TOM HANKS Reveals The 'Countenance Theory' That CHANGED His Acting Career

Tom Hanks 0:00 Sometimes life passes in the wink of an eye, and it's like, "Wow, are we here already?" But there's other times in that same wink of an eye, you comprehend it all. One of the greatest and most iconic actors of all time.

Speaker 0:13 He has starred in dozens of movies over his 40-year career.

Jay Shetty 0:16 You know him, you love him. Tom Hanks.

Tom Hanks 0:19 If you're just looking at the past and saying, "Man, that was when it was great. I wish we could go back," no. You never want to go back. You always have to understand that our best days are still ahead of us.

Jay Shetty 0:30 Well, as you keep saying, more will be revealed as well.

Tom Hanks 0:32 This too shall pass, and more shall be revealed.

Jay Shetty 0:37 The number one health and wellness podcast.

Speaker 0:39 Jay Shetty.

Tom Hanks 0:40 Jay Shetty.

Speaker 0:41 The one, the only Jay Shetty.

Jay Shetty 0:45 Tom Hanks, welcome to On Purpose. It's truly an honor and a gift to be in your presence, to have you here.

Tom Hanks 0:52 Oh, my.

Jay Shetty 0:52 And even the first few moments that we've just exchanged a few thoughts, ideas, and stories, I'm, I'm already enjoying your company so much, and I'm so grateful that you took the time to do this.

Tom Hanks 1:02 Oh, well, k- likewise.

Jay Shetty 1:03 And I watched Here, which is out on November 1st. I have so much that I wanna talk about it through and through your lens. And when I was watching it, to me, the theme of home obviously is so strong and apparent. And I wanted to ask you, where do you feel most at home, apart from home?

Tom Hanks 1:21 Okay. All right, man. All right. Let's throw deep right off the bat.

Jay Shetty 1:25 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 1:25 Because I was, so many things lined up with me at my age. I was the third of four. Uh, my parents were very preoccupied with all certain, you know, like the positives and miseries [laughs] of their lives. I like to joke that they pioneered the marriage dissolution laws for the state of California, you know, back... They got divorces when only, like, Zsa Zsa Gabor, you know-

Jay Shetty 1:49 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 1:49 ... or, you know, Nikki Hilton got divorces. My home environment was fluid in that we moved a lot, and we were suddenly living with a whole different set of people 'cause people, you know, my parents got remarried and whatnot. So that by the time I was seven, I had lived in eight different homes. By the time I was 10, I had lived in 10 different homes. And it's always been like that, so, um, I am not intimidated by it, and I don't think I'm damaged by it at all. As a matter of fact, my brother, uh, who I did not live with, he lived in the same town and in one of three houses all his life, and [laughs] I consider myself the lucky one. [laughs] You know? Just, just by the nature of so much stuff that I've, that I've seen and so much stuff that I've, um, been able to experience and be comfortable with. Now, uh, look, I, you know, I, I'm 68, so I went through... I, I witnessed everything, you know. Whatever drug thing that you wanna go, I, I wasn't a participant in an awful lot of that because I was so, um, I was kind of, like, entertained by the new rules of whatever we were, and here's a new school, and here's a new apartment complex, and now we're living in a bonafide neighborhood. And I was not intimidated by all of that stuff, and I was also comfortable, perhaps in a way that's not healthy in some ways, of being a new guy in a new circumstance, sizing up a room, sizing up a school, figuring out, "All right, what, what's the easiest way to get comfortable here?" And part of it is being open, you know, kinda like taking over, cracking a few jokes, ne- not getting in trouble, and that's different from, I would say, like, my older brother, who was very shy, and we were

Tom Hanks 3:42 connected at the hip through, through all of this stuff. And it was not great for the other members of my family. But there was just something about the, the roll of the dice, number three of four, right there when the parents are too busy with all this other kind of stuff e- And, and, uh, my, my siblings were not much older than I was but older than I w- They were social beings long before I was. I didn't become a social being until I was, like, seven years old or whatnot.

Jay Shetty 4:10 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 4:11 And by that time, I had lived in very many places. So you're t- [laughs] Long-winded conversation.

Jay Shetty 4:15 [laughs] I love it.

Tom Hanks 4:16 Where, where are, where, where do I feel at, where do I feel at home most? I'm going to say now at the age of 68 with some collection of my immediate family, wherever we are, provided we are, and I don't mean to be goody, laughing, you know? Provided we are laughing at perhaps the absurdity of it or dealing with the cruelty of it or sometimes just the surrealistic aspect of, "Can somebody tell me how we ended up here exactly?"

Jay Shetty 4:46 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 4:46 "Can someone, can someone do that right now?" So I, uh, uh... Now, that's not necessarily a strength because along with that came, "Dude, I travel light, and I can travel light emotionally. My, I'm done. There's stuff that I cannot control." I have left many a, a wonderful atmosphere or a loving atmosphere or a friendly atmosphere, and, uh, like, uh, Ernie Banks, the, uh, you know, the ballplayer for the Chicago Cubs, without ever looking back, without thinking, "Oh, things were really wonderful back then. I wish I was back there." Jay, I don't think I've ever thought that.

Jay Shetty 5:25 Wow.

Tom Hanks 5:26 Now, is that great? Is it facile? Or is it, um, so mercurial that d- maybe, maybe [laughs] you shouldn't trust me. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 5:36 [laughs] Is it, is it, does it feel like... It feels like and sounds like a healthy detachment.

Tom Hanks 5:42 There is a type... Okay, let's talk about that because there is a version of detachment that means that you can navigate, say, like... Can I say assholes? Uh, you know-

Jay Shetty 5:52 Of course. You can say whatever you like, yeah

Tom Hanks 5:53 ... okay. So you can navigate assholes. And, you know, I, I think my experience is about 90% of the people to- ... that you come across are pretty decent folks. 5% are assholes, and I'll say 5% are sociopaths [laughs]

Jay Shetty 6:09 [laughs] Yeah.

Tom Hanks 6:10 And you cannot avoid that other 10%, those two 5%. And, and my- the ability to, to detach from those circumstance, without a doubt, a good thing. But the habit then I think of, uh, choosing isolation from the other 90%, 'cause what can I rely on? At the end of the day, I can only rely on what I can fit in either my emotional suitcase, an actual suitcase, or the back of my car.

Jay Shetty 6:40 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 6:40 Uh, and that, and that lingers for a very long time. So I, I think the healthy aspect of it has been a great aid to me, as well as the, the, the tendency to want to be isolated, to not need anybody, put it that way. To not want anybody, because that's just what I learned. Life is easier if you don't need [laughs] anybody, and it's- can be a lot easier if you want nothing more than what's in the back of the car. But that can be a solitary life-

Jay Shetty 7:14 Mm-hmm

Tom Hanks 7:14 ... and a lot of times being solitary can be confused with being lonely.

Jay Shetty 7:19 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 7:19 And it, w- uh, lonely can l- being lonely can lead to anger and resentments and stuff that you gotta work through. And, uh, okay, at the 68, you know, a lot of those years have been dealt with dealing with the latter and enjoying the former at the same time.

Jay Shetty 7:34 Mm-hmm. Well, I, I think what you've rightly said is that there's this binary feeling of if you're detached, you're lonely or disconnected, or you might be at the other end, codependent and attached and not have the ability to operate in a solitary state. So how have you danced almost so beautifully between the two of being able to confidently say you've been detached in the right ways-

Tom Hanks 7:58 Yeah

Jay Shetty 7:58 ... and, and then at the same time you have this beautiful relationship with your wife, you have long-term friendships with

Jay Shetty 8:03 people in the industry, Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg. You have, you have these-

Tom Hanks 8:06 People I worked with, yeah

Jay Shetty 8:07 ... yeah, people you worked with.

Tom Hanks 8:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jay Shetty 8:08 So how, how does that dance work? Because I do think that the magic is in the dance, not in the choice.

Tom Hanks 8:14 I'm gonna say that I got very, very, very lucky, uh, be- being in the right place at the right time and recognizing something that was just [laughs] for me. Uh, uh, all right, let, you go back to, let's just go back to school. You know, people say show business is like high school with money.

Jay Shetty 8:34 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 8:35 Uh, high school is like show business without money.

Jay Shetty 8:37 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 8:38 You know? It, it truly was. Um, and when I was, when I w- look, I just went to school and my joke was we moved around so much that whenever, you know, at the end of the school year, I, my dad would stand me out on the driveway and say, "Son, uh, your school is somewhere in that direction."

Jay Shetty 8:54 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 8:55 "Just walk that way, and when you see kids your own age, just follow them and they will lead you to whatever school, uh, you are supposed to go to." The school was a social kind of like place for me, and every now and again there might be a moment that landed in my intellectual pursuit, if that makes sense. I can't say I really loved going to school, but I certainly loved the hang of going to school. That's a different thing. Subject matters, that was a roll of... History was great sometimes. Some reading was great, but I was no artist. I was no, you know, I was no mathematician. You know, I, I kinda liked geography because you could visualize a map and know where like Sri Lanka was or, you know, the difference between Cambodia and Thailand. Uh, but when I was in high school and had no idea what I was supposed to do with my time other than, you know, maybe go to Young Life-

Jay Shetty 9:48 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 9:48 ... you know, hang out, you know, hang out with, you know, some sort of like, uh, uh, theological, you know, brothers. But, uh, other than that, sign up for class, maybe do your homework on the bus on the way to school and, what, run track? I don't know. What, what are you supposed to do? But, uh, the, uh, there was a theater teacher. There was a theater department at this high school, and actually

Tom Hanks 10:15 a, uh, this guy I'd known since, uh, sixth grade was playing Dracula in the, in the, in the high school play. And I said, "What? Really?" And so, you know, we went. We went up to school at night to see him, and I'd never been at my sc- high school at night. Looks different at night, right? And then I sat there and there was, you know, a lun- a bunch of people in the auditorium, and then they came out and did this play, and I thought, "This is school?"

Jay Shetty 10:41 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 10:42 "You can do this at school? School isn't this thing just to survive?"

Jay Shetty 10:46 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 10:46 "This isn't this thing just to fill up your time, to leave as soon as you can and get there on, at the la- " Oh, no, I'd never cut class. I ne- didn't do that because in some ways the hang of school was too much fun. But when I saw that there was this kind of discipline that, um, I had already been thinking of in my head, that just changed everything. That just... When you suddenly have a reason to go and do something, and the reason is in a pursuit of something that you cannot find anywhere else, right? That my, I gotta say my junior and senior years of high school, I have been living that same exact life and excitement ever since. I'm, I'm not kidding.

Jay Shetty 11:29 Wow.

Tom Hanks 11:29 The idea of auditioning for, um, the first, uh, uh, like... Our great, uh, instructor, our, our, our teacher, he wanted to do real plays because he loved to do the, uh, scenic design for it. So we're, we did, uh, um, Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams. How about that?

Jay Shetty 11:48 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 11:48 16-year-old, 17-year-old kids playing Night of the Iguana. Then we did Shakespeare and we did, uh, uh, uh, they did, uh, um, musicals as well. Those, those were always popular. But suddenly having this tantalizing thing that's like if you have an imagination- And if you're not afraid of getting up in front of people, which I was not-

Jay Shetty 12:07 Mm-hmm

Tom Hanks 12:08 ... uh, some people can't get up and s- [laughs] it was a bunt for me. I, I did it, I did it without even thinking. That, that gave, that gave a purpose, uh, and a pursuit that was much, much bigger than anything else that had been, been in my life. Now, I have a friend of mine from the same era, uh, James is his name. H- I met him in fifth grade, and he said to me he was going to be a draftsman. He was going to, he was gonna be an engineer. He was gonna design buildings, and he did. That's what he's been doing all of his life. I knew, I knew people that, uh, at the same age, they said, "Well, I really love to cook." And they have written cookbooks, and they've run their own catering companies. Um, that is what... That's the same sort of thing that I, that I landed upon without really knowing it. Um, because my parents were divorced, I spent a lot of time traveling to and from my, you know, where my mom lived in this small town or where my dad lived, uh, in, uh, in Oakland in the Bay Area. And those hours on a Greyhound bus starting when I was seven, seven or eight years old, five hours of just daydreaming, five hours of looking out the window, five hours of looking at people pass in cars, uh, air- trains going by farms and whatnot, buildings and the na- the natural preponderance, I had to sit there quietly and imagine what was going on. That was, that fueled me into realizing that there's this thing that there's actually a discipline and a trade and an art and a, and a, uh... What's the word I'm looking for? And, uh, well, I'll just say it again, a pursuit that is, let's put on a show. Let's tell a story. That came along, and bang. That, that was it. And I'm telling you, it's the same exact now as it, as it was then.

