'm talking about , right? Yes, I, um, I mean, that , and I wonder how, I mean , did that kind of acting come more naturally to you because of where you came from and how you grew up versus the kind of acting you'd trained for over the past five or six years? I think I had been chosen many times as that guy who did very physical things. When I played Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew, he was everywhere . I was moving from here to there.

They beat me up. He was being slapped. I was being dragged along by an imaginary horse on stage. The physicality of that became being the Shakespearean clown. Uh, and but it was , I mean, it was still me messing around in the living room in my socks seeing how far you could slide before you hit the glass door, you know, the sliding door. Uh, and Peter and I, I can't , I can't stop emphasizing the bond that Peter and I developed in the course of doing that.

It's obvious. It's obvious. Peter and I spoke a secret language because we were the only two men on the show. That was one thing. And, uh, we were, you know, we were in every scene together. And, um, he, he had that athletic gymnast's body . He was, I mean, he had the lowest center of gravity and he was absolutely, all muscle mass. And he had that intensity, he wanted to be, uh, uh, he wanted to be Buster Keaton and he had that big stone face and his physicality, that's what we were always working on.

Um, I remember there was a time when he threw, threw our portable television, Kippid Henry's portable television, towards me. You know, he says, "Oh, you think this is yours?" So he threw it to me and the joke was that it was going to break on the ground and then we would continue with the rest of the scene. And what we did was give it a small handle . So, uh, I said to him, "Hey, can you throw it to me like this, maybe so I can catch the handle in the air?" And so we worked on it, right?

It wasn't in the script. And when we did it for the writers at the script reading, they stood up and applauded because we had worked it out, since Peter was a thrower, he was a juggler and had great spatial skills. So he threw it to me so that the handle was facing upwards and I could reach for it and grab the handle, and I just caught it in the air and he gave me this kind of look. It was like: " Hey." And I gave him this look that said, "Hey." And it became a different moment.

And we took it as if that were our job, to find these little cracks in all the scenes that the writers wrote and just develop this other kind of thing. And the physicality of that was that we were extremely young and, uh, you know, I probably have attention deficit disorder. It was always too, way too caffeinated. But we were just trying to take it and figure out how to strengthen the comedic scenes so that it wasn't just us standing there saying five, six, seven, eight. And I can't, we became extremely, extremely close, almost too close for some people on the show.

I know that, um, and I know that you were very, very close to him and obviously he's no longer alive, but, um, you two collaborated several times and were on stage together. I'm curious about your personal life. I mean, you were living on unemployment like six months before that. You were unemployed in New York City. You had children. You were, I mean , you were a stranger. And now you're on a national television program that at that time was watched by tens of millions of people, presumably.

He was always, well, he always came in third place. You know, we were sorry that Tom Selleck was on CBS with Magnum P.I. And we're on ABC with Bosom Buddies. So we were pretty much finished. But it's funny you say that, because yes, we were number three that night, but the third one still had 13 million viewers. 13 million people. I mean, today that would be the biggest thing. Oh, that would be huge. It would be huge. How do you... I mean, that must have changed your life?

I mean, suddenly you were famous. Like, not really. I would say no. No, you wouldn't say that. No. I was a celebrity in a way that could only be described as: I was at baggage claim. Yes. And someone was saying to me, "Hey, are you that guy from Bosom Buddies?" So the show was only on the air for two years. That's it... But you were earning money for the first time in your life. Uh, yes. Yes. I was making money, barely keeping up with the cost of living in Los Angeles and having a car, and no, we weren't getting paid a ton of money.

I mean, when you think about...well, this is 1980 and I was getting paid $5,000 per episode, but half of it goes to taxes and you lose another two in commissions. And... so I was like, look, I had enough money for the house payments, but only for one year, and by the time the program ended, my daughter Elizabeth had been born. So you had two kids and a house in the valley, waiting for the phone to ring, and the savings you managed to put aside were running out.

What happens after your show is cancelled is that you're on a show that has been cancelled. Yes. So, on one hand, there's the burden of "you already had your chance and it didn't work out." Yes. But the other thing that can happen is: "well , he was pretty good on that show." So other interests emerged, but it wasn't like, "Oh my God, can we get that guy?" It was just like, "maybe it will work." So there was a yes. There were a couple of years there where, uh, being an unemployed actor, an unemployed middle-class actor with a dwindling bank account, car payments and two kids, and waiting for the phone to ring.

That, that's not, that's not the best way to go to sleep every night at 11:00. But I must also say, again, uh, no, it did n't last very long. I have to say that, very quickly, I ended up meeting the guys who wrote Splash, who said, "Hey, that guy who was in that guest episode of Happy Days, he could do." And Ron Howard was just getting started. And as a director, as a director and you met Ron Howard for the first time as a guest actor.

No, he had already left. Well, I met the writers, I met Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. Babaloo Mandel. They had written, they were starting to write feature films and I had just arrived, I thought, to read for the funny brother , because those were the roles I auditioned for. The funny brother's crazy sidekick, uh, the energetic guy, you know, the loudest guy in the room. And this , by the way, they asked you to read for this based on that one guest appearance you made on Happy Days.

Yeah. You were like, you were like Fonzie's cousin or something. Oh, I was a guy who was mad because he kicked me off his swing set when I was young and I came back to , you know, and just because of that one appearance , they thought, "Hey, this guy is interesting." Well, I think they were aware of Bosom Buddies, but it was just another TV show. But if. Yes. And the thing is, the movie Splash was a low-budget movie for Disney, the old Disney, you know?

In other words, Roy Disney was still running it. And hey Ron and Brian, I have to give credit to Brian Grazer, they now run Imagine Entertainment. Colleagues, yes, they are collaborators. Yes, and they were young talents trying to make their way. And on one hand, there's the deal to get the film made in the first place, and then, how do you actually make the film? And, uh, going into this, um, the studio essentially didn't care after everyone turned it down, after every top movie star from Chevy Chase to Dudley Moore and Warren B.

I mean, they all just said they weren't interested. Nobody wanted to be on Splash. Nobody. Nobody wants to be in Splash, directed by Opie Cunningham for Walt Disney. Nobody, nobody wants to do that. But, hey , Daryl Hannah, was she a big star back then? That was the deal. The studio wanted Daryl Hannah because she had been in Blade Runner, right? Uh, she had been in, she was actually, she was Daryl Hannah. Yes. And, well, they didn't care about anyone else. They did n't care about anyone else.

So they didn't care who was going to ...it was like Alan Bauer, I think, it was your character. They didn't care who was going to play him. No. No. They were willing to let Ron and Brian decide that. So, wow . Uh, and actually, um, I went and read, I just met them and thought these are the first guys who are my peers. I usually go to these reunions and there are people who are 20 years older than me, you know, and they have posters of their old movies on the walls, you know, right?

These guys had pictures of Old Yeller, you know, and you know, old Dumbo movies, you know, that weren't even their movies. And uh, Ron said, "Okay, I want you to come." "I want you to read, but I don't want you to read for your brother." " I want you to read for, um, Alan." And I said, "Oh, oh, that's fine." "Very good". And Ron said, "You know, that's the main role." I said, "Okay." Meaning it's like, you know, take this seriously. I mean, come here .

Come. I'm giving you the... He didn't say much, but he was saying, "I 'm giving you the opportunity to win the job." "So, come and read for it." Oh. And uh, I did it and, you know, I worked hard and well, I prepared, uh, and he recorded it on the rudimentary home video recording system, you know, on a thing. And he put me through some exercises and I had to, you know , change the pace and I had to do it. But then, that was it.