Jay Shetty 13:54 Mm. Did you write on those journeys, or was it mainly-

Tom Hanks 13:57 I wanted to write, uh, specifically, but I did not... Literally, I did not have the, I did not have the scholastic example. I did not learn the tools because I just wanted to fake it-

Jay Shetty 14:11 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 14:12 ... you know, at, at the last moment.

Jay Shetty 14:14 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 14:14 Now, I started writing about, about 20 years ago by just incorporating the work that an actor does that is not told to anybody, that is not spoken. That actually was a form of writing, uh, that came, ca- came about, and I was sort of, like, instructed on, on how that come, how that comes along.

Jay Shetty 14:35 Mm.

Tom Hanks 14:35 But, uh, without putting it down on paper, I had malleable, cohesive narratives in my head-

Jay Shetty 14:43 Incredible

Tom Hanks 14:43 ... for all of this stuff, and I just thought, "Well, isn't that what everybody does?" That's-

Jay Shetty 14:47 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 14:47 ... that's the way you do this, right?

Jay Shetty 14:49 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 14:49 'Cause it's not just showing up on time and, you know, learning your words and, uh, and, uh, doing what you're told. It... There is something beyond that, and the beyond that was always 15 times greater than the actual physical showing up. I can't, I can't discount enough the power of the hang. You wanna hear a story? Here's a, here's a short business-

Jay Shetty 15:12 Please. Yeah.

Tom Hanks 15:12 Okay, here's a short business story.

Jay Shetty 15:13 Yeah. Please, please, please.

Tom Hanks 15:14 Uh, Darlene Love. You know who Darlene Love is? Legendary singer.

Jay Shetty 15:18 Yes.

Tom Hanks 15:18 She, you know, singer, uh, a fantastic, fantastic, uh, Motown artist, among other things. We were- I was on the Christmas show of, uh, the old David Letterman Show, and every year he brought her along to sing It's Christmas, this fabulous rendition with a big orchestra and male choruses. I saw her there, and I said, "Oh. Oh, my..." I'd seen her on the David Letterman Show for, like, six or seven years, and I said... I met her and I said, "I, Ms. Love, I, I cannot believe that I am on the show with you. You are, uh, you, you have been belting out, you know, so, so many moments of the soundtrack of my life that I, I'm just, I'm just thrilled that you're here, and I'm here- glad that you're still doing it." And she looked at me and said, "Tom, I'm just here for the hang."

Jay Shetty 16:03 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 16:04 And I got... I completely, I completely got that because the hang, the interaction with everybody, dealing with the attractiveness of those 90%, avoiding or learning how to negotiate around those other 5%-

Jay Shetty 16:19 Mm-hmm

Tom Hanks 16:19 ... you know, the jerks and the, uh, and the evil people, ain't that just living?

Jay Shetty 16:24 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 16:24 You know? Ain't that, ain't that better than being in alone in a room when you don't have a thought in your head? You gotta stick to the plan. You gotta lay your head down. You gotta fight for it. You gotta compete. Yeah, okay, there's times when, you know, you gotta do that other kind of stuff.

Jay Shetty 16:37 Mm.

Tom Hanks 16:37 And other times you just kinda, like, gotta roll over and say, "I, I surrender." Just because something has happened doesn't mean it's going to. Just because you're in a place doesn't mean that's where you should be. My life used to be nothing but chopping wood and carrying water, and now that I have received some enlightenment, I find that all that is necessary for me to live is to chop wood and carry water. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 17:03 Yes.

Tom Hanks 17:03 And I said, "Okay. All right, man."

Jay Shetty 17:06 I was wondering, you talked about luck a lot there. Can we all become a bit more lucky?

Tom Hanks 17:11 The fellow who ran the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, Vincent Dowling, I, I worked for him for three years, and he's, he's the, the, the number of people that loved that man and worked with that man, he, he touched a great many people's lives. He said, um, "It's the most unfair business in the world." That's one aspect of it, because so much of it re- requires being in the right place at the right time by choice-

Jay Shetty 17:37 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 17:38 ... and by sacrifice, you know? And that's not easy to do. I feel that I was fortunate that from, as we spoke about, from that upbring- bringing, I had no, I had no qualms about, "Hey, let's go. I got enough money for gas. Let's..." The, the... I drove across the country with four other people one f- one, one time, and then the next year I drove across the country by myself. Did not bat an eye.

Jay Shetty 18:01 Mm.

Tom Hanks 18:01 No. And there are people that, listen, they just can't do that, you know? There is a degree of security and fear and, uh, intimidation that, that can go along with what- Putting yourself in the right place at the right time

Jay Shetty 18:16 Mm

Tom Hanks 18:16 ... and along with that will come all... It's a f- look, it's a 50/50... You c- [laughs] okay, it's a 50/50 s- th- Have you ever heard this great thing? I'm no mathematician, but when I heard this, I thought, "That's actually a principle for living." Jay, if I had a quarter and I flipped it and it came up heads five times in a row, what are the odds that it's gonna come up heads a seventh time- a sixth time, sixth time in a row?

Jay Shetty 18:42 Is it still 50/50?

Tom Hanks 18:44 It's absolute 50/50. Just because something has happened doesn't mean it's going to. Just because you're in a place doesn't mean that's where you should be. So along with luck, shouldn't

Tom Hanks 18:56 the, uh, shouldn't the other requirement be, um, faith or some degree of disconnected to it, to whatever the end result is gonna be? You're gonna have to be... I was, I, I s- I was talking to a friend of mine and he said, uh, he read somebody, I don't know who it was, but, uh, someone, someone wrote down, uh, "You have to be all right with what's gonna happen." And I just went, "Well, okay"

Jay Shetty 19:22 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 19:23 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 19:23 Thanks for that. Yeah.

Tom Hanks 19:24 Yeah, all right. Let's- let's try to do that. So you have to be all right with what's gonna happen right or wrong, disaster, disease, you know, uh, whatever. You have to be, you have to be all right with what is going to happen with some degree of faith and luck that what happens after that is the best thing that could possibly be.

Jay Shetty 19:45 What- what's helped you get closer to that? That sounds hard.

Tom Hanks 19:49 It is. Well-

Jay Shetty 19:50 It sounds impossible almost

Tom Hanks 19:52 ... uh, yeah, yeah. I'm going to say that age, in all honesty, experience. You know that thing of, uh, what has not destroyed me only makes me stronger? And look, let's not discount the power of getting your ass kicked. You know, and I'm not just... You know, certainly not professionally as well. All sorts of, you know, all sorts of personal things go along that give you a bloody nose, uh, and bust your teeth, and you have to go through those metaphysically, perhaps physically. I made this movie where I rode a, I rode a, a scooter, a Vespa. And so because of that, I rode a Vespa for about two years, until I realized that I had been so close to killing myself on this thing, making a stupid mis- thing, that I'm going to give up this Vespa.

Jay Shetty 20:39 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 20:39 This was a smart, this was a smart thing to do that only came about because I learned, you know, that, you know, sometimes a hair's breadth between, you know, cracking up or falling down or needing that crash helmet or not.

Jay Shetty 20:52 Mm.

Tom Hanks 20:52 So it is, uh, a degree of that, uh, ex- the, that experience, and also being, I think, open to some of the most basic, I don't wanna say philosophical, uh, truths. But I have been to the Holy Land. I have seen the sights that, that are, um, precious, uh, divine. I was, I was actually working... This was a long time ago. This was before the great, many of the great problems that were going there, and, uh, I was driving back, [laughs] being driven to Jerusalem. I was with a guide and I said, "Hey,

Tom Hanks 21:35 so, uh, so, uh, Moshe, tells me, tell me, tell me about where we are." And he says, "Okay, I will tell you. This is, uh, we are bound ni- by a kibbutz. This is a very old kibbutz. You know kibbutz? Yes. This is a very old one. It's been there a very long time, very popular. And uh, now we are coming up of a moshav. You know what moshav is? Moshav is not like a kibbutz. It's different, more, uh, more socialist, less comfortable, but this is, uh, also much like that, and people live there and they work and they farm. And, uh, this is where, uh, David killed Goliath."

Jay Shetty 22:07 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 22:08 "And coming up here we're go-" I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa"

Jay Shetty 22:10 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 22:10 "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." [laughs] "Back the car up just a little. Back this up. Did you just say this is where David killed Goliath?" "Yes," he says. There's a little sign there. It said in English and Hebrew and Arabic. He says, uh... "Well, tell me about that." "Okay. Well, okay. There you see the valley?" "Yes." "Okay. And on one side was the, uh, the, uh, Philistines. Philis- Philistines, yes. They were, they were there, okay? And, uh, David and the Israelites were, were here. And, uh, they sent down to the middle their, the, the, the, uh, the giant, the, uh, gi- giant... " "Yes, yes, the Goliath, yes. And, uh, David, uh, goes and says, 'I will fight this man,' and, uh, he puts the stones and, uh, he kills him, and, uh..." And I said, "This is the place?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, I'm not gonna argue with that"

Jay Shetty 23:06 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 23:07 "Absolutely not gonna argue with that. So move along." Um, and I've... You know, you, you visit great cathedrals and whatnot. I've been all places around, around the world, some of the great faiths. And we were in, um, we were in Japan, the family and I, and we had this fabulous guide that was driving us around, and he took us to some Buddhist places, some Shinto shrines. And there was a big tree at one of them, uh, at one of the, uh, one of the temples, the shrines, and people would write down prayers on these, uh, on wooden, wooden-

Jay Shetty 23:39 Mm

Tom Hanks 23:40 ... signs, and they would hang them up like ornaments. So this, this tree's just covered with a million prayers. Beautiful kind of like sensibility. And he wrote down something and he hung it up. And I said, uh, you know, "Oshi, what did you write?" And he says, "Oh, I, I wrote... Here, I'll show you." And it was in Japanese, you know, the language. And he says, "This, this, this means I will never know all I need to know." [laughs]

Jay Shetty 24:03 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 24:04 That's all we talked about, you know, at dinner-

Jay Shetty 24:06 Yes

Tom Hanks 24:06 ... later on. Did you... Do you know what's in... So the, the, the ongoing education of we're never gonna know what we need to know. More is always going to be revealed, and, uh, this too shall pass. That governs absolutely everything. If you are having the greatest time in your w- this too shall pass. If you are successfully th- this too shall pass. If you are sick, if you are experiencing great tragedy and great drama, great difficulty, this too shall pass. Now, I don't know if I'm still answering the question you asked. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 24:43 You are. You are, yeah.

Tom Hanks 24:43 Uh, this was educated to me over the course of my 20s and 30s and 40s or 50s, at a time when you think that, no, what you have to do is have a master plan. You gotta stick to the plan. You gotta lay your head down. You gotta fight for it, and you gotta compete. Yeah, okay, there's times when, you know, you gotta do that other kind of stuff.

Jay Shetty 25:00 Mm.

Tom Hanks 25:00 And other times, you just kinda, like, gotta roll over and say, "I, I surrender," you know? Just, I will never know all I need to know, and I'll never be able to do all that I should do.

Jay Shetty 25:11 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 25:11 Does that make sense?

Jay Shetty 25:12 It does make sense. It does make sense, and I, and I appreciate you saying that it comes with wisdom and age and experience because I used to have a mentor who sadly passed away during the pandemic, but he would always repla- he would always repeat to me, "There's no substitute for maturity." And, and it was s-

Tom Hanks 25:30 No, yeah, no shortcut to it.

Jay Shetty 25:31 Yes.

Tom Hanks 25:32 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 25:32 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 25:32 Right.

Jay Shetty 25:33 That maturity was just something that-

Tom Hanks 25:34 And yet, didn't you know somebody when you were young who was the same age as you-

Jay Shetty 25:40 Yes

Tom Hanks 25:40 ... that had it?

Jay Shetty 25:41 Absolutely.

Tom Hanks 25:42 Oh.

Jay Shetty 25:42 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 25:42 I, I came across all sorts of people like that.

Jay Shetty 25:45 Mm.

Tom Hanks 25:45 Yeah, and I just said, "What, w- first of all, what makes you so special? And what makes you so smart? What makes you so calm?"

Jay Shetty 25:52 Mm.

Tom Hanks 25:52 You know? Uh-

Jay Shetty 25:53 What was it? Did you have a figure it out? [laughs]

Tom Hanks 25:54 I haven't the vaguest idea.

Jay Shetty 25:56 No. [laughs]

Tom Hanks 25:56 You know, some combination, I, I would probably say, of connection. You know, a connection to a family, a connection to, you know, uh, perhaps a heritage that goes along with that.

Jay Shetty 26:06 Mm.

Tom Hanks 26:07 That, you know, uh, um, w- uh, some friend of mine, we were... [laughs] We went to their, their, uh, son's bar mitzvah. And, uh, I'm not Jewish, but I said, uh, uh, "You got bar mitzvah?" "Oh, yeah, of course I got bar mitzvah." And he said, and he said, "Let me tell you something about the bar mitzvah. This is what's great about it, because my 13-year-old son, when he's getting bar mitzvah, and I told him, I said, 'After this, my son, your sins are your own.'"

Jay Shetty 26:30 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 26:32 He's 13, but this is the... You know, and there's studies of, you know, there's examples of that all through all sorts of cultures, uh, and all sorts of histories-

Jay Shetty 26:41 Yeah

Tom Hanks 26:41 ... that said y- there is a time when you and you alone are responsible for everything that, that goes on, goes on in your life.

Jay Shetty 26:49 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 26:49 Um, uh, I, I have a fr- [laughs] I have a friend who is studying, uh, with a, a Buddhist monk, you know, a guy whose name... He's literally got his name Venerable in his first name.

Jay Shetty 27:01 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 27:01 How about that?

Jay Shetty 27:02 Wow.

Tom Hanks 27:02 When

Tom Hanks 27:03 I was talking to the Venerable-

Jay Shetty 27:04 That's impressive

Tom Hanks 27:04 ... you know, whatever the... And I said, "Uh, look, I know squat about Buddhism outside of, you know, what I, you know, see on TV shows, so, uh-

Jay Shetty 27:13 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 27:14 ... wh- wh- what's the deal?" And he said, "Well..." Um, one of the smartest things I heard, uh, from a guy who practices Buddhism is, um, "My life used to be nothing but chopping wood and carrying water, and now that I have received some enlightenment, I find that all that is necessary for me to live is to chop wood and carry water." [laughs]

Jay Shetty 27:37 Yes.

Tom Hanks 27:38 And I said, "Okay. All right, man. That's some high country," and I don't know if you hear that... Well, I don't know if w- if I had heard that at the age of 22, I would've had the slightest f- an idea-

Jay Shetty 27:49 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 27:50 ... of, of what it meant. But at the age of 68-

Jay Shetty 27:52 Yeah

Tom Hanks 27:52 ... uh, w- I, you know, I think I can get a little bit closer to that, uh-

Jay Shetty 27:56 Definitely

Tom Hanks 27:57 ... to that, uh-

Jay Shetty 27:57 Yeah. I think there's two things you brought to mind for me. I think one of them's been, when I've noticed some of the wiser people that I've met along the way or at a younger age, as you were mentioning, it's always been people who are exposed to more generations. And so people who were in their 20s but knew people who were 70 and spent quality time with them or people who are in their 50s and spend time with someone who is 18 or 21, and that kind of juxtaposition of being surrounded by people that weren't just all your age in the same space, there was a sense of you being able to learn and grow and, and take and receive. I was, uh, spending time with a couple that my wife and I have become very close friends with, and they're both 70, and, uh, my wife and I are in our, in our mid-30s, and we were, we spent a weekend with them, and it was brilliant because I got destroyed at pickleball, uh, by this 70-

Tom Hanks 28:46 Always good

Jay Shetty 28:47 ... 70-year-old man.

Tom Hanks 28:47 Always good. A humbling experience-

Jay Shetty 28:49 A, a huge inspiration-

Tom Hanks 28:49 ... is always a good one

Jay Shetty 28:50 ... for me, yeah. He's playing pickleball and tennis for four hours a day, and I c- I can barely play for a couple, and so big inspiration. But, but just the life experience and the engagement you get from that, and I think so much of our... Going back to what we were saying about community and even your mention of, of church there or the Holy Land, I was researching something recently. I'm, I'm writing my third book, and something that I came across and I've been playing around with is this idea called the Third Space Theory.

Tom Hanks 29:18 Mm.

Jay Shetty 29:18 And what the Third Space Theory lays out is that back in the day, we would have home, we would have work, and we would have church. And church was a place you could look back on work and home and reconcile and reflect and think about how you-

Tom Hanks 29:33 You can ponder why bad things happen to good people and vice versa, yeah.

Jay Shetty 29:37 Correct.

Tom Hanks 29:37 It was a place spent, literally meant for that.

Jay Shetty 29:39 Meant for that.

Tom Hanks 29:40 This is why you come here.

Jay Shetty 29:41 Exactly. And now what's happened is, let alone three spaces, we don't e- we just have one. So we work from home, we live at home-

Tom Hanks 29:49 Mm

Jay Shetty 29:49 ... and then our third space, or the closest thing to it, is a television probably. There is, there isn't a separate space. And so it's arguing the fact that there isn't that space almost to have those thoughts, conversations, ideas, insights that may arise.

Tom Hanks 30:04 The generational thing, I think, is wickedly important.

Jay Shetty 30:07 Mm.

Tom Hanks 30:07 Whether or not... Yeah, like, they, they don't... You know, uh, sometimes it's just the old person who's sitting in the corner, you know?

Jay Shetty 30:13 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 30:13 Um, but ot- other times it's like, you know, uh, a big... There is some aspect of the big family that is not for everybody, you know, 'cause God knows not everybody wants to come to Thanksgiving sometimes 'cause they don't wanna have that same fight again. I had a, I had a friend who, um, he had... His, his grandmother was like- And already had a nine. Like, she was 93 or something like that, and she was always just there, you know, just there. And at one point he was, um, he was arguing with his parents about not wanting to do something. I can't remember what it was. Didn't matter. But everybody was saying, "Why are you doing that? Ah, why do you... What's that about? How can you do, how can you da, da,

Tom Hanks 30:52 da, da, blah, blah, blah?" And my friend said, "Well, hey, man, because life's too short."

Jay Shetty 30:56 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 30:57 And this 90-year-old grandmother is just sitting there and she said, "No, life's not short. Life is long."

Jay Shetty 31:04 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 31:06 Which I interpret as being life is long, so if you're doing something stupid, [laughs] you know, you're spending a lot of time relishing, you know, living inside, inside that, that stupidity.

Jay Shetty 31:20 Yes.

Tom Hanks 31:20 And, uh, m- pr- my- my- my kids by, are, my, are, my o- my youngest kids, um, essentially were raised along by us, as well as, uh, a couple of people that have, you know, been, uh, employee like families for, uh, uh, members of the family. But also their, their grandparents, their yiayiá and pápos as they say in Greek. People who n- were never not engaged with them when they were babysitting. We never had to have babysitters. We never had to have a nanny. We didn't have anything like that. What we had instead was two generations removed of people speaking Greek to them, asking them questions, "What are you doing?" from the moment they are toddlers until they're 14 years old. What they got from that is so different from, [laughs] from what I got from mine. The j- There is a joke in my family about how bad I am with tools.

Jay Shetty 32:13 Okay.

Tom Hanks 32:13 I mean, as soon as I pick up a screwdriver or a hammer, I start getting cold sweats, because my dad had no patience with me about... He never said, "Let me show you how to use a... Let me show you how to scrape that off." It was always, "Oh, come on, you knothead. Don't you know how to sand a board? Don't you know the difference between a standard, uh, ratchet, uh, socket wrench and a, and a metric wretch?" And I never did, because nobody said, "Let me show you how you do this. You gotta learn it." So that you're talking about something there that is, um, it's almost, it's like water on a stone, you know?

Jay Shetty 32:49 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 32:49 It just has an effect over time. And, uh, you know, f- for, in many cultures you have to look at that and say, the more, the more generations around that table with regularity, you know, not just for, you know, three holidays, uh, three holidays a year, um, the, the richer the lesson is going to be, you know?

Jay Shetty 33:11 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 33:11 The, the, the deep- Because you're gonna pick up some stuff just by, like an, like an old story from, you know, from the old country. My, uh, um, my, uh, uh, my father-in-law, Dad, uh, he was, uh, he was Greek, but grew up in Bulgaria, and had to escape the communists and whatnot, which is a fascinating story unto itself. [laughs] But, but wh- when... He told a story about being told by his dad to take the donkey up to this, you know, up to the mountains and get something and bring it back, knowing that there was the meanest dog on the planet Earth up there that was going to, uh, uh, try to, try to bite him. He came back, they... Oh, I think what it was is he w- he said, "Take the donkey up there," and he didn't wanna wrestle with the donkey, he just wanted to go up there and get it back really fast. And on the way there, this dog, you know, nearly mauled him, scared the living daylights out of him. So when he came back down, his dad said, "I told you to take the donkey." [laughs]

Jay Shetty 34:10 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 34:10 'Cause the donkey would scare-

Jay Shetty 34:12 Yes

Tom Hanks 34:12 ... off the dog. You know?

Jay Shetty 34:13 Yes, yes.

Tom Hanks 34:13 Like that.

Jay Shetty 34:14 Yes, yes.

Tom Hanks 34:14 So, you know, you don't... That's the kind of stuff you gotta pick up over time.

Jay Shetty 34:17 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 34:18 But did you, did you have, uh, multiple, multiple generations in the home as you were growing up?

Jay Shetty 34:23 I, I felt that, for me, my, my monk teachers became that for me. 'Cause they were older, and so-

Tom Hanks 34:29 Okay. Sure

Jay Shetty 34:30 ... I had a, I had a monk teacher who was in his, probably his 60s when I met him. I had another who was in his 30s when I first met him, and so they became that. I wasn't so close to my grandparents, and so I didn't really have that same interaction as you as mentioning your children did. I didn't really have that with them. So I had my parents, I had my uncles and aunts. But then I think it was really later on when I met those two generations in the monastery that, that really expanded my, uh, breadth of, you know, human experience that I had.

Tom Hanks 34:58 It'd be nice if it worked across the board, but sometimes, you know, grandpa's a drunk and, [laughs] you know-

Jay Shetty 35:03 Yeah

Tom Hanks 35:03 ... and, uh, and grandma does nothing but smoke cigarettes-

Jay Shetty 35:06 Yeah. [laughs]

Tom Hanks 35:06 ... and, you know, and watch Wheel of Fortune. So maybe it's not always great.

Jay Shetty 35:09 No, maybe it's not always great.

Tom Hanks 35:10 But it can be sometimes.

Jay Shetty 35:11 It can be. It can be.

Tom Hanks 35:13 I don't think there's a better example of a true sense of family and home and connection in moments that are not Thanksgiving, uh, or Christmas morning or a wedding or a... They are when you're just sitting around on a Thursday night, you know? We don't have to live in chaos if we choose not to. And if we're only looking at the past in order for some degree of, "Oh, it was so much easier back then," no, it's, it's never been easier. Sometimes life passes in the wink of an eye, and it's like, wow, are we here already? But there's other times in that same wink of an eye you comprehend it all.

Jay Shetty 35:48 You were talking about your experience with your father and, and, you know, with the tools, and it's, uh, funny because m- my dad was the opposite. He was, he was useless at DIY, and so I'm useless at DIY. [laughs]

Tom Hanks 35:57 Oh, there you go.

Jay Shetty 35:58 And so I have that experience.

Tom Hanks 35:59 My dad was great.

Jay Shetty 36:00 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 36:00 My dad could fix everything.

Jay Shetty 36:01 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 36:01 There was a, there was a, a story. I was talking to my older brother once. W- The... He and my dad, um, my dad would say, "Why, why in the world are we spending a lot of money? For crying out loud, we could get a, we could get electronics kit and make our own amplifier. We don't have to go off and pay all this much money. We'll hook it up to a turntable and the speakers. There, we have stereo system." So they got a kit, and I saw them working on it together, and I was kinda jealous and- I'm g- I'm honestly, 40 years later I said to, "So you know that when you made the amplifier with Dad, I was really jealous because oh man, I wish I would've done anything to trade sha- places with you."

Jay Shetty 36:33 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 36:34 My dad was so miserable as we were doing it, always, "You knothead, don't you know, don't you know how to solder this?" It's like, oh.

Jay Shetty 36:39 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 36:40 Well, you know, it's a perspective of everything is going to-

Jay Shetty 36:43 Yeah

Tom Hanks 36:43 ... uh, provide

Jay Shetty 36:43 ... definitely. Did, did you try to, did you try to parent differently? Like, did you try to avoid some-

Tom Hanks 36:47 Uh, you know, you try to, but I made every mistake, you know. You, you scar the kids somehow in, in, in the same exact way. And as they get older, you know, you come back around and said, "Hey, can I talk about what a knothead I was with you for all those years?" And said, "Yeah,

Tom Hanks 37:03 sure, Dad." [laughs]

Jay Shetty 37:04 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 37:04 "Yeah, been kinda waiting for this. Why don't, uh, why don't ya, why don't ya unload?" So no, the... But I would say at the same time, I think there was, you know, it- does it come up to be 50/50 maybe? The, uh, the attitude and the, uh, you know, the, the life that we led, the u- the laughs, you know. Uh, that stuff's worth its weight in, you know, gem-encrusted gold, so.