And he called me a couple of days later and said, " Hi, how are you?" Yes, I'm Ron. Hey, listen. Um, uh, you got the job , but I need a favor. Okay, go back to what you said first. You know, you got the job. Okay. Yeah. No , you got the job. It's going to be great. You're perfect, but I need a favor. Uh, and I said something about it. Yes, Mr. Howard. What can I do for you? And he said, um, the studio is, uh, the studio is hesitant about Daryl Hannah.

He really wanted Daryl Hannah. Yeah. And the studio said, "Well, okay , but how good is she and what does she look like?" "So Ron said, 'I need you to come in and do a screen test.' That's not going to be your test. It's going to be for Daryl because she's great, right? Yeah. And we've come in, we've compared notes on it; you know, Daryl and I had a kind of weird meeting with someone not too long ago, during the COVID break, we talked about this and his version, of course, was fascinating.

And I said, 'Okay, fine, I don't know what a screen test is...' and he said, 'This?'" So, on video? "." "No, it'll be a real camera test." I didn't know what that was . I mean, it was lights, 35mm film, a dolly, zooms in, zooms out, and a scene—the whole kit. And, um, when, uh, when he said, "Okay, yeah, sure, I'll come and do it." But, uh, when the day of the test came around, I said, "Hey, Ron, is there any chance I'm going to lose my job on this camera test?" "So, is it possible...?" He said, "No, we won't just see the back of your neck.

We won't even get a clue who you are in it. I just want to see both of you on camera at the same time." And, uh, you know, the rest is kind of a movie story. We ended up making the movie and nobody cared much, but the movie was very good. And it established, it certainly established Ron and Brian, and it was like, I think it was actually the first Touchstone movie. Disney was trying to develop another division of its films so as not to always have Walt Disney presents Gus, the horse that kicks mules.

So they were Touchstone movies. I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Ron Howard and he is an incredibly charming human being. I mean , a really kind person. I shouldn't really say it, it just is. Especially since he practically grew up in this, he's in it for all the right reasons. He does this because he simply loves it and discovered that he loved it when he was literally Opie, you know, growing up on that show. He simply said, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life, but I want to manage." And there you have it .

This marks the beginning of a period, a collaboration that you would continue to carry out with Ron Howard. Collaborations you would have with Robert Zemeckis, with Nora Ephron, with Steven Spielberg. When I say collaborations, I literally mean getting involved in the script with these directors, working on changing the character, investing in films that weren't fully funded. Let's talk about Ron Howard for a moment, because you would go on to make many more films with him. How did that collaborative relationship begin ? Because sometimes she can be authoritarian, right?

Where the star says: "I want to do it this way." But from everything I've read about how you collaborated with all these different directors, it really was a collaboration. It was like, " Let's sit down and have some fun." And what do you remember about Ron Howard? Like when you were in Splash, you weren't a powerful Hollywood actor, but were you able to change that character or were you able to leave your mark on that film in a way that felt right to you? This is about the collaborative process, and there are people who realize that they come with the basics and have faith that someone will add flavor to the dish.

Uh, yes. Yes. And look, there's a lot of "here's the shot," "here's bang, bang, bang." This is what we're going to do, like this. But Ron started by saying, you know, what else, what else can we contribute to this? And that, um, on one hand was in tune with, um, I'll go back to Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew because they're just lines unless you add things to them. You know, what if we try this? What if, what if this means that? Um, and I, uh, didn't realize for a while that that's what directors like Ron and Bob and Steve, uh, Steven and Nora, um, uh, want, that's the reason they cast you in the role in the first place.

They want you to have some idea that is in tune with what the text asks for and that, however , can only be contributed by the person playing the role. There it was, um, uh, the , the, and I said, "What do you think of this ?" You know, what do you think, what do you think? What, what do you think about this? You know, and I was, so I was very silly. I had all sorts of ideas because I did n't know how movies were made.

And Ron pointed out to me, "Well, we ca n't do that because it's a completely different plane." It literally said, "What can we do here?" What can we do in this scene to cover this part? And I remember there was, they had built a, they had built a stage that was the, uh, in the apartment building where Allan lived and there were elevators on both sides of the hall and there was one button for both elevators. And, um, I didn't know why only one elevator was working, you know, because it was just a set.

So I said, he said, "Well, look, I'm in a big hurry because I'm trying to find her. She's left the apartment, and I have to go look for her out there somewhere, and I'm in a big hurry. So, what if I go out?" He says, "Okay, fine. So, you know, go outside, press the button, and wait for the elevator." And I said, " Well, that's exciting." Alright. So, since there were two buttons, I ran out and said, "How about this?" "And I ran out, pressed a button and ran to the other side of the hall, pressed the other button and stood in the middle as if waiting to see which elevator would arrive." And as soon as the elevator doors started to open, I ran towards it and Ron said, "Oh yeah, let's do that, but we'll have to move the camera back so we can see." "So that's the kind of thing collaborative directors are going to want." And, without knowing it, it's like, look, that's what you know, that's what Victor Fleming did in Gone with the Wind .

And that's what, you know, uh, uh, uh, who directed Casablanca, you know, that's what everyone says. Good directors come in and say, " What do you think of this here?" You know, what, what, what can we do here? "And they don't always do it, you know, but there are many occasions when they say, 'Yes, let's try it.'" The danger here is that, as an actor, you have to accept a no. Yes. Hey, what if we try this? No, that's not it. Let's try something else. And that's the collaborative process that, if not, look, I'll tell you right now, Guy Ros, the reason why all these people like working with me, I think, is because I'm always on time.

Yes. I'm not late. Yes. I'll get there. And you're ready. I arrive there prepared. You know, um, Dan Sullivan, Dan Sullivan at the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival yelled at us one day when we were rehearsing, uh , The Taming of the Shrew because Hamlet had opened the night before and the main cast were kind of hungover and we were late and tired and it was hot and he got mad at us because, hey, you guys have no energy. Don't they understand? They have to show up.

They have to be here on time. They need to know the text and they need to have an idea, right? Because I can't do all this by myself. And I just thought that the value of having an idea, you know, if it works, it works. Otherwise, it does n't work. But that means you're coming in with some kind of forward momentum. Yes. Something that will add something to the matter. And it's , you know, I have to say that I know and have worked with many people who say, "Hey, what do you think about this right here?" And, yeah, that's the special touch.

Tom, I'm curious. I was, I was just thinking about all the movies you've been in. Obviously not, we can't talk about most of them. But it's quite remarkable because I think, I mean, I've seen most of your films, almost all of them. And you just do it . And I think many people can say the same. And I think about the characters in the movies you've been in . You know, you've played Mr. Rogers, Ben Bradley, Colonel Tom Parker, Forrest Gump and um Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia.

I could go on. I mean, Walt Disney, Charlie Wilson. And what's remarkable about the arc of your career is that you've made so many films and very few have been a failure, you know? And I wonder how, I mean, there have been some, but very few given the amount you've done. Well, yes. I mean, you know , it's like anyone who plays professional baseball, they lose games, you know? Yes. Yes. But I wonder how, I mean, it seems that, like, your judgment for choosing the scripts and the roles you play is obviously very good.

And I wonder how, how do you make those decisions, like, for example, Forrest Gump. You know, someone might have read that script on paper and thought, "Oh, this is weird," or "This is kind of garbage or pastiche or whatever," and you saw that movie and thought, "This is going to be incredibly successful, it's going to be a mega..." Well, I don't know, maybe that wasn't what you thought . But. Well, you're giving me too much credit. Look, without a doubt, it appealed to me for a very specific purpose because, um, ah, I just, for myself, considered relatively quickly that my...my...my ...version of Forrest, he could only operate at the speed of his own common sense.