Jay Shetty 37:26 Yeah. What's something that they've taught you? What's something that they've inspired you with?

Tom Hanks 37:29 How different they all are.

Jay Shetty 37:30 Mm.

Tom Hanks 37:31 You know? They are not the same type of human being ever. My youngest at one point said something that was definitely true for him, and I thought is in fact true for all of my kids, which makes, makes me feel good in that what's, uh... He was younger. He was, like, seven or eight. I said, "Oh," you know, at, at one point, "Let's, let's go down..." We were in New York. Said, "Let's go down to the park, and we'll take our gloves, and we'll throw it around. We'll bat the balls. We'll just find a place of grass." He said, "Okay, do that." And it got away from me. Didn't happen. This, call that, something happened, and I realized that, oh, the sun's going down now. And I said, "Oh my God, oh my God, hey, I'm sorry." I said, "We were gonna go down in the, uh, and, and, uh, throw the ball around. It got away from me. Um, forgive me." And he said, "No, it's okay, Dad." And he sounded disappointed. "No, it's okay." I said, "Well, you know, I, I feel bad. I just, I just, I don't, I don't want you to be bored." And he looked at me with a look on his face and said, "Dad, I'm never bored." And that is, uh, that's curiosity. That speaks to curiosity and drive, and also the comfort of w- where one is in order to feel free, in

Tom Hanks 38:42 order to explore whatever world that is. And I can... I think I could say that maybe in varying degrees for, for all the kids, their ability to, um, pursue their own interests without being prodded, um, without being forced to, I, I, I, I've learned from that because look, there was, uh, that isolation that I'm, that I was talking about. There was a time when I was so comfortable doing absolutely nothing or, you know, pursuing some brand of, you know, disconnection that, uh, wasn't good for me. And, uh, I, you know, they, everybody has it in some, some, some degrees. But you could be of a, of... With all that you have, with all you kids, with all your advantages, I do not wanna hear that you're bored. And they have never, they have never said that they're bored. They've, they have always had some action thing that was going on, whether I understood their passion for it or not.

Jay Shetty 39:44 Yeah. What attracted to you that isolation and disconnection at that moment in time? What was it that was so appealing about it?

Tom Hanks 39:50 I think I just had to get used to it because I was number three. There, l- people ran out of time, you know? They didn't have the wherewithal or the interest. Because I was so young when my parents split up and there were so many other factors that had to go into, uh, man, it was logistics and legal thing and time and distance and stuff like that, that I took care of myself and, you know, was, was satisfied, I think it was a reprieve for them.

Jay Shetty 40:16 Mm.

Tom Hanks 40:16 So, um, I just got, I just got used to occupying myself by being alone.

Jay Shetty 40:22 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 40:22 And that's really great, and it's can be really detrimental.

Jay Shetty 40:26 Yeah. I can relate to so much of that as well. I felt... I was the eldest, just one of two, and my parents, uh, you've used this word previously in, in other interviews of having, your parents had a fractured relationship and, and so did mine. And so there was definitely a sense of I had to build independence, accountability, and responsibility very early on-

Tom Hanks 40:47 Mm. Mm

Jay Shetty 40:48 ... because I had to take care of things. And I also look back at that as such a strength, and I'm so grateful for it in a kind of weird way because I feel like it made me grow up earlier. Not in a way that I felt I lost a childhood or I didn't have amazing experiences, but I'm really happy now when I look back that it gave me strength and courage much earlier on.

Tom Hanks 41:08 But as the older one, did it have some ex- expectations of responsibility put on you? Did-

Jay Shetty 41:13 I would s-

Tom Hanks 41:13 Like, where are you going, and you have to be back by now? Were there rules placed upon you?

Jay Shetty 41:17 No rules. No rules for me. More expectations educationally. And what was strange, which is so much linked to what I do today, and I've, I've drawn that line fairly often for myself, is I was emotionally depended on by both of them.

Tom Hanks 41:33 Okay. Interesting.

Jay Shetty 41:33 So I became the therapist-

Tom Hanks 41:35 Wow

Jay Shetty 41:35 ... the mediator, the-

Tom Hanks 41:36 Oh, wow. That's-

Jay Shetty 41:36 ... the coach very early

Tom Hanks 41:37 ... that's a burden. I'm sorry

Jay Shetty 41:38 ... yeah, very early on. No, I mean-

Tom Hanks 41:39 No wonder you went off for three years-

Jay Shetty 41:40 Yeah. [laughs]

Tom Hanks 41:40 ... to sleep on the floor-

Jay Shetty 41:41 Exactly

Tom Hanks 41:41 ... sleep on the ground.

Jay Shetty 41:42 Yeah, yeah. So I, I, I'm grateful for it now, though, because I think it gave me the ability to listen closely, be empathetic, understand both sides, care for both. It, like, it gave me that ability to recognize how it takes two to tango, and there's always-

Tom Hanks 41:56 I think that, I think this is a viable study about where you are in that pecking order. Every now and I read about it because, because I was last, and last by, like, five years, I had no rules. I had no expe- They had, they had spent so much time trying to establish that with the older, you know, my older siblings. They didn't wanna bother with it anymore.

Jay Shetty 42:14 Mm. Mm.

Tom Hanks 42:15 So if I was gone for, you know, like two weeks, I just didn't come home for two weeks in high school, they knew I was sleeping at somebody's house and doing my homework and getting to school on my own.

Jay Shetty 42:25 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 42:25 They were thrilled that they didn't have to-

Jay Shetty 42:26 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 42:27 ... you know.

Jay Shetty 42:27 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 42:27 They didn't have to discipline me or punish me. They didn't have even have to think about me. I just came and went ... uh, by myself, so-

Jay Shetty 42:34 Yeah

Tom Hanks 42:34 ... but I was not the oldest. You know?

Jay Shetty 42:36 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 42:36 I did not have somebody that was establishing the rules and, uh, you know, the, the structure of the family.

Jay Shetty 42:43 Yeah. That was, yeah, and that was different for me, too. I had, I had expectations educ- academically, which is normal in an Indian family, but there weren't any rules for me as well. So if I was out and about and doing whatever it was, it didn't matter. And so-

Tom Hanks 42:55 So I'm gonna-

Jay Shetty 42:56 Very nice, but yeah

Tom Hanks 42:56 ... is the stereotype of the Indian family,

Tom Hanks 42:59 uh, are they, are you all brilliant students? Do you all work really hard and finish-

Jay Shetty 43:03 You're forced to

Tom Hanks 43:03 ... all your homework?

Jay Shetty 43:03 You're forced to, yeah. You're forced-

Tom Hanks 43:05 You're forced to.

Jay Shetty 43:06 You're forced to prioritize homework. Education is all that matters. Your social skills, life, relationships don't matter. [laughs]

Tom Hanks 43:13 I am, I'm-

Jay Shetty 43:13 It's all about how well you perform

Tom Hanks 43:14 ... I'm glad I'm not an Indian-

Jay Shetty 43:15 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 43:16 ... and there's no way I could have been. Oh, Lord.

Jay Shetty 43:18 Yeah, it's all about how well you perform academically. Your whole life revolves around that.

Tom Hanks 43:22 Were your parents, like, uh, high academic achievers?

Jay Shetty 43:25 Well, I think they d- I, I, I would say they did very well for what they had. So my dad became a chartered accountant. He qualified in England, but he grew up, he was raised in India, and my mom never did any more than what you'd study up until age 16.

Tom Hanks 43:38 Okay.

Jay Shetty 43:39 And then after that, also became an entrepreneur and became a financial advisor. So they'd both struggled and worked hard to, to-

Tom Hanks 43:46 I love it. It was going, it was going right where I thought it was-

Jay Shetty 43:49 Yeah

Tom Hanks 43:49 ... until you said, "And then became an entrepreneur." [laughs]

Jay Shetty 43:51 Yeah. Just so-

Tom Hanks 43:51 Okay. Wow

Jay Shetty 43:52 ... yeah, which I didn't realize growing up that she was an entrepreneur, but-

Tom Hanks 43:55 Well, that comes from somewhere of that structure of, uh, uh, education and homework done-

Jay Shetty 44:00 Exactly

Tom Hanks 44:00 ... even no matter the gender.

Jay Shetty 44:02 Exactly.

Tom Hanks 44:02 Okay. All right.

Jay Shetty 44:03 Exactly, exactly. Definitely. But I was thinking about, as we're talking about your life, I can't help but think about the movie Here. I'm so grateful I got to watch, um, couple of days ago. Or a couple of weeks- No, a week ago now. And I really just felt that it was a work of art. That's kind of what I took away from it. It was a work of art because rarely, as a film more recently, had me so fixated on-

Tom Hanks 44:29 Hmm

Jay Shetty 44:29 ... first of all, the way it's produced and created is, is beautiful, and the way-

Tom Hanks 44:33 It's, it's a pretty deep throw, though.

Jay Shetty 44:35 It's-

Tom Hanks 44:35 Yeah, yeah

Jay Shetty 44:35 ... it's, it's so deep-

Tom Hanks 44:36 Yeah

Jay Shetty 44:36 ... and it's perfect for this conversation that we're having, and even as you're reflecting on all of these scenes in your life-

Tom Hanks 44:42 Yeah

Jay Shetty 44:42 ... to me, I can't help but project-

Tom Hanks 44:44 Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

Jay Shetty 44:45 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 44:45 Oh, but you're, you're, because, because it was the four of us, you know, Bob, uh, Bob Zemeckis, and Eric Roth, and Robin, and I, and everybody, everybody else in it, you know, Paul and o- every other actor in it. We c- the, the scenes are very, very specific of a moment in a family's life.

Jay Shetty 45:02 Yes.

Tom Hanks 45:03 And everybody was armed for bear. Everybody had a thing that had happened to them that was like that. Not necessarily example, but the sensory experience, the em- the emotional connection to every single moment in this thing was really quite resonant for us all. And I had

Tom Hanks 45:21 to, uh, when I... People say, "What are you working on?" "Oh, I'm making a movie called Here." I say, "Not H-E-A-R. It's H-E-R-E." They say, "Well, what's it about?" I've said, "It is about how important things are when they happen here." [laughs]

Jay Shetty 45:40 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 45:40 You know?

Jay Shetty 45:41 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 45:41 Because you cannot control them, and, uh, they are, if you, if, if, the, the film, I mean, the, the, all of the permutations where it goes, you know, we say, oh, the camera stands still in space, but it moves in, in time, you know? Everybody, every character in it is going through that profound thing that happens in a specific moment in their life, and it, where does it happen? It happens right here. So we were always talking about presence, you know-

Jay Shetty 46:09 Yeah

Tom Hanks 46:09 ... some big aspect of it. And also that we do not know that we're living in a moment of history. We don't know, they, you know, they don't know that i- they, the, the, the first tribes, you know, the, the Native Americans, they don't know that they're Native Americans. They're just living in, in the moment. They're not, they don't know they're living, you know, 600 years ago. Nor do the people that build the house that w- that, that takes place, that they don't know that they're living in 1911. They think they're, they're just living in the, in the right now of it. Um, and that's a type of thing that really is, is so examinable, e- examinable in a very specific type of cinema-

Jay Shetty 46:48 Mm-hmm

Tom Hanks 46:48 ... that, uh, that is the point of what the, what the whole movie is, that, you know, that Bob and Eric fleshed out long before, uh, uh, uh, Robin and I came along.

Jay Shetty 46:58 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 46:58 And along with that comes together the four of us have a history that we can go back to. I mean, uh, Robin's worked with Bob a couple of times. I've worked with Bob a number of times. Eric is one friend of mine. We, we've worked on stuff all the time, and every time we've done it, we have had a pinpoint of the difference between here at the moment that it happened, and now at this moment where we're talking about establishing a whole new other place and time.

Jay Shetty 47:28 Mm-hmm. Yeah. When, I mean, when I was watching it, I couldn't help but think of every place that has been monumental in my life, and then think about how many other events must have taken place in that room, in that space, that I'm not even aware of, and I might even take for granted and not recognize the value of, both in my life and previously and, of course, the future as well.

Tom Hanks 47:53 Well, I had to wrap my head around this thing that I had never experienced.

Jay Shetty 47:57 Mm.

Tom Hanks 47:57 We lived here. I've never lived [laughs] anyplace, you know.

Jay Shetty 48:02 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 48:02 I, I, I, uh, you know, now, now I, now I, now I, I've had, I've lived, had in the same literally home as in three-dimensional structure in time and space. I've had that now for, you know, a couple of decades here. But this idea of someone putting so much, I don't wanna say importance, but having so much emotional centeredness-

Jay Shetty 48:23 Mm

Tom Hanks 48:24 ... in literally this place in a room, by these stairs, through this door. The TV used to be there, and there it was there. Here's where Mom and Dad did this. Here's where I did that. I don't have that.

Jay Shetty 48:38 Mm.

Tom Hanks 48:38 I, well, I got it, you know, uh-

Jay Shetty 48:40 Later in life

Tom Hanks 48:40 ... once we got married and we, you know, finally. I didn't, but I didn't get it until I was 35 years old.

Jay Shetty 48:45 Mm.

Tom Hanks 48:46 And my kids have it. And sometimes I have to ask them about their perspectives. I moved around so much as a kid, I looked forward to it. When we moved [laughs] out of the, of the house that my kids had been born in and lived in for the better part, you know, lived in for, like, 14 years a- apiece, they were sort of undone by it.

Jay Shetty 49:06 Mm.

Tom Hanks 49:07 And I didn't understand it. Uh, I, I, I literally, in the back of my head if not verbally said, "What's the big deal?"

Jay Shetty 49:14 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 49:15 You know? How's that per- for, for a perspective?

Jay Shetty 49:18 Mm.

Tom Hanks 49:18 It is a huge deal if you're actually there, and Richard, uh, you know, uh, Robin and I are, are characters, you know? I'm gr- I'm born in the house. I grow up in the house. My kids are born in the house. Our entire marriage and family is spent in that house. And is it a solace, or is it a boundary that you're never able to get, get through of?

Jay Shetty 49:39 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 49:40 Uh, that, e- experiencing that and examining that was, um, oh, my Lord. I can't tell you how many, how much conversation. We n- this whole movie was just one big-ass conversation-

Jay Shetty 49:50 Yeah

Tom Hanks 49:51 ... about what it means. N- not so much about what the words are, how we move around. That's the technical stuff that goes along. But every moment that, uh, we were off by ourselves, it seemed to me we were trying to weigh this very specific thing of what we have always, what we have all been through in our odd, you know, celebrated, goofy, stupid, uh, individual lives-

Jay Shetty 50:13 Mm

Tom Hanks 50:13 ... and what it meant to this, the H-E-R-E aspect of, of, of this story that we were trying to tell. And Bob particularly, I mean, uh, Bob's in... We all, I think, incorporated our own approach to our art form and, and commercial life to it. Bob, as a filmmaker, uh, is not about to do a shot that anybody could do, you know? And he's not about to tell a story cinematically in ways that have been done before. He, he's just built that way. He went, "Well, hell, anybody can do that," you know? He says stuff like that. And, uh, Eric, as a, as a screenwriter, he's constantly landing on this place where only his words on paper can translate this, this thought process. And Robin and I, you know, uh, Paul, everybody, everybody in the thing is like, "I know the lines. Turn me loose. Let's go. Let's go. What are you gonna do? Are you gonna try that? Let's try that. Where are you gonna g- Just take it." You know, this ongoing game of, uh, improvisational, emotional football in which you're just... And I mean football-

Jay Shetty 51:16 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 51:17 ... in the international sense.

Jay Shetty 51:18 Yes.

Tom Hanks 51:18 The premiership.

Jay Shetty 51:19 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 51:19 The champions league.

Jay Shetty 51:20 Thank you very much.

Tom Hanks 51:20 It is a ball that is ki- It's a matter of inches. It's a matter of a curve. It's a matter of being in the right place at the right time-

Jay Shetty 51:27 Mm

Tom Hanks 51:27 ... in order to, to receive what's given to you, and then pass on to somebody else.

Jay Shetty 51:31 Yeah. It was, uh... I know the film uses digital anti-aging technology, and you-

Tom Hanks 51:37 Yeah, yeah

Jay Shetty 51:38 ... get to see yourself, uh, many years younger. W- w- was there any special feeling of that you placed on-

Tom Hanks 51:44 Uh, no

Jay Shetty 51:44 ... kind of?

Tom Hanks 51:44 No, it was, no, it was kinda great.

Jay Shetty 51:46 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 51:46 I mean, because it's a great tool, uh, be- because it's been... You know, people are aged and younged up in movies-

Jay Shetty 51:52 Correct

Tom Hanks 51:52 ... you know, since the, since, uh, Edison stole, uh, Georges Méliès' film process back in the early 1900s. It was fascinating to watch because it ended up being the tools were so much better that it was a different completeness to it.

Jay Shetty 52:07 Absolutely, yeah.

Tom Hanks 52:07 Uh, you know, we all had... You know, you always have hair and makeup. We, we went through extensive everything, you know? They did w- They [laughs] at one point, I'm sitting there, and, uh, Jennifer, the, our, the, the fabulous, uh, makeup artist, she's just looking at me. She just grabbed both of my ears and then lifted them up and shoved them to the, into the top of my head. And I said, "What are you doing?" She said, "Oh, Tom, we're working on you being 17, and as you age, your ears grow and lower on your head, and so I'm trying to see if I'll be able to glue them up [laughs] high enough on the side."

Tom Hanks 52:46 I said, uh, "Have at it, girl."

Jay Shetty 52:48 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 52:48 Uh, so the, the, all of the tool aspect of it is standard. What was new is that we could see it in real time. We didn't have to send it off and wait for a long post-production thing, because that was the deep fake technology that uses some form of AI just to make it much, much faster-

Jay Shetty 53:10 Yeah

Tom Hanks 53:10 ... and immediate. And listen, what, what it... One of the things that it shows is just how old I am.

Jay Shetty 53:16 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 53:16 Uh, because, you know, you gotta have posture and energy. Uh, and if you're, if everything else about you looks like you're 22 years old, you're gonna have to embody a 22-year-old. I'm gonna tell you right now, it's very hard to leap off a couch-

Jay Shetty 53:31 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 53:31 ... in enthusiasm, uh, as a, as a, as a 67-year-old guy-

Jay Shetty 53:36 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 53:36 ... at the time that we did it.

Jay Shetty 53:37 I didn't even think of that.

Tom Hanks 53:38 You gotta-

Jay Shetty 53:38 Now that you mention it, yeah

Tom Hanks 53:39 ... Hey, you know what? Had a lot of tea, had a lot of protein bars.

Jay Shetty 53:41 You pulled it off, yeah.

Tom Hanks 53:42 You know, got a lot of rest, got a lot of stretching, you know, in order, in order to make that happen.

Jay Shetty 53:47 Yeah. You mentioned presence there, and that was a theme that definitely struck me. W- what do you find helps you be the most present today as you're living?

Tom Hanks 53:56 There are times that, yeah, I think you have to be oblivious. You have to sort of, like, enforce it. You have to, uh, not think of things. It's crazy, but one of the most basic things I think that I learned, probably in junior college when I actually first, uh, Chabot Community College, when I s- truly did begin to study this kind of stuff, is that the words, what you are saying, has to be so familiar to you that you don't think about it.

Jay Shetty 54:26 Mm.

Tom Hanks 54:26 And that is a degree of being oblivious to the specifics of what you're doing.

Jay Shetty 54:31 Mm.

Tom Hanks 54:31 Because if you're trying to get through it, that means self-consciousness. That means you are not, you are not getting out of yourself, and self-consciousness is the death of performance.

Jay Shetty 54:41 Mm.

Tom Hanks 54:42 Ask any actor this thing. It's that if, if you have a scene where you have to go to a deep emotional place, and the only way to do it is to go there, chances are- You have had the most wonderful day of your life prior to that [laughs]

Jay Shetty 54:57 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 54:58 Or the d- or it is so much fun to come to work that day, all right? So that's one thing that you have to

Tom Hanks 55:03 do. And the other side of it is if you have to be charming and convivial and funny on paper, on stage that day, chances are you're going through some personal hell-

Jay Shetty 55:12 Mm-hmm

Tom Hanks 55:12 ... you know, off, uh, you know, off camera that you just have to be oblivious to-

Jay Shetty 55:18 Mm

Tom Hanks 55:18 ... somehow. And along with that, there's, uh, I, I can't discount enough the joy of the hang. I think what I do for a living d- joy does, does... It promotes it. The, uh... And joy not necessarily being we're all having a great time, we're all, you know, singing campfire songs, but the joy of, uh, uh, allying yourself with great collaborators and trusting that they are going to get better stuff out of you than you could possibly bring yourself, and being open to just knowing it so well. Everybody says, "Well, what do you mean by, what do you mean, what do you mean by learning the lines?" I mean learning the lines like you know the, uh, the, the lyrics to the best song you ever heard in your life. Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. Now I need a place h- that's here to stay. Oh, I believe in ya. You gotta be able to rattle it off that fast-

Jay Shetty 56:07 Mm

Tom Hanks 56:07 ... that easily. It's gotta be so much a part of you that you don't have to think about it at all. If I actually sang the right r- words to Yesterday.

Jay Shetty 56:14 [laughs] Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. And I feel there's this, uh, it's amazing to see your enthusiasm, excitement, joy, you know, continuing your career when you're... Even what you just said now of working with people who can get even more out of me, and that belief that there's more in you always. You've talked about imposter syndrome in the past-

Tom Hanks 56:36 Yeah

Jay Shetty 56:36 ... which obviously I'm sure everyone when they look at you, uh, find it hard to believe. But I, I recognize when you've shared, or I've heard you talk about it before, it's very real. It's, it's very genuine, this feeling of like, oh, well, you know. Walk us through that, how you've been able to constantly believe there's more in you to give, more to do, more to find.

Tom Hanks 56:57 Somebody wanted me to do a movie, all right? And it was great, and I should have done it. It was gonna be a, for a lot of money, it would be, and you, you go somewhere cool. You get a good per diem, you know, all that kind of stuff. There was no reason not to do the movie, except there was something, uh, that I just said, "This is not the match for me," because number one, I don't have any curiosity about the subject. Now, that's not the only reason to do it, but in order to translate the theme of the movie through a performance, there has to be some sort of challenge and curiosity to it, and I had none. That was one thing. But the other part of it too, I was searching, I was, I was having a one-on-one, uh, talk with the, uh, director and I was just, I said, "Look," I said, "I don't, I don't have the, I don't have the, um, I don't have the countenance." And the director said, "Countenance? The hell does that mean?" I said, "There is a thing that we all carry with us.

Tom Hanks 58:04 We have a countenance that comes from everything we've said." [laughs] Uh, all the work that we've done, all the, all the times that we've either succeeded or failed, 'cause they both go together. You, you... Failure teaches you a lot more than success does. I'm talking about commercial success. But that idea that you walk away from a job and you think that we went to a new place in order to, in order to examine this theme that only we could've done unless we all got together and challenged each other and made it happen.

Jay Shetty 58:33 Mm.

Tom Hanks 58:34 And without that type of stretching of one's countenance that you come into, uh, that's, that to me is the, that's, that to me is the, the big magilla.

Jay Shetty 58:44 Mm.

Tom Hanks 58:45 I still find myself, uh, completely at the mercy of that instinctive moment of saying, "Oh my God, that's what I, that's what I think." You know? And the next thing you know, you wanna do it, and you're talk, they're talking about it continuously, and there is nothing that anybody says that detracts from that initial-

Jay Shetty 59:08 Yes

Tom Hanks 59:08 ... uh, initial experience. Uh, because, you know, uh, the, the other, other, all... You know, that, there's, there's plenty of other things that you can do, um, uh, because they're fun. I mean, I, w- my, my, uh, my beginnings, uh, the first time I was a professional actor, we were in repertory theater, uh, at, uh, with my, Vincent Dowling, at a place called the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. And because we were in rep, we did everything. We did, we did Hamlet and King John and Othello at the same time we were doing fabulous rip-roaring comedies that everybody, everybody dug. The countenance then ex- is exchanged be- between them, between the two, and that's something that I, uh, it's not a burden at all, but it is a, uh, it, it is a prism through which a decision has to be made. Going back again to this idea of this, I believe that my c- uh, my countenance... Look it up. Staff, look up countenance for me. My countenance is not going to aid the examination of this theme, and movies work when the theme is worthy of being examined by that movie. And so in that case, you just have to say, uh, "No," uh, there's, uh... You need somebody that's gonna come in there like a, you know, like a, like a, like a mad dog and, and devour that bone and- I, I just, my countenance doesn't match up to that

Jay Shetty 1:00:38 Yeah. It sounds like you've never compromised that

Tom Hanks 1:00:41 Oh, I've compromised-

Jay Shetty 1:00:41 Oh, you have?

Tom Hanks 1:00:42 ... plenty of times.

Jay Shetty 1:00:42 Oh, okay.

Tom Hanks 1:00:43 But, you know, making mistakes, you know.