That's all. He... had no...he had no knowledge beyond... Yes. What Mom and Jenny told him and what , and what, and that was all. But that's not all, that's not just the guy who plays Forrest Gump. Bob Zemeckis and Eric Roth, who wrote the screenplay, Gary Sinise, uh Michael T. Williamson and, um, and Sally, Sally Field and Robin Wright. We all sat down, we sat together for weeks with Bob and Bob would say, "Well, what do we do about this?" We started from the beginning of the script and talked about everything, even scenes in which we don't appear and what they meant to the text.

It was like you had to know the text. That doesn't just mean your own lines. You need to know the text because the text is the interpretation of the theme, and the theme is the reason why everyone is there in the first place. If I were to say, and look, I don't know how, you know, to communicate instincts. But what always achieves the goal, the question I ask myself is whether the subject of this film is worth the time, effort, and analysis to attract people and get them involved, and a film like this, because it was about , oh my God, there are so many, there were so many lessons to learn from that, but it wouldn't have happened without the boss.

Did you know? I'm going to have to... can we take a moment? I need to go get my charger to plug in my computer, please. Alright . Yes. Let's all take a 7- minute break while I go upstairs to get my charger. I'll be right back. Thank you. Very good. Boom! Success. We're going to be okay. So, we were talking about that movie and about preparing for that role, and I was wondering if I could ask you, I'm curious if you could explain how you become a character.

And obviously there are too many , you know, whether it's Ben Bradley or Captain Phillips or anyone else. But let's talk about a recent character, one of yours, Tom Parker, because he was different from many characters you've played in that he wasn't, um, a good guy , right? I mean, he wasn't an easy person to love. There are certainly elements in him towards which we feel sympathy. Um, and it's complicated, but I couldn't help but leave that movie feeling like he really ripped Elvis off, that he really ruined his life.

I mean, forcing him to perform in Las Vegas for seven years straight. But aside from that, before we talk about the complexity of who he was. There's a lot, a lot to analyze there. Yes. Help me understand how you become that character. You, you, so Baz Luhrmann says: "I love you like Tom Parker." He's a guy who was Dutch, but he hid it. He pretended to be some kind of honorary colonel from the South. All those weird things; He hid his past. How did you build the structure so that Tom Hanks could transform into this character and be convincing?

Yes, I was very lucky because I had no idea what Colonel Tom Parker looked like. I had no idea what it sounded like. I had the same feeling that, oh, Colonel Tom Parker must be a guy like Foghorn Leghorn. Well, let me tell you something, son. I'm not going to tell you what he's going to do right now . And I had heard stories from my old makeup artist, Danny Striepeke, who worked on Elvis in four films, including Viva Las Vegas. And the first thing I heard about Colonel Tom was, "Oh, he was just a low-class carnival barker." That was all it was.

I'd cheat you for a quarter , you know, that kind of thing. That's what I had heard, but I didn't know what it looked like. And when I saw how it looked, I asked Baz Luhrmann, "Why do you want me to do this?" He is a robust, bald man with an aquiline nose and a strange accent that no one can identify. So my question was: "Okay, boss, let's collaborate." "What exactly are you looking for ?" "Are you looking for physical appearance?" And she said, "Oh, oh, yes, yes, yes." "So, we're talking about a considerable amount of prosthetics to make me look like Colonel Tom Parker." He said, "Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes." I told him, "Okay." I had just finished playing Falstaff in a production of Henry IV here in Los Angeles.

Because the other issue is: "Well, that's what you're looking for in terms of appearance, and I suppose the same goes for the voice, because I've received orders from directors." "Oh, you're going to use a dialect." OK. Alright . Very good. Steven, on Catch Me If You Can, told me, "I want Carl Hanratty to be from Boston." I told him, " Okay." OK. It's a very difficult one to get, but I started. Good. So after that it's like, why, Mr. Baz Luhrmann, what are you trying to decipher here with an examination of Elvis's history?

Because the myth has been exploited to the point of exhaustion, right? The myth has been accepted as the truth. And he said, exactly. Um, regarding Colonel Tom Parker, he said that without a doubt, there would have been no Elvis Presley without Colonel Tom Parker. Unclear. That's clear. Without a doubt. Yes. The other side of the coin is that Colonel Tom Parker wouldn't have existed without Elvis Presley. And I said, "Okay, now you're talking about a man's ego. Now you're talking about a man who wants to, who's in this for two things: the power to run the show and the pleasure of swindling the gullible." That's what we discovered.

He was a fairground worker. Which means the fair is coming to the small town on the outskirts. You put up the lights, you put up the Ferris wheel, you put up the tents, those people are going to come. They can't help it. And your job is to give them the best night of their lives. One thrill after another, one incredible moment after another, one delight after another, and on top of that, squeeze every last penny out of them. And that double pleasure is what emerges. Colonel Tom Parker's favorite movie was Nightmare Alley.

She loved the old one, um, who was that, who was the one who starred in Nightmare Alley? Tyrone Power's Nightmare Alley, which was recently remade by Guillermo del Toro. He loved it because that's how they scammed the naive, saying that for 25 cents they offered you five cents of entertainment. Very good. So you start studying that and there's a lot of stuff about his background. Yes. He was from Holland. Uh, he got into the fair business when he was very young there. His desire was to manage the great Barnum & Bailey Circus.

So what? That was his dream ...he deserted ship once and stayed , then came back, and when he came back again, probably for shady reasons, you know, not just dodging his past but maybe the law (nobody knows for sure), and then embracing everything, you know, he called himself Tom Parker. And then one day they gave him an honorary title of colonel, they named him an honorary colonel of Kentucky by, you know, the mayor of, uh, you know, Knoxville, Tennessee, or something like that, or somewhere in Kentucky.

And that's how he adopted the name Colonel Tom Parker. That's how we were, and he still had that crazy voice, you know, that strange voice, but you know, Colonel Tom Parker. Now, this is where, this is where everything gets complicated. Um, mi, uh, uh, Rita meets Priscilla Presley from women's cancer organizations, and they just happen to meet at a restaurant here in Los Angeles. And Rita, oh, hello , Priscilla. Oh, Tom, we're so excited that, uh, you know, Tom is going to make the Baz movie about my husband, you know.

Yes. Well, yes. Uh, would you like to come? They could come over and we could have dinner and talk about it. Um. Oh. And so, not only did Priscilla come, but also Jerry Schilling, who was a member of the original "Memphis Mafia," who, uh, knew Elvis from high school football games, you know, back in Memphis. They came over and I said, uh, you know, we were just starting the process and I said, "Oh, well, please tell me a great horror story about Colonel Tom Parker." Yes.

And they looked at me and said, "We don't have any horror stories about Colonel Tom Parker." Hey? And I said, "Yes, look, you don't have to be nice, you know, don't worry about it." They said, "No, Colonel Tom Parker was a charming man who was a pleasure to be around, who showed nothing but the utmost respect for my husband." And my husband would not have become who he was without Colonel Tom. Colonel, I wish, Jerry Schilling said: " I wish he were still alive today so I could talk to him on the phone once a week." Oh.

He took care of Priscilla Presley long after the divorce. He would call her every Sunday and say, "How are you? How is your daughter? Is there anything I can do for you? If there's anything you need." Now, she also said, "Look, he was a carnival worker and we had to sue him for the money he owed us. But, you know, that's because he wasn't my husband's manager. He was my husband's promoter." "And they , both Jerry and Priscilla, described Elvis with a term that I think you'd probably use for a great artist like Picasso or maybe Eugene O'Neill or someone like that.