Jay Shetty 1:00:44 Yeah

Tom Hanks 1:00:44 There was a period of time... Look, I, look at my IMDb. It might be up in triple digits by now, you know. And there was a time where I just said, "They are asking me to be in a movie." You don't say no to that. And you- that's young. That's the stuff that you do in your 20s and in your 30s. And then sometime in there you start thinking about, "No, no, no, no, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute." The greatest decision, by the way, I don't think I've ever said no yet-

Jay Shetty 1:01:06 Yeah

Tom Hanks 1:01:07 ... except by schedule. But now it turns out to be that's where you start shaping, um, m- what your, your art and the body of work. You have to start, the power is saying no. And that's really, that was really hard to do when-

Jay Shetty 1:01:21 Mm

Tom Hanks 1:01:21 ... you know, everybody thinks you're great, and you show up, and everybody wants you to do it, and everybody says fabulous things. But I, I've compro- I, I didn't know I was compromising, 'cause I didn't know any better. But there's a moment, I guess, when you say like, "Ah, you know, I don't, I don't wanna c- I don't wanna... I think I'd be compromising somewhere here." And so the, the first time I said no to something, um, it was a very, it was, it was, on one hand liberating, and of course, I might've thought I made the biggest mistake of my life. Uh, you know, I te- if you take any great-

Jay Shetty 1:01:55 Yeah

Tom Hanks 1:01:55 ... take any great magni- take, let's just pull from the, take Faye Dunaway and Laurence Olivier. They have very specific countenances.

Jay Shetty 1:02:03 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:02:04 There is a thing that you will say, "Oh my God, the countenance of Laurence Olivier, really, really..." Ossie Davis. Well, you know, any great that, wow, that countenance matches.

Jay Shetty 1:02:15 Yes.

Tom Hanks 1:02:16 And that's, I guess that's what I'm, uh, talking about.

Jay Shetty 1:02:17 Yes, yes, yes. Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:02:18 There is a-

Jay Shetty 1:02:18 It makes sense

Tom Hanks 1:02:19 ... there is like a, you know, some sort of cosmic weight that they carry along with them-

Jay Shetty 1:02:23 Mm

Tom Hanks 1:02:23 ... that makes sense for what they're doing.

Jay Shetty 1:02:25 Yeah, for sure. There's a... Listening to you speak about i- I mean, it's so relieving to hear that you've compromised [laughs] sometimes, like because-

Tom Hanks 1:02:35 Oh, yeah

Jay Shetty 1:02:35 ... it, it's a relief. I think everyone-

Tom Hanks 1:02:36 Come by my house. We'll have a night of compromise.

Jay Shetty 1:02:38 Yeah. [laughs]

Tom Hanks 1:02:38 You know? How about that? You wanna do that? We'll bring the, we'll, we'll-

Jay Shetty 1:02:41 I'd love it. I'm in

Tom Hanks 1:02:41 ... we'll bring the DVDs and say, "This is the DVD of compromise."

Jay Shetty 1:02:45 I'm in. That'd be amazing. No, I think because, I think we're so g- we, we forget that you're used to celebrating and counting someone's wins and hits when they've had so many, and you look over the compromises or whatever it may have been. And so it's a relief hearing that because your values of how you pick a project, of how you work on a project seem so, so strong and defined now, and that's obviously come with time. As, as you were making Here, was there a particular scene that reminded you of a time in your life that you want to revisit, relive, rethink?

Tom Hanks 1:03:20 Eugene O'Neill wrote Ah, Wilderness!. He wrote that play as the life he would have, he wanted to have, he wished he had had.

Jay Shetty 1:03:31 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:03:31 The family that he had wished he had.

Jay Shetty 1:03:33 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:03:34 And I always read that. Oh, Eugene O'Neill is a big reason why-

Jay Shetty 1:03:36 Mm

Tom Hanks 1:03:37 ... I became an actor, 'cause I saw great productions of his stuff, uh, back in 1975, '76. And when I finally saw Ah, Wilderness!, I was knocked out because it was as delightful a play as it was, and I'd always heard that he wrote that as, you know, the family that he wished he had. I thought about that when w- when I was doing Here, because there are moments, for example, when we're just sitting watching TV, and, you know, Robin is there, the kids are little-

Jay Shetty 1:04:06 Mm

Tom Hanks 1:04:07 ... and we're just there, and we ended up talking about what would be on the TV, you know? And I went right back to, you know, I don't know if it's a Dean Martin show or, you know, an episode of something, even down to some of the commercials that we wanted to. And, um, those moments were transporting for

Tom Hanks 1:04:25 me, but not in a home the way we were picturing it. I remember seeing those in an apartment that we lived in for two and a half years when I was-

Jay Shetty 1:04:37 Mm

Tom Hanks 1:04:37 ... walking to school by myself. Or the first years, you know, somebody was married to a step-spouse that was not the most benevolent human being in the, in the planet Earth, right? Sometimes I, I remembered sometimes just that, that gathering around, um, like-mindedly getting the same thing out of a TV show, like an electric fireplace. But it was solace, it was a togetherness, uh, that belied what was really going on-

Jay Shetty 1:05:08 Mm

Tom Hanks 1:05:08 ... in the, in the house. And there's a couple of those, particularly when, uh, um, the kids are little and Robin and I are in the, uh, early, early years of our marriages, um, that were sublime-

Jay Shetty 1:05:18 Mm

Tom Hanks 1:05:18 ... uh, right then and there. Because we're sit- we're laughing. It's there. The kids are being goofy. There's a moment that, th- there's a moment that comes along. And what, I don't think there's a better example of a true sense of family and home and connection in moments that are not Thanksgiving, uh, or Christmas morning or a wedding or a kid. They are when you're just sitting around on a Thursday night, you know?

Jay Shetty 1:05:44 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:05:44 Content and, and, and happy, and nothing is happening except you, the sense of presence that's there.

Jay Shetty 1:05:51 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:05:51 Um, there's a couple of them. Yeah, it's funny that, that you should ask that because I realize now that, uh, the amount of, the amount of suggestions we all had for how we would sit there-

Jay Shetty 1:06:02 Yes

Tom Hanks 1:06:02 ... what would be on the TV, what we had done just before, uh, was coming right out of, right out of our individual lives, from Bob, from Eric, certainly from, from Robin and myself.

Jay Shetty 1:06:13 Yeah. It felt so real. It, it feels so real. I- every, every scene, every conversation, every event feels so real.

Tom Hanks 1:06:21 One of the things that we learned, because it's shot in this very specific-

Jay Shetty 1:06:24 Yes

Tom Hanks 1:06:24 ... you know, uh, aspect ratio, you know-

Jay Shetty 1:06:27 Yeah

Tom Hanks 1:06:27 ... uh, camera position, is that everything works. Everything. If you're in the scene, even if you're not talking, you are registering in a way that warrants- Uh, attention. The, the stuff that is on the walls, I can't say enough about-

Jay Shetty 1:06:44 Yeah, yeah

Tom Hanks 1:06:44 ... the TV. Here's something goofy. Um, I walked onto the set one day, uh, and it was from a period from, you know, early 1960s or something like that, and the TV was an old General Electric TV that was the same model we had-

Jay Shetty 1:07:02 No

Tom Hanks 1:07:02 ... when Apollo 8 flew around the Moon. We had... This was the TV we had. It was a old black-and-white thing. It was General Electric, it had this big channel-changing knob on the side. It was like that. And it was the same maple cabinet. It wasn't big, it was just not mu- you know, it was on legs and it had the cloth speaker. It said General Electric and a thing like that. And I immediately took a picture of it, and I sent it to my siblings and I said, "You recognize this?" And they all said, "Ah, that's the

Tom Hanks 1:07:29 TV from the Johnson house," you know?

Jay Shetty 1:07:30 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 1:07:31 It was like that. So it had these kinda like talismans that came along with it, uh, that [laughs] odd- oddly enough, they were, they were both great to see and bittersweet to remember. Does that make sense?

Jay Shetty 1:07:42 Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Tom Hanks 1:07:43 Yeah, yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:07:43 For sure. Do you... I know you're fascinated by space. Do you have any desire to go to the Moon?

Tom Hanks 1:07:47 Oh, you know, if, if they were gonna do a thing where, you know, regular blokes could just go up and go around it, I mean, I, I'd take that. That's a-

Jay Shetty 1:07:55 You would?

Tom Hanks 1:07:56 Oh, yeah, just, just to do it, but... Oh, yeah. I think it would be-

Jay Shetty 1:07:59 I'm sure Elon Musk would love to take you.

Tom Hanks 1:08:00 Oh, I'm not going with him.

Jay Shetty 1:08:02 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 1:08:02 Uh, but he's not going there anyway.

Jay Shetty 1:08:04 Yeah, yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:08:04 You know, they're just going up now.

Jay Shetty 1:08:05 It's not ours, yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:08:05 But I've, I've met, I've talked to the, uh, I've talked to the crews that are in line to make the next, uh, orbit around the Moon that could happen as early as '25, '26.

Jay Shetty 1:08:17 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:08:17 And, uh, man, oh, man, I just say, "Hey, if you need someone just to clean up and crack jokes, you got room in there, give me, give me a call."

Jay Shetty 1:08:24 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 1:08:25 "I'll get down to whatever weight requirements are necessary," because I wouldn't pass it up. Uh, but I said, "But only if all of the windows are, are clear," 'cause a lotta times those... they have gone up and the, the windows get kinda like messed up because of-

Jay Shetty 1:08:41 Oh

Tom Hanks 1:08:41 ... zero gravity and, uh, the vacuum outside and the building material.

Jay Shetty 1:08:45 Right. Was that fascination only from movies? Is that where it came from or-

Tom Hanks 1:08:48 No, no, that came from-

Jay Shetty 1:08:49 Yeah

Tom Hanks 1:08:49 ... uh, I was right smack dab in... I was that, I was that educatable generation for which it was, space travel was the embodiment of every discipline

Tom Hanks 1:09:01 that we were studying: current events, politics, physics, art, um, engineering, math. It was all, all wrapped up all into one. It was on TV, TV regularly. I was, I was just, I was the, the, uh... Of course, now you're gonna think about this, but, uh, the idea of being alone in space in a space suit, it's ki- it was kinda mirroring my life-

Jay Shetty 1:09:22 Yeah

Tom Hanks 1:09:22 ... when I was, like, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 years old.

Jay Shetty 1:09:25 Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's, uh... I wonder if you saw that movie Fly Me to the Moon recently.

Tom Hanks 1:09:29 Uh, no, I did not-

Jay Shetty 1:09:30 Oh, okay. Yeah

Tom Hanks 1:09:30 ... but it's, you know, it's streaming in the new movie economy-

Jay Shetty 1:09:33 Yes

Tom Hanks 1:09:33 ... so I know it'll be there for a thousand years.

Jay Shetty 1:09:35 I did.

Tom Hanks 1:09:35 So I'll, I'll-

Jay Shetty 1:09:35 Yeah, I just watched it recently

Tom Hanks 1:09:36 ... I'll catch up on it

Jay Shetty 1:09:36 It was fascinating.

Tom Hanks 1:09:37 It's a little bit of a, the, uh, conspiracy theory-

Jay Shetty 1:09:40 But-

Tom Hanks 1:09:40 ... really didn't happen, yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:09:41 Yeah, yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:09:42 Normally I hate that kinda stuff, but, uh, it's good quality people-

Jay Shetty 1:09:45 Yeah, yeah

Tom Hanks 1:09:45 ... so I'll try to check it out.

Jay Shetty 1:09:46 Exactly. No, is it... I'd love to get your thoughts on it when you see it, yeah. And your other fascination is world wars.

Tom Hanks 1:09:51 Well, this is another thing that goes back to, um, uh, uh, the study of it. Let me put it, let me put it t- to you this way. Um, I was born in 1956.

Jay Shetty 1:10:02 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:10:02 That's 11 years after the war is done. So essentially everybody who is an adult in my life had memories of those years, whether they went to war or not. They had memories of the, what I like to call the emotional stasis of the early 1940s, in which, [laughs] go back again, they did not know the war was going to end. [laughs] In 1943, they had no idea how long the war was... who was gonna live, who was gonna die, who was gonna win, who was gonna not, who was not, who was gonna come back. 1943, if you're alive, they're not saying, "Hey, don't worry about it, the war's gonna be over in just another 18 months." They don't know that. And that was a palpable thing that was passed on to me because, um, when it came around time to get to know the life stories of a teacher, uh, a friend of my dad's, uh, f- you know, parents of, uh, of, uh, of my pals,

Tom Hanks 1:11:05 they would talk about those years, their youth, in three distinctive parts, three acts of their lives, and, you know, which I might have been picking up on because, you know, some sort of story sense. When they were kids, it was before the war. When they, when my dad was in high school, it was before the war. When he was working on a farm, listening to the radio, and I... and worried about, you know, not being able to afford the dentist, it was before the war. Then there was, well, that was during the war. It's a whole different storytelling process, the whole different guidelines of the narrative. Well, you have to understand that was during the war.