They said, 'Wow,' all my husband cared about was music. Playing music. At 3:00 in the morning, if he wasn't in bed, he was downstairs playing gospel on the living room piano. He loved it, that's what he wanted to do. He couldn't say yes or no. He'd say yes, sir. Of course. Yes. Uh, he was receptive, he was receptive to guidance. And if you take this reality, there's an old story. Unfortunately, it's not in the movie. I wish it were, where the colonel said to Elvis, 'Son, right now you've got a million dollars' worth of talent.'" "When I'm done with you, you'll have a million dollars." And that's true.

You, uh, from, from the signing with Colonel Tom Parker, where he was essentially making a living performing, you know, in small clubs and selling records out of the trunk of Sam Phillips' car. Yeah. Uh, he went from that to moving into the Graceland mansion, which he bought outright, you know, in 18 months. So that's what Colonel Tom Parker did for Elvis. Colonel Tom Parker's genius can't be overstated, but I think all of that is overshadowed by the great legacy of the late '60s and ' 70s, where the Colonel got it wrong.

I'm not going to deny it, he was, look, he wasn't, he never advised Elvis. Yeah. He never said, "I think you should make music like this." I think you should act this way." What he was, though, was very possessive. He wasn't willing to, you know, let go of his big elephant attraction that he had. That's another long story I could tell about that. Yeah. Uh, if you want to be the richest guy at the fair, have an elephant, because everybody pays 25 cents to see the elephant.

And they'll also pay another 10 cents for two cents' worth of peanuts to feed the elephant. And that was exactly what it was. Um, but when Elvis wanted to make movies, he was a very good man. "I'll get you a deal and you'll make movies." And, uh, if you want to, if you want to make more records, I'll get you a deal and you'll make more records. If you want to go on a big national tour, I'll make sure you can go on a big national tour; whatever you want is what you'll do.

What happened was, both Jerry and Priscilla told me that he was respectful. He called him Mr. Presley. They had a very close bond. What got in the way, which is what gets in the way Almost every business relationship is about time and money. Yes. I do n't think I'm telling any secrets when I say that Elvis came back from the army in the early '60s with a penchant for stimulants, you know, amphetamines. They were sold over the counter there. And everyone in the army was using them to stay awake during maneuvers and all that.

And he continued with that. And then, along with that, came the fact that you have to be able to relax. So there came this yin and yang of taking something that made you feel good and then something that made you sleep really well. Now, we can't...Elvis, you could probably look at the history of drug abuse in the '60s. And Elvis would make as much sense as anyone who was famous for being a heroin addict. You know, like Keith Richards and Elvis Presley. Essentially, they were looking for the same kind of escape that you get with some degree of narcotics.

Um, la la la la, the evil of Colonel Tom Parker, I think you're going to say he signed that deal in Las Vegas for a On the one hand, it was a brilliant deal because none of those shows cost Elvis Presley a single penny. Yes. The casinos paid for absolutely everything. But the bad thing was that the Colonel got all his gambling debts erased and secured $5 million a year for Elvis when he could have asked for $35 million a year, but there was no such thing as $35 million a year.

So , at the end of the day, you have to say, what did Colonel Tom Parker do for Elvis? Um, he made all his dreams come true. At the same time, he turned him , I think, into the elephant in a china shop that people paid 25 cents to see. I'm, I'm just like... that's the story. I didn't really talk about the character. I mean, that 's the logic of what has to come out in the character. So, when I talk about you having to understand, I have to understand the logic of why these people did what they did.

Colonel Tom Parker managed Elvis's career in a very specific way. Why? Because he knew he had Picasso. And to make Picasso more valuable, you have to make him less accessible. And so he took him off television. If you wanted to see Elvis Presley, there was only one way to do it. You wouldn't see him on the Steve Allen Show after that time. You wouldn't see him on the Tonight Show. You had to buy a ticket. You had to buy a record or listen to pay radio, which made them money every time it played.

I wonder, though, about your portrayal of Tom Parker... I was stunned that Priscilla Presley would say those things about him. Because, while your portrayal was certainly sympathetic, and you come away understanding that he was responsible for Elvis's stardom, you also come away (or at least I did) thinking that there were sociopathic tendencies in him; that he was a man who lacked empathy. He was. Yes. Um... I think that's where you get into the aspect of, um, who has the power here? I do. You know, because you want my boy, and if you want him, you're going to have to give me exactly what That's what I want.

That's how it works. Yes. I think the tragedy that hurt them both was the Colonel's lack of imagination, because in 1968... Colonel Tom Parker's philosophy was that you never bring politics to the fair. We don't get into that. We don't talk about those things. And what he did n't understand was the great power that Elvis had, because if Elvis had come out and spoken kindly about the state of, you know, Vietnam and everything that was going on. He instilled in Elvis that no, he was just an entertainer .

You're just an entertainer. We're supposed to entertain. If you want to go into politics, run for office and I won't be your representative anymore. And that was a mistake. He didn't understand the great cultural place that Elvis occupied, because Elvis wanted to, you know, Elvis was aware of all that. Elvis's influences were rhythm and blues, Black artists, and he gave jobs to all kinds of people of color in places where they wouldn't have had the opportunity if it weren't for Elvis. Presley, who said, "No, I want them in the band." I love them like my backup singers.

I want them at the show. Uh, and that's where you come in, the, uh, I think the easy way to say it is, well, you know, the Colonel gave Elvis Presley a, a career, but basically ruined his life. Yes. But even since, even since Priscilla, it's like, uh, uh, Elvis didn't have a trace of a businessman about him, but he could have said no. He could have said, he could have said no. Do you know, do you know what she thought of the film and of your, your performance?

Well, uh, I'll tell you this: there's no one who plays Elvis without going through some part of his, uh, uh, rights, uh, family, estate , and they've gotten burned many, many, many, many times because, uh, the Elvis myth is what prevails. Uh, I don't want to, I don't want to put words in their mouths, but they were , they were, they were very pleased, and I think with good reason. Because, I think the great power of Baz's film is that it becomes fascinating after the 1968 comeback special , because that's where, that's where, almost like, uh, Greek tragedy begins to take effect.

And the way it ended, the myth is that Elvis got fat, took a lot of drugs, gave terrible shows, and shot a TV. You know, that's pretty much it. He went crazy in one, in a hotel room in Las Vegas. Yes. And yes, he gave really bad performances, and yes, he was dazed, and yes, uh, yes, uh, uh , that was it, yes. Yes, he shot a television and, uh, you know, he was, uh, he was, he was, uh, he was under the influence of drugs.

But that, you know, we have that, it's in the film, that last contact, that voice never left and that power never left, even though he was bloated and tired and, uh, whatever. I think they were just happy, uh, I don't want to speak for them, I think they were just happy that their, uh, uh, their husband and Lisa Marie's father was portrayed as a struggling artist. Yes. Instead of, you know, uh, an example of laziness or greed or avarice. TRUE. TRUE. I'm curious about all the paper.

And by the way, uh, we're already over time, so we should wrap this up . We're just talking about movies, dude. I do that all day. Yes I'm fine. I really appreciate it. Um, I wonder, with all the roles he's played, right? Um, Ben Bradlee , Mr. Rogers, Jim Lovell in Apollo 13 and I think John Miller in Saving Private Ryan. Oh, yes, he's not a real person. He was, he was. Yes. But, but all the characters he plays, Walt Disney and Charlie Wilson. Um, with whom...this could be two different questions.