Jay Shetty 1:11:44 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:11:45 That was, '42 was during the war, and their daily life was completely different than what it had been. There was less of things. There was this fear of this unseen enemy possible attack. There were blackouts. They couldn't get cling peaches. They didn't have birthday cakes as much. They, they'd have the... It was during the war. And also say, "Well, where were you?" "Oh, well, that was during the war." "Well, where were you?" "Well, I was in a bata- you know, I was-"

Jay Shetty 1:12:12 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:12:12 "... I was, you know, I was... My dad was in the South Pacific. He was a machinist, and he would never have been in the South Pacific as a machinist were it not for the war." Then the rest of their lives when we show up, you know, when th- this next generation shows up, when their kids show up, all this stuff happened, and again, the narrative has completely changed. We have to understand that was after the war.

Jay Shetty 1:12:32 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:12:32 So on one hand, there was something to celebrate, but on the other hand, there was, guess what? Life became one damn thing after another in a different way than it had been before the war and during.

Jay Shetty 1:12:43 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:12:44 And, you know, it, w- the people that you, the people who did it well, you know, the- The storytellers, the teachers, or even the friends of my dad's when we're sitting around and everybody's relaxed on a Thursday night and they, they're drinking beers, you know, and they're talking about when they're getting to know each other. These, uh, the stories from any one of those acts I thought were, were fascinating, were, uh, were ponderable. Because as a seven-year-old, I'm hearing my dad and my mom and other people talk about when they were seven years old, with the magnifying glass and the division of, "Well, that was before the war. We did not know what was coming down the pipe." Then everything else that goes along with it. I still can't quite get past the fact that, uh, in 19- 1964, the Beatles are on the Ed Sullivan Show, and my dad is of the generation of just 20 years prior. The war was not yet over, and they had no idea when they were ever gonna come home. And now these four kids are up on there singing, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," and playing guitars and stuff like that, and everybody, m- everybody's making a big deal about it. Part of it is never saw this coming, never would've, never... And in a lot of ways, now us younger generation did not have the same attention span for what they ha- what they had been through. I mean, u- until the... You know, you could talk about Elvis Presley all you want, and rightly so. He was a d- he was a massive generational force, changed the world a lot of ways. But still, vis-a-vis a World War II generation.

Jay Shetty 1:14:27 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:14:27 The Beatles come along in 1964, and it's almost as though the last vestige of that generation carries import. You know? Has, has weight that we can pay attention to. Even though I've, you know, I've, I've never stopped studying of it, because at the end of the day, it's just great storytelling. You wanna talk about great protagonists, antagonists, you wanna talk about the irony, you wanna talk about the, the, the, the, uh, schizophrenia of, uh, what can happen in good and bad, World War II is about as good as you're going to get. And also, here's this other thing that's ridiculously satisfying about it. It ended. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:15:07 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 1:15:08 There was a time when it was all done, and, uh, wars now go on for generations, uh, and they go on for decades, and there are no, there are no moments when, you know, the swords are pounded into plowshares.

Jay Shetty 1:15:23 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:15:23 Not that that happened in, you know, 100% in 1945.

Jay Shetty 1:15:27 Yeah. It seems, it seems as though, like, not that it's any comparison with the events that took place, but our language of this generation has become pre-pandemic, during the pandemic-

Tom Hanks 1:15:37 About that, yeah

Jay Shetty 1:15:38 ... post-pandemic.

Tom Hanks 1:15:39 Yeah, you could, maybe-

Jay Shetty 1:15:39 Yeah

Tom Hanks 1:15:39 ... you could probably look at it, uh, there was a moment, certainly the AIDS crisis came along-

Jay Shetty 1:15:43 Yeah

Tom Hanks 1:15:43 ... and the pandemic of the AI- uh, of AIDS, that certainly altered all of society in the same way.

Jay Shetty 1:15:48 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:15:48 Could talk about, you could talk to an awful lot of guys who will say, "Well, you understand, that was before AIDS," you know?

Jay Shetty 1:15:53 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:15:53 And that, that means a lot.

Jay Shetty 1:15:54 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:15:54 And, uh, yeah, you would say the same thing about certainly the, the, the COVID pandemic. We went through something [laughs] that... I mean, my, uh... look, I got grandkids who are now talking about their lives. Well, that was during COVID.

Jay Shetty 1:16:08 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:16:08 And so they didn't go to school, and they didn't see their friends. They were trying to do things online. It was really different. And now COVID has let go, and guess what? Now they're just getting on with the rest of the tasks of growing up with their life. So they, too, um, they, you know, might be a little young to remember, you know, before COVID, but they do.

Jay Shetty 1:16:26 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:16:27 So yeah. So what's gonna be next, do you think?

Jay Shetty 1:16:30 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:16:30 What's gonna be that next three-act structure to our, uh, to our collective history?

Jay Shetty 1:16:35 Well, as you keep saying, more will be revealed as well. There's, uh-

Tom Hanks 1:16:38 This, yes. This too shall pass, and more shall be revealed, and we will never all know of everything that we need to know.

Jay Shetty 1:16:45 Yeah. And, uh, you've been seen as the, um, or even in a poll, voted the most trusted man in America.

Tom Hanks 1:16:51 That's some- there's an anomaly in the vote-taking process there.

Jay Shetty 1:16:54 [laughs] How does, how-

Tom Hanks 1:16:55 After all the times I've lied to everybody. "Oh, no, this is a great movie. Yeah, by all means, come see this movie." That, that was a lie sometimes.

Jay Shetty 1:17:04 [laughs] How does, how, how, how do you, how do you deal with that kind of a moment?

Tom Hanks 1:17:07 Oh, I, you know, I don't know. There's, there's a, uh, um, uh, yeah, okay. You know, I get it. That's good. I, I guess that comes around to perhaps the thing that I was talking about, uh, countenance-wise.

Jay Shetty 1:17:20 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:17:21 You know? If you were gonna take somebody who is, who is an artist and say, uh, "Who's the scariest person alive?" You know? It, the, you'll, you'll come off with, you know, I don't know, V- you know, Vincent Pri- you know, what- whatever. I'm an artist. I'm a storyteller, and I think I'll take that as, as a, um, a testament to, I guess, the veracity that I brought to my craft, my, my choice. I'd like to think that, you know, you go all in on, on a story, on a say, "Hey, sit down. I, I want... You might be interested in hearing this," is that you're, you're, it's an honest exchange-

Jay Shetty 1:18:00 Mm

Tom Hanks 1:18:00 ... uh, between

Tom Hanks 1:18:02 myself and the audience, and if it's an honest exchange, then you could come to trust them. You know?

Jay Shetty 1:18:07 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:18:07 That's not a bad thing.

Jay Shetty 1:18:08 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:18:08 That's not a bad thing.

Jay Shetty 1:18:09 Absolutely. And it, and it's, it's quite magical, actually. I mean, trust in that way. Of course, you know, Hollywood success, you've spoken about it so many times, which is why we haven't dived into it. And then, you know, a happy, healthy marriage. And how did you know Rita was the one? Like, that's... You know, how, how did you know?

Tom Hanks 1:18:28 Uh, divine providence. Uh, you know, uh, maybe it's kind of like the same thing that happened when I was in school, uh, in, in high school, and I said, "This could be school." Um, there was a thing with, uh, with, uh, with Rita where I just thought, "Wait, it could be like this? It could be like just sitting around? That's h- it could be like a, a carefree union? I didn't know that. How about that?" I had, honestly, I had not- ... truly experienced that somehow. And when it's there, you just kinda go, "Oh." I, I, you know, I, I, I, you know, I'd like to say, and then, you know, "And then we met." And I'd say, and you know, and then that was that. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Th- then you get on with it. And, uh, you know, years later, um, no small amount of, uh, no small amou- amount of me saying things like, "Oh, let me get this straight," you know? There's a lot of plenty of, plenty of examples of that going on, you know?

Jay Shetty 1:19:29 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:19:30 With so much so that, "Oh, here goes Dad. Oh, here goes Dad with a let me get this straight, why would it work for me argument." I pull it out, I pull it out all the time, and, uh, you know, it, we, we, we do, she does too. And that's the exchange.

Jay Shetty 1:19:44 Yes.

Tom Hanks 1:19:45 Um, and it's, it remains glorious and, and you're, and you, you, you can't create it anywhere else. Can't fake that.

Jay Shetty 1:19:52 Yeah. There's that beautiful, uh, acceptance speech that you have in 2020 when you talk about how a man is blessed with this beautiful family-

Tom Hanks 1:20:00 Oh, that, yeah

Jay Shetty 1:20:00 ... that he has in front of him, where you're in tears and-

Tom Hanks 1:20:02 That, you know, you can't, uh, I'm, for number one, I am a sap. Number two, you, I, you don't expect... You think you're gonna be able to get up and, you know, get away with it. So me thinking, "Oh, and I'm gonna get, there'll be some straight shooting. I'll see some great stuff." But then I just, you look down and, you know, there's my wife and there's, you know, there's, you know, a combination of all my kids, sometimes four, five, you know? They're all just there. And what do you see? I see little babies, you know? Um, and I, you know, I, you know, I see, uh, I, I see this, uh, this woman that, uh, has put up with so much stuff. And you just, you know, life flashes before your eyes a little bit. And there's that, there's that moment of surrealism where it's like, "Can somebody explain to me how this happened? I'm not, I'm not quite sure."

Jay Shetty 1:20:49 And Here does the same thing, the movie. Here, H-E-R-E.

Tom Hanks 1:20:53 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:20:53 There's a sense of you're watching your life flash back.

Tom Hanks 1:20:57 It, you, what I really loved... Okay, this, I, I guess we have to be careful about spoiler alerts-

Jay Shetty 1:21:02 I know, I'm trying not, yeah

Tom Hanks 1:21:03 ... 'cause yeah, so we, we, we don't, we don't-

Jay Shetty 1:21:04 I'm trying, I'm trying

Tom Hanks 1:21:05 ... we don't wanna go there.

Tom Hanks 1:21:07 But I think that it ends up examining this truth that sometimes life passes in the wink of an eye, and it's like, wow, are we here already? But there's other times in that same wink of an eye you comprehend it all, and I think that's what the, that's what the, the movie works towards-

Jay Shetty 1:21:30 Mm-hmm

Tom Hanks 1:21:30 ... if I can be so bold. And in many ways, that was the theme-

Jay Shetty 1:21:35 Mm

Tom Hanks 1:21:35 ... that we were all working towards.

Jay Shetty 1:21:39 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:21:39 And even in the, the, the perfectness of just the word. It happened here. This is where that happened. Have you been, have you ever, like, been in, like, a really super historic place, right?

Jay Shetty 1:21:49 Yes, a few times, yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:21:50 Where something went down. Now, maybe it's something from thousands of years ago, or maybe it's something that you witnessed on TV yourself. You go to a, like, you go to, like, Washington, DC-

Jay Shetty 1:22:00 Mm-hmm

Tom Hanks 1:22:00 ... and, uh, stood on

Tom Hanks 1:22:04 the, you know... [laughs] Look, I made a movie in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and I couldn't believe that was happening, and then l- years later I'm going back. And there is, there is a plaque at the top of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which is where Martin Luther King stood.

Jay Shetty 1:22:16 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:22:16 And I have since gone back and read about that extraordinary day that did not happen by accident. In fact, it was originally going to be a protest. It was going to be a sit-in, and the powers that be all got together and said, "Rather than make it a protest of a sit-in, make it a march." And suddenly also things happened like there were plenty of bathrooms lined up. There was sandwiches that was made for people. There were social services. There were cops. There were army men [laughs] standing by ready in case it was going to be a riot. And in 1964, '63, a riot was definitely a, a possibility. Would've been a massive amount of civil unrest. And instead, it was all of these speakers. Marlon Brando was there for, Charlton Heston was there, along with everybody else. And, uh, Martin Luther King was... Everybody could only speak for seven minutes 'cause they did not want it to run over, become unruly. So every- everybody who spoke spoke for seven minutes, and that includes the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.

Jay Shetty 1:23:22 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:23:23 And there's a reason that plaque is, that, that plaque is there in order to, in order to place it. And to be there and see it and then just envision every- It's a powerful place.

Jay Shetty 1:23:32 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:23:33 P- Powerful, powerful, spiritual.