But let me do it in one go. Who do you identify with most? In other words, who do you think he looks most like? Perhaps they are different questions . I don't look like any of them. Because I don't have the ability or the perseverance, but I will say that there are several things to which I reacted immediately. Charlie Wilson, look, he wanted to kill Russians. Mhm. That's all. I wanted to confront them directly. "Hey, they're the bad guys and we've always lost to them." "Let's go get them." I understand that.

" Hey, let's give it a try." "Let's see what we can do." I know this game. It's all a game, man. I know how to play the game. Let's Play. We're going to eliminate some of those Russians at the same time. Um, I understand that; I will say that the pressure from Chesley Sullenberger, Sully, his sense of responsibility as a professional driver and what happened both in the Miracle on the Hudson and also the subsequent hearing, yes. before the National Transportation Safety Board . When he explained that to me, I thought: This is crushing pressure, unbearable pressure that this man was under.

But not only in the moment , because flying a plane full of 500 strangers from LaGuardia to Charlotte is a miracle if you manage to do it without anyone, you know, getting hurt. Every day, and I've always gained something or learned something powerful, and that's part of the reason why immersing myself in the initial process of getting to know who these people are, or shaping the logic of who they are , because not all of them are real people. One can get into trouble. That's when you enter, uh, the collaborative process where, uh, I start saying, "Let's not invent this, guys." "You know?" Why, you know, uh, there are things that come into the movies and I say, "No, it's not so black and white." For example, uh, in, uh, in Captain Phillips, uh, you know, I spoke with Rich Phillips and he guided me through the whole process.

And again, the cracking of bones, uh, the pressure, not just when he was there, uh. not only to save the hostage kidnapped by those Somali pirates, but also to keep the ship running. I mean, there are three unions and you 're always under pressure, uh, from the shipping company, and you have to comply with all these very specific things and it's one damn thing after another while you're at sea. Um, and on top of that, you get kidnapped by pirates. Um, and analyze all of that.

Part of me thinks I can't imagine going through that, but the other part is like, "Tell me about it again, because I think it's something I can briefly touch on." uh, uh, there. Um, and none of them are like me. Uh, because at the end of the day, I'm just a kid, a high school kid saying, "This is a class I can take." You know, I'm looking for, uh, the distraction that will make life interesting and fun . Uh, maybe it's work at the same time, but for me it isn't.

You know, I mean, and I'm sure you've been asked this version of the question a million times, but I wonder, I imagine that the characters that seem like the most difficult roles to play probably aren't. And those that people think are easier to interpret, may be the most difficult. For example, you know, being Woody, being a voice actor is really difficult. I've already done that job. It's tiring because you move physically and it requires a lot of energy. It 's brutal. It's the hardest job you do as an actor, because you can't move.

You don't have a costume. Yes. Uh, and you have to be right in front of the microphone, like this. If you're here, you're not in front of the microphone. So, you ca n't move. You have to get right there. Yes. It's bru. It's difficult. But I'll tell you this, everything is exactly the same. Yes. It's a constant, like the speed of light. You reach a brand at a very specific place in time and it works in real time. You can't , curiously there's nothing strange about a medium that is pure artifice.

There's no such thing as a fake moment once the camera is rolling, and you really have to get the job done. And I've seen, look, I've worked with some of the best actors on the planet. And when I observe them, I see that they fight in a refreshing way against the same shyness that I always feel. It's time to start a job. You feel it every time. Even at 66 ? Oh, every single time. Now, every time. Yes. Yes. Never, never, ever. What is that? What do you mean by that?

How does that actually manifest? Is it anxiety? Is it...? Okay, I'll tell you this. I came across ...Okay, this is a great story, because I couldn't believe it when it was happening. Years ago I was in a restaurant in New York and the waiter , excuse me, the maître d' approached. " Excuse me, Mr. Hanks," he says, "Mr. DiMaggio is having dinner at the hotel tonight." "She wondered if she could approach them so they could get to know each other." And I said, "Joe DiMaggio?" And he said, "Yes , yes, he's a regular customer here." I said : and I jumped up from the table and said, "Take me to him." Exact.

And I sat down and chatted with Joe DiMaggio. Yes. From San Francisco. I'm from Oakland. He knew it. He said, "Oh, you're an Oakland boy." "Oh, yes." "You're an Oakland boy." And what do you say to Joe DiMaggio? I said, "Um, do you still have the restaurant?" "I've eaten at your restaurant." "Well, I don't have it anymore, but yes, it's in high demand." I said, "Did you live in the Mission District?" Yes. Yes. I've lived everywhere, but yes, the most recent one. I said, " You suffered, there was some damage from the earthquake." Oh, yes.

Yes, we had earthquake damage. Yes. And I said to him, "Hey, where, where was, um, the Seals Stadium?" Because he played for the San Francisco Seals . Yes. And he gave me the address and said, "You can't imagine how important the Pacific Coast League was back then ." Because the main news on the sports pages was whether the Seals beat the Oakland Oaks and whether they were in Hollywood playing against the Stars, because there wasn't enough radio coverage on the West Coast about the Yankees, the Cubs, the Indians, and so on yet.

So then I asked him about his brothers. I said to him, "Um, you know, um, how long did Dom, Dom DiMaggio play? " He said, "Oh, he was a great baseball player." "A great baseball player ." Uh, um, and he said that maybe he was the best in the family. You know, Joe DiMaggio was saying this. Wow. And, you know, to sum it up, because he, he, he was eating alone, by the way. I was simply alone. So I said, "Well, it is, it is, Mr.

DiMaggio." "Oh, please, call me Joe." Was? Can't. I said, "You know, um, I've received a few criticisms from time to time, and I have to say, um, when critics say, uh, that I make it look easy, I often think of what they said about you , uh, that you made playing center field look natural and effortless." And he, he told me this: " Tom, it always seemed easy, except in here ." And he raised his large hands over his heart and said, "Oh, it seemed easy, but it wasn't in here ." And I thought, "He just, he just described what it means for me to stand up and say, 'Okay, I'm this guy and I'm going to fall in love, or I'm going to do this, or I'm going to be on the spaceship, ' or anything like that; it's never easy." But the process is instinctive.

And when you can let go of the self-awareness of, uh, of, uh, of the fallacy of all this. Uh, I made a movie called Road to Perdition with Paul Newman. Yes that's fine. Very good. It's like, you know , it's like playing ball with...it's like playing ball with Joe DiMaggio , you know? Oh, right, and from the first day we were together, you know, we got to know Paul, he was a magnificent man. And he was, you know, very original, very funny, very, you know, modest.

But there we all were, and the first day of filming was a big Irish wake. So there were probably 60 extras, all dancing, playing the piano and doing all that kind of stuff. And on that first day, Paul had to get up and make a toast, you know, like his character , he had to raise a glass of whiskey and, you know, say something. And, uh, uh, to say that everyone on the set was waiting for Paul Newman to say his first lines on the first day of a film, and he did, you know, while shooting, and he said, you know, "May...may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead." He said something like that and cut.

And Paul just froze, looked at all of us and said, "Hey, you always feel self- conscious on that first day, right?" And everyone laughed. It's like, "Okay, so even Paul has to fight against that tendency that this isn't something natural to do." Yes. And yet, if you do it well enough, it seems like the easiest thing in the world, and it never is. You know, talking about Joe DiMaggio or any athlete, right? They, they reach their peak around 32, maybe if they're lucky, 35, right? That's it, you know?

If you're a professional basketball player , 31, 32, and you're in a profession where you can really improve each time, like you, you're 66, you've been doing this professionally since you were 22, 23, and you feel that way? Do you feel that with every character you play, every role you take on, you have the opportunity to improve and that you actually improve as an actor? Uh, I'll say that the only measure I have is by the things I no longer pay any attention to. Uh, it means that when you're starting out, you think you have all these responsibilities outside of showing up with the text memorized and having an idea.

You think you have to, uh, supervise the props. You think you have to, you know, maintain a certain kind of tone. You think there's a different way to focus to achieve it. You have all these external things. You think you have to fight against that. Listen, be quiet. You know, you have to do everything, you have to say, " Please don't talk to me." You have all those things I used to have to protect what I thought was my magic. You know, this is how I work and this is what I have to do.

Yes. And all of that has simply been left behind . It's just that there isn't, um, uh , the burden of thinking that there's all this stuff you have to control, that actually gets in the way of what I think is the real, the true task, which was to make sure, to have, to provide the pure motivation for the character that is obvious, but that is only locked inside your own head. For example , uh, now there's an example, many times, um, uh, like the camera crew: you know, there's the focus puller, the camera operator and there might be someone else there, you know, the microphone guy , if you're, if you're on the sound set.

And recently everyone started dressing in black, you know, just so they could blend in, but there's still that thing where they say, "Hey Tom, am I in your line of sight?" And I told them, "Guys, I don't even see you anymore, I'm sorry, you know, you're fine, don't worry, because I don't see you anymore," even though you're in my field of vision, I just don't worry about it. Yes. So, at the age of...Thank you. 66 66. Um. There are a lot of things I no longer worry about, things that don't interest me.

I must say that what has become even more important, however, and this is becoming increasingly difficult, is to know the text so clearly that you do n't have to think about it. Yes. Um, if I have, uh, if I have, let's say , you know, if most scenes in movies aren't going to last much longer than four pages, right? Four pages of back-and-forth dialogue. But if you're in one of those scenes, like in a Nora Ephron movie, there's a lot of dialogue. Or I'll tell you that, when I was playing Sully with Clint Eastwood, we had some scenes that lasted 17 pages , 11 pages.

Yes. Or when you're on stage, in the theater. I've seen clips of that. Yes. Well, theater is interesting because you can start the story from the beginning every night. So there's a lot of muscle memory involved in keeping up with that rhythm. But if you're making a movie, you have a day, maybe two, to nail that scene. And like in Bridge of Spies, if one part is, you know, standing in front of the Supreme Court and arguing a case, that's a lot of dialogue. But it can't just be dialogue.

They have to be connected ideas in your head. Just like your favorite Bruce Springsteen song that you've been singing since 1986, you must know it so well, right? You can pick it up right in the middle. And that requires more time. That requires more. I mean, I have to write these things on cards and I have to carry them with me for a long time. I have to murmur and I have to think. And you have to do it so that as the day of filming approaches, you've really recharged your energy so that when you arrive, yes, the first thing you do in the morning is meet everyone else on the scene.

You say, "Guys, let's go over this ." Let's review this. Let's review it 15 times . How much time do we have? "Oh, that's fine. We'll be in my trailer going over it . I do it all the time. Hmm. Because the mental faculties here, the resources, the marathon aspect of this is... I don't know how much time I'm really going to have to give it 100% energy. Now, that's... is... is it? It's a technical thing I've learned to do. Well, maybe it is, but it actually ends up fueling what will make me stronger as an actor, something I wasn't able to do in movies when I was in my 30s or 40s.

You know, we were talking recently about that moment, call it luck, call it destiny, that led to you being cast as Kip in 'Bosom Buddies,' and your career, then 'Splash ,' 'Nothing in Common,' 'Big'... one could look at your trajectory and say, ' My God, at what point could Tom Hanks have had any self-doubt?'" " And I ask you this because someone might look at that trajectory and say, ' My God, it's just a string of successes, one after another.' And I'm wondering if you've ever had a moment of self- doubt, or if you have one now.

Well, if you want to talk about the last 24 hours, I can tell you about moments of...yes, there is a doubt that's pure neurosis, and I will say that I'm not a neurotic guy. Yes. I do n't wake up afraid of dying, or operate under the idea of, 'Oh, I might embarrass myself.' I don't have those kinds of doubts. Yes. And I will say that I never, dare I say, have ever had them. Very well. Yes. You're lucky. I am. Uh, I'm very lucky. I was able to see a Greyhound bus ride from Oakland to Red Bluff, California, as an opportunity to look out the window, daydream, and make up stories in my head.

So, in that kind of self-doubt, I think I'm very lucky. Uh, you can call it a degree of confidence if you want, or you can call it, um, Uh, cheekiness, bravery. Whatever it is, when I wake up at 2 a.m. and see myself in the bathroom mirror, I wonder what on earth has happened to me. I guess at 66, you do weigh these things up after a while. If you have four children and three grandchildren, and everything that comes with it, you ask yourself, "How am I affecting these people?" "Um, uh, just like I was branded.

But, if I can be prosaic enough, I struggle with the issue of authenticity. I struggle with, um, the difference between lying to make a living as an actor and lying to myself as a human being. Um, my work has to reflect some kind of ethic, like it did for my dad. You know, my dad hated the restaurant business, and when he got out of that, he loved what he did, you know, he was a commercial fisherman and stuff like that. And there's a way that what you do for a living really represents what 's important in your life.

There are people who love their jobs, you know, sometimes they're plumbers and they love their jobs. I love my job, and what comes with that, I think, is the responsibility to always walk this fine line between, um, between truth and falsehood, between, you know, consistency and, uh, presence. I, um, know the importance I place on being in the audience. Yeah. When I'm just sitting there watching Something, I take that contract I have with the people I'm watching very, very seriously. I'm in the audience, and my job is to let these people take me to that place.

That's why I'm here. Please show me something I've never seen before. Even if I've seen this production of Hamlet, show me something new in Hamlet. They did. Oh, they fulfilled their part of the contract. And so did I. When I'm on the other side of that, it's like, you, you have to, it's a money-back guarantee, brother. You have to, you have to. You have to bring that. You have to give it your all. And I see, there are films of mine that I don't watch, some of which you've just mentioned as big hits, because I see the fakeness in them.

Yeah. I see the loss. I see that one time. Damn, I missed that opportunity. And it's not because at the time I decided not to . It's because after it was over, I realized I didn't go far enough. I did n't get to the place I could have gotten. And then I asked myself, well, why What? Was it because I was satisfied with what I had? Was it because I didn't have the text down enough ? Was it because I didn't have enough of those ideas up my sleeve?

Or, you know, is it because I was late that day and we had to rush the take and instead of six takes, we only got two? That's where the doubt comes in, because, um, look , I'll come back to Joe DiMaggio. Mmm, balance, I've used that before. Acting in a film requires, I think, the same balance that great athletes have. And by balance, I mean that permanent state between relaxation and concentration. A soccer player has it. A hockey player has it. They have it in basketball.

I don't know if someone who runs a track has it because that's it. You know, you get in the starting blocks, you run as fast as you can, you throw something as far as you can. It's not a competition. It's an ensemble. Mmm, you're part of a team. Yes. And that means that if you're in a scene and everyone has their close-up, when you It's up to you, you better do your part. You know, you better be there as much as they were. And oh, that's where, that's where the night sweats and the terrors come in.

So the doubt, I think, someone said, you know, back in the old days, you think, what is acting? What is performing? Hmm, and why can some people do it and others can't? And it's because it's the battle with shyness. I remember I never wanted to wear a hat in anything. I would literally say, "I don't want to wear a hat." Why? Because I look stupid in a hat, right? Uh, and then we did "The Green Mile" with Frank Darabont. And we had a very tight ensemble on that.

We were, we were as tight as the 1927 Yankees on that, on that movie . All of us because we shot on the same set every day. And the uniforms, the prison guards' wardrobe, were so incredibly cool, man. And we had this logic that was established that, that, uh , that really He loved it. When we executed someone on the green mile, that meant it was a formal occasion. And that's why we all wore our hats, our uniform hats. And Frank would say, " Ah, you know, I don't know with those." "I don't know if we need the hats there ." I said, "Frank, Frank, Frank, we have to wear the hats." We have to wear the hats because when we operate 'Old Sparky' and we've done the tests and we have the generators running, we know we're going to kill a man." "We're going to execute a man that night." You have to give us guards the uniforms as armor so we can get into character, because we don't wear the hats all day.

We only put on those hats when we're going to execute someone. And Frank said, "Yes, I understand that." I understand, but I don't know. They're wearing hats indoors." Yes, we're wearing hats indoors because it's official now." And finally he said, "Uh, I don't know, man." "I just think you look a little ridiculous in a hat," something I'd said 8 million times in my career before that. And then my defense was: well, yes, that's true, because that's how I look in a hat . And we won the argument.

We used the hats in the sketch. And that kind of self-consciousness is the difference between being able to pull it off and not pulling it off. Yes. If you see, if you get distracted by something onstage or if you do n't have the lines in your head and you're not working on that specific idea, you'll feel self- conscious about how you look and how you sound. And that's the death of acting. I wonder if you know, for me, can I add that? No, it's not set in stone.

I should have said: for me, that's the death of acting, right? I think a lot of people can relate to this idea of ​​authenticity and also even, you know, just by hearing you talk about roles you can't see. I 've interviewed 25,000 people. Or interviews that I can't listen to because I hear the flaws, and the, and the questions I didn't ask, and, and, and also, you know, um, you know, there's a public image and a private image. And often they're the same, but there's a heightened version, right?

Like, people who listen to my show probably think I'm always very nice and positive, but sometimes I'm not . Sometimes I'm negative and I'm angry and my wife calls me a jerk, you know? Yeah, that happens occasionally. Yeah. Um, and so I guess my question for you is, is, is, why do you do it? What motivates you to go out and play these characters? Marlon Brando, famously, and I don't know if this is apocryphal, but he did it to cash a check. Like, he really was a carpenter.

He went out, got a job, made the cabinet, and then, and that, and, and so, why do you do it? What makes you get out of bed and go to the set to Play that role? I'll tell you this. I actually have an answer to this question. I'll go back to Vincent Dowling, the artistic director of the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival. At the first rehearsal of that production of The Cherry Orchard at the Sacramento Actors Theater— I think that's what it was called. And I'm there because I didn't get cast in What the Butler Saw at Sacramento State University.

We were sitting there, about to do a first reading. And he gave a little speech—you know, an Irish guy, very good with that kind of smooth talk, but also eloquent—and he was talking about why we should be actors, why we're here, why theater, and he said, "We 're all here because something like this doesn't exist anywhere else." He said, "We're all here because there's nothing like this." You know, there are poets, artists, singers, and musicians, and they do it because it's the only thing they can do.

But I think working in theater is more fun than fun. And I listened to that and everything, I 'm not lying to you. I mean, I was 19 or so. that it was. I said that's how I've felt, you know, since high school. Doing a play in high school isn't like going to school. It's like doing a play. It's like...it's more fun than fun. I've never thought...look, work is hard. I don't want to downplay it. But the essence of it boils down to why Joe DiMaggio would put on that San Francisco Seals uniform and go play a doubleheader in September.

Yeah. Because there's no life like this. There's something that's so grand. Even if you lose the game, what you've experienced is all this time invested in balance. Yeah. That state between concentration and relaxation. I think the only other time you might feel that is when you're babysitting your little kids, you know, when they're walking around the room and you have to watch them in case they trip and hit their head on the edge of the table. So you have to be right there, but at the same time, you're there laughing because they're walking around.

They're so funny . They're better entertainment than television. I don't want to sound corny, But it's simply , it's more fun than funny. And that spark of feeling alive when something is expected of you and you have to hit the mark. Spencer Tracy, this is the other great thing, you know. Ah, there's nothing to acting. It's simple acting. All you have to do is hit the mark and tell the truth, right? A lot of people can hit the mark. Not everyone can tell the truth. And not everyone can tell the truth without a lot of effort.

There was a... I mean, you know this, you're often talked about in the same way as Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, or some of these iconic actors. And I recently read a quote, I think it was George, I know it was George Clooney, and he was asked, " Why aren't you more public? Why are n't you on social media?" "Or something like that. And he said, 'You know, I think the role, my role as a star, is to carry myself with dignity and not necessarily open my life up to the world .' And when we talked about the actors we mentioned, Paul Newman or Jackie Gleason, who you worked with, or Spencer Tracy, Marlon Brando, there was a sense of mystery about them.

We didn't know them, which I don't have. Very few actors have them these days, right? Yes. And I wonder if you think there's value in that sense of mystery. Well, I think there is. Look, this is very, very fashionable. I rarely have a conversation, frankly, like this, about what we do for a living, because usually your average press release comes out simply to remind people why they like you and to give them the opportunity to ask the questions they already know the answer to. You know, that's just how it is .

The concept of mystery now, I think, can also be encompassed by equality of appearance, and it means that there are actors out there, actors of any genre. I have no idea of what goes on in that person's mind, and I love the fact that we don't know . Yes. And some of them are, you know, some are big stars and they're well-known, but you have no idea where they live or what they do. For example, I once had a meeting with Robert Redford here in Santa Monica, and I said to him, "Bob, I've driven past your office 1,500 times." Do you have an office here?

"I said, I realized I do n't know where he lives. I don't know where he eats. I've never seen him drive a car. He's never in a fashion show. I haven't seen him cut in at a baseball game or anything like that. Right. So he had a lot of mystery, but his face was extremely well-known. Yes. I mean, Robert Redford brought Robert Redford to every role he played. Right. And I think the same is true of a lack of mystery. Now, there's privacy and there's mystery.

But I think face is something that makes people feel like, well, they know your spirit . They know you, they know your ethics. They don't necessarily have to know, because look, if I'm on one, if I'm doing a PR campaign , if I'm on what I call the celebrity mule train, I'm performing for everyone there. Sure. I try to be authentic. I try to tell the truth just enough without lying, you know , and I certainly make the mistake of think: "Did I say something so stupid in that interview that I'll have to apologize?" "That happens about once a week.

Be prepared. I'm sure something will come up where I'll have to say, ' Let me take that back.' But the fact is, the nature of the business, the requirements, the commercial aspects, and the corporate aspects say, 'Oh, no, no, no, you can't have— you can have a certain degree of mystery , but you can't—you can't disappear .' You—you can make that kind of—that kind of decision, and it could—it could affect, you know, the opportunities you have to work at a high level, I mean, uh, big movie budgets that can be attractive, but also, it's like, you know, remember, uh, we talk about this all the time.

When I was a kid, maybe when you were a kid too. The only time you saw movie stars outside of the movies they were in was maybe on The Jack Parr Show and the TV broadcast of the Academy Awards. That's when you'd see Elizabeth Taylor standing next to one of the Redgraves, you know." That's where you'd see Laurence Olivier walking down the same red carpet as Rod Steiger. You didn't see them anywhere else . Nowhere. And God knows you see celebrities absolutely everywhere. You can't , there aren't, unless, unless you go live behind a mound on a, you know, private farm in Salina, Kansas, a lovely part of the country, Salina, Kansas.

You have, uh, a new movie , "A Man Called Otto," and I think you have a novel, your first novel, coming out next spring. Yes. And, uh, and you've already written a book of short stories. I mean, there are a lot of different things you do. Directing, you collect typewriters, we'll talk, we won't have time to talk about that in detail, but, uh, all those things you do, how, how do you, how do you... I mean, are all those things requirements for you to just keep your creative spark alive?

I mean, it's absolutely, it's absolutely what it is. I, I can't wake up by The morning, uh, uh, uh, and, and not chasing some kind of thing that's floating around . It's totally different. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to have to go back to this, this is how I used to spend my time on 4-hour Greyhound bus rides, you know. Um, you're alone, there was no such thing as headphones or movies or anything like that that you'd take with you. I'd look out the window and daydream.

I'd look out the window and see stories in my head. Some were about me, but some were just about, uh, canvases and horizons much, much, much bigger. And, uh, if I had to say, what do I do? I'm a professional storyteller. That's what I am. Yeah. Uh, sometimes I control the whole story. Sometimes I'm just a voice in it. And I can't imagine, uh, living without that kind of, uh, creativity. Uh, you know, I just read a book by Herman Wouk. I think it's Wouk, not Wok.

You can, I, I will bow down to Herman, always I said Wouk, but it could be... Yes, I always, I always say the guy who wrote *The Caine Mutiny* and *The Winds of War*. Uh, he kept writing until he was 100 years old. You know, he was the Norman Lear of his day. He'd get up every day and, uh, write. And I read this book called *Don't Stop the Carnival* that I'd never heard of. And then I realized, oh my God, I've, I've read in, uh, I've, I've read so much Herman Wouk that, uh, he probably, probably did this work over 50 years, you know, from beginning to end.

And I thought, " Oh, I really get that." That's a guy who would get up and say, "What 's the point of the day if you're not going to deliver a thousand pages, a thousand words?" " You have to get up and do your, do your pages. And I have to get up and reflect on a story. I have to get up and, uh, I ca n't help it. I don't watch much television. The kids are out of the house now. We don't have a dog.

Uh, I don't play golf. Uh, uh, I, I, I, I get up and, uh, I can't help thinking about, oh, you know, we, we have that thing going on at the office. I wonder what the latest is, you know, maybe we can add something like that to it. It's , um, uh, it's just in my nature. And I, I would say it could , it could go back to that, that, um, that time when, uh, as a kid, uh, nobody was telling us what was going on.

So we just, you know, kept ourselves busy, you know, because no explanations were coming. So I always had this. I said, 'No, I'm fine.'" "I'll keep busy." I have, my, our youngest son, our youngest son who actually plays young Otto on *The Neighbor*. He is, in fact, uh, he has a, he has a degree in math, for goodness sake, which makes you think, this is Truman. Truman. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, uh, I mean, you're a Hanks? Well, I do n't know any of us who are good at math.

I don't know. But he was very young, and I'll say this of all my kids because he's the only one who verbalized it. We were on a road trip, and I said to him in the morning, "Oh, hey, we'll do this this afternoon," and in the end, we couldn't do it. And then I realized it was too late, and I said, "Hey, dude ." I'm sorry, man." The day flew by and we couldn't do it ." He said, "Oh, it's okay." I said, "Well, you know, I just don't want you to get bored." And he looked at me like I was crazy.

He said, "Dad, I never get bored." And I thought, "Okay." " Very well." After all, he's a Hanks. Because I must say, I'm never bored because I always have these stories and these ideas swirling around in my head. Sometimes they see the light of day, and sometimes they don't. What's the most common line from one of your movies that people quote to you when they see you? What do they say? What's the line? They yell "Wilson" at me quite often. Run, Forrest, run. That's another one.

Um. "Houston, we have a problem." They yell that at me all the time. They yell, " Earn it!" Uh-huh. Yeah. You know, like... I'm surprised you haven't heard, "No crying in baseball." Oh, they say that to me. Yeah, that's pretty common. "Prepare for impact." I get told that from time to time, but, you know, the expression, I think, counts for a lot. It's a lot of " Hey, Tommy," you know, I get a lot of that. "Hey, Tommy." And that's like, you know, an everyday thing.

You know. Do you like it? I remember asking Jimmy Fallon about this because I've been around him and seen him interact with people, and he loves it. He loves it when people come up to him in restaurants to talk to him. I'm sure you've seen that with him, too. And you're very approachable because of your public image and the roles you play. And I'm sure people just come up to you because they want to talk to you. And do you love it, or is it sometimes something that, I do n't know, you'd rather avoid?

Well, I get it. Sometimes it makes perfect sense, and it's very, very straightforward. But, you know, it's not great when you're having dinner with your family because they don't just come up to me. They come up to the family table, and generally, I'd say 90% of the time, it's fine. It's great. People say "hey," and it's easy to have a quick interaction, but it's part of the territory. And the alternative is not being in public, you know, not doing those things. Things. When I'm in New York City, the easiest way to get around is by taking the subway.

Yeah. Nobody ... how can you take the subway? First of all, everyone's looking at their phone, you know, and everyone's just in their own world. And every now and then, if someone does make eye contact with me, their body language is like, "What are you doing down here?" "And my body language responds, 'I have an appointment downtown .' And his eyes say, 'It's so nice to see you .' And my eyes say, 'Thank you.' And that's it . That's all that happens. The other thing that happens is when you're promoting something; that's when the marketers come out, and you have to deal with that because everyone wants a piece of you.

But usually, it's like, 'Oh, hi, how are you?'" "." "I'm fine." "How are you?" "." I'm fine "." "It's so nice to see you." Alright "." " Okay, Tommy." You know how it is. And you just go on your way. Tom, thank you so much for taking all this time. Thank you. Well , did we get to the bottom of anything? I don't know. Um...uh... I do n't know if that's really the point . It's more about exploring things. That's true. Yes, that's true. It's more interesting to explore.

Not once you get to the bottom of it, because then there's nowhere to go. Ah... but when you're exploring, there's always more to discover. Oh, anyway, there are no answers. All of this will pass too. But I liked it because it's just a conversation, instead of, you know, we're not...I mean, we... there's always the "What are we doing at the end of the day?" "Talking about how we do our work, and that 's one of the best ways to get to know someone. It's like...that's where you find out that a guy who's a plumber really loves his job.

Yeah. Or, you know, a woman who does, you know, insurance scans or something. Like when you go and talk to someone, you know, the person who does the sonogram of your carotid artery, and you end up having a conversation with her. You say something like, 'Hey, can I ask you a question?' Yeah, sure. I said, 'Have you ever come across something that makes you go " wow" while you're doing that?' She said, 'Oh, it happens all the time.' And then they tell you a story about someone who came in and what they discovered about that person's carotid artery and how fascinating it is.

That's a cool thing. And that's just a conversation. It's easy to do. That was my conversation with Tom Hanks. I'll link some of the videos we mentioned in this interview on our website. Go to thegreatcreators.com/hanks. And we post the show notes for all our episodes at thegreatcreators.com. For more episodes like this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button below this video. And if you want to know when we post new videos, just hit the bell icon and you'll get a notification. I'm Guy Roz. You've been watching and listening to The Great Creators.

Thank you so much. See you here next time.