Jay Shetty 1:23:35 Yeah. Are there other places you've been to like that or revisited multiple times to decode and discover and-

Tom Hanks 1:23:42 Uh, oh, yeah. Um, I'll tell you, I'll tell you one. Uh, who cares what I said on other podcasts? Um, when we, when we were doing, um, believe it or not, when we, we were in Philadelphia 'cause I was making Philadelphia. Kids were, you know, I, uh, uh, are, only had three kids there and some of them were with us, and we were... And we, it was a freezing cold day. We had a day off, so we went and saw the sights, including, um, Independence Hall. You know, Liberty Bell. You know, whole bit. What are you gonna do in Philadelphia? You're gonna go do that. You're gonna see the Liberty Bell. You're gonna go like that. And Independence Hall being a famous place, and it's still in the same joint, and it still holds the same, you know, dimensional structure to it, you know?

Jay Shetty 1:24:20 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:24:20 Maybe a lot of s- everything might have been, you know, recreated, but nonetheless, there it is. And we were up in the senate building, and, um, the senate room, you know? 'Cause it had Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Senate right there. And, uh, we were there, and it, uh, the, the, the, it's a national park, and the ranger said, uh, "If you look at all of this stuff is reproductions except that chair," you know, which is the original chair. I said, "Wow, it looked the same."

Jay Shetty 1:24:47 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:24:47 "It looked like a chair to me." So said, "That chair, that's an original chair," and it looked exactly like the same. He said, "All this other stuff has been recreated to, to the best of its authenticity," and it's a riser there. And he said, "That spot-" In front of, in front of the, that, uh, the dais. John Adams was sworn in as the second president of the United States, taking the place of George Washington, was the first time in recorded history when the rule of a sovereign nation was passed to another without bloodshed and him not being a relation. Said something like that. And the head, my, uh... I said, "We are in holy ground." Nobody died. The king is dead. Long live the king. No one was murdered, butchered. The hordes didn't come in and take away. No one was passing it on to his son in order to go on. There was no relation between John Adams and George Washington. The only thing that happened was this modicum of a thing they call democracy, which wasn't really democracy. I mean, women couldn't vote. If you were a slave, you were only three-fifths of a human being. The only people that actually voted were a bunch of white men, property owners, uh, who originally didn't wanna pay their taxes to the, to the crown. But look what, look what, look what happened there. W- I mean, I, I, you know, I, I've been to, you know, plenty of cool joints and, uh, but there, there, the, this idea, not unlike the, the place where Martin Luther King stood.

Jay Shetty 1:26:16 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:26:17 The idea that was communicated right there was tantamount to being in, you know, some version of the Holies of Holies, a-

Jay Shetty 1:26:24 Yeah

Tom Hanks 1:26:24 ... you know, a precious shrine, a place of great faith and hope.

Jay Shetty 1:26:28 Mm. I mean, speaking to that impact, you received a honorary Greek citizenship-

Tom Hanks 1:26:34 Oh, yeah

Jay Shetty 1:26:35 ... uh, for, for your-

Tom Hanks 1:26:36 I got a passport

Jay Shetty 1:26:37 ... for, for your amazing work there.

Tom Hanks 1:26:39 Well, yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:26:39 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:26:40 Uh, yeah. Uh, look, we just lo- you know, we-

Jay Shetty 1:26:42 Yeah

Tom Hanks 1:26:42 ... love Greece and, you know, it is the home country to, uh, to my wife's, uh, family and, uh, um, it's f- it... Well, you can do a... Uh, this is something that, that-

Jay Shetty 1:26:52 Please

Tom Hanks 1:26:53 ... that we do in, that I do in Greece. You know, you go off to some other island or you're swimming somewhere, you're on a boat, and you can kind of, like, pivot, and all you see is land, sea, and sky. There's no sign of humanity. And you go, like, [laughs] this is exactly what it's looked like for 110,000 years, you know? This is exactly what... This island was here in this exact same point. And by the way, there's a port right there, which was, you know, a place of antiquity or that. But to be able to look at something that is unscarred exactly as it was, it's like looking at primordial forests.

Jay Shetty 1:27:33 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:27:33 It's like going back in time, and you see this aspect of the sky and the wind and the aridness of it, but the power of, you know, h- a, a ship

Tom Hanks 1:27:42 in order to get there. Um, I, I d- I've done that, you know, any number of places, you know, great-

Jay Shetty 1:27:47 Yeah

Tom Hanks 1:27:47 ... historical places like that. And, uh, it ends up, uh, it makes you feel really, really teeny-tiny sometimes.

Jay Shetty 1:27:54 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:27:54 It's like, who are we but, you know, specks in the course of all of this? It's like standing under, you know, a big, massive sky and finally seeing on a really super dark night the, you know, our galaxy or the, you know, the, the Milky Way, our solar system. And then you go like, "Wow, I haven't been out of town for a while."

Jay Shetty 1:28:11 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 1:28:11 "I forgot how big that sky is and, uh, that that's a part of this." It's like, it, it-

Jay Shetty 1:28:17 It's-

Tom Hanks 1:28:17 It's important to go through that sometimes.

Jay Shetty 1:28:18 So important.

Tom Hanks 1:28:19 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:28:19 So important.

Tom Hanks 1:28:19 Have you ever seen a, uh, a solar eclipse?

Jay Shetty 1:28:22 I, I, I'm, I'm sure I've kind of, but not, I'm not... Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:28:26 Not the last one, but the one-

Jay Shetty 1:28:27 Yeah

Tom Hanks 1:28:27 ... prior to it.

Jay Shetty 1:28:28 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:28:28 We made sure that we were in the path of totality.

Jay Shetty 1:28:31 Right. Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:28:32 And we saw it, and oh my God. It... You... I cannot talk. No special effect in any movie has ever had the same impact or effect on anybody who takes a look at what that is. You feel as though you are witnessing God, the, you know, the clockworks of God, and it's, they can predict it. They know what it's gonna be. And every step of it is you cannot fathom what you are seeing. And I, it made me feel on one hand, it made us all feel on one hand really super tiny but at the other hand magnificent because we're a race that knew when it was coming-

Jay Shetty 1:29:13 Mm

Tom Hanks 1:29:13 ... and could predict it, could make sure we're there watching. It was really marvelous.

Jay Shetty 1:29:16 Where was that?

Tom Hanks 1:29:17 When you read it, there was, like, these paths. You know, you can look at it on a map, but we just made sure that we were up in the panhandle of Idaho in order to-

Jay Shetty 1:29:24 Mm

Tom Hanks 1:29:24 ... in order to take a look at it.

Jay Shetty 1:29:25 Wow.

Tom Hanks 1:29:26 People were just parking their cars willy-nilly everywhere in order to be... They were, they were driving from, you know, hundreds of miles on either side of it in order to get to this very specific path of totality, and it is, man. It is, it is a totally immersive experience. Don't miss it if you can.

Jay Shetty 1:29:43 Okay, next one. Tom, it has, uh, been such a joy spending time with you today. I feel so grateful to have been able to hear stories, be taken on adventures, and learn life's lessons through-

Tom Hanks 1:29:55 My, my, it's been, it's just been a-

Jay Shetty 1:29:57 ... your insight

Tom Hanks 1:29:57 ... delightful conversation.

Jay Shetty 1:29:58 Yeah, it's been-

Tom Hanks 1:29:58 I've, I've, I've learned, I lov- loved hearing about your history, you know, how you got there.

Jay Shetty 1:30:03 Very kind.

Tom Hanks 1:30:03 For, for the oldest boy of a, of a, what is it? A, a fractured marriage between-

Jay Shetty 1:30:08 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 1:30:09 ... a Indian f- a, a Indian mom and dad, you've, uh, uh, I think you've done well in your, in your pursuit.

Jay Shetty 1:30:15 Well, thank you. I'm very grateful. We end every On Purpose episode with a final five. These have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.

Tom Hanks 1:30:23 One word to one sentence maximum?

Jay Shetty 1:30:24 Yeah, yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:30:24 Okay.

Jay Shetty 1:30:24 Which I will probably-

Tom Hanks 1:30:26 Man

Jay Shetty 1:30:26 ... I will probably break the rules, so don't worry if you do.

Tom Hanks 1:30:28 Okay.

Jay Shetty 1:30:29 Uh, but, uh, Tom Hanks, these are your final five. The first question is, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received?

Tom Hanks 1:30:37 Throw deep, baby.

Jay Shetty 1:30:39 And why?

Tom Hanks 1:30:41 If you're gonna do it, do it. If you have the chance, do it. Don't pause. There, there... Instinct, man. If you got an instinct, go at it. Throw deep.

Jay Shetty 1:30:55 I love that. Uh, second question, what is the worst life advice you ever heard or received?

Tom Hanks 1:31:02 Uh, do Fantasy Island. [laughs] I didn't take it, but, uh, there was no reason to do Fantasy Island

Jay Shetty 1:31:10 That's great. Uh, question number three: how would you define your current purpose?

Tom Hanks 1:31:15 Uh, to be present.

Jay Shetty 1:31:17 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:31:19 Wherever one is, whoever is one around, be present. Be right there. Show up, be present.

Jay Shetty 1:31:27 Why?

Tom Hanks 1:31:29 Because that will teach you then,

Tom Hanks 1:31:31 I think, how the difference between telling the truth to the best of your understanding and being all right with what happens next, if you can't do that, your f- l- life is going to be a wasted opportunity.

Jay Shetty 1:31:47 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:31:47 If that makes sense.

Jay Shetty 1:31:48 Mm-hmm. Uh, question number four. Hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:31:53 Are you making these up as you go along, or is-

Jay Shetty 1:31:55 No, no, no, no

Tom Hanks 1:31:56 ... it's homework you gave me to-

Jay Shetty 1:31:56 These are all... No, no, no. These are all, these are all-

Tom Hanks 1:31:57 All right. Okay

Jay Shetty 1:31:58 ... yeah, every single question I've asked you today. Um, what's something you believe you're learning and evolving into right now, or something that you're tinkering with right now personally?

Tom Hanks 1:32:09 There is an addictive quality to examining the past that can be counterproductive if you're only doing it in order to wallow in a nostalgia of how easy things were back then. I fancy myself a lay historian. I... Vanity of vanity, all is vanity. There's nothing new under the sun. Okay, so this stuff has been going on forever. If you are not looking, if, if I am not looking for examples of the frailties of the human condition, if I am only looking at the past in a version of there was an antagonist and there was a protagonist, and the protagonist won, missing the point of how m- uh, uh, miraculous the human condition is. Um, if you're going to... I went to Egypt, and I saw all the stuff that tourists see when they see Egypt, right? And if you're going to Egypt in order to come up with some k- "Oh, this is the home of great spirituality, and there was a cosmic power here, and this is where the..." Okay, uh, fine. Go ahead. I'm not gonna tell you that's not what's going on. But if you're not also seeing this ongoing frigging mystery of what humankind has figured out on its own, you're missing out, you know?

Jay Shetty 1:33:33 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:33:33 There's, there is... Yes, they call them the great pyramids. They weren't necessarily built for great reasons.

Jay Shetty 1:33:39 Mm. Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:33:40 Sometimes they were just built in order to maintain the status quo of, of the haves and the have-nots.

Jay Shetty 1:33:45 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:33:45 And when I heard a guy say, the Sphinx, you know, the Great Sphinx-

Jay Shetty 1:33:50 Mm-hmm

Tom Hanks 1:33:52 ... you could have been alive 2,000 years after the Great Sphinx was built, and you're still in p- pharaoic Egypt. It's still before the Common Era began, and guess what? You and nobody else has any idea who built the Sphinx.

Jay Shetty 1:34:13 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:34:14 That's how old it is, and that it's built as well as it- And if you don't take that and understand, like, man, there's mystery there. Who did it? How they did it? That stuff's always interesting. The why they did it, that's interesting, too. But also, that incredible impact of that, the Sphinx will never be explained.

Jay Shetty 1:34:35 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:34:36 If you're just there for the nostalgia, and you, you know, wanna, you know, ride the camel, get your picture, you can do all that stuff and, and that's a blast. But there's some- there's something to the past that if you allow yourself just to be soothed by it-

Jay Shetty 1:34:50 Mm

Tom Hanks 1:34:50 ... um, you're missing out on a great life lesson.

Jay Shetty 1:34:53 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:34:53 Something that is important as physics or poetry.

Jay Shetty 1:34:56 Mm. So powerful. Why, why do you think we do that?

Tom Hanks 1:34:59 I, I think because we're looking for, um, a, w- [laughs] we, we wanna feel good about going to sleep at night, you know? We wanna feel as though that there is this, uh, that there is this, this, um, purpose that outside, uh, uh, I think, um, outside the co- cosmic understanding that hey, you know what? You know, the universe is, uh, indifferent.

Jay Shetty 1:35:22 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:35:22 But the human condition is not.

Jay Shetty 1:35:24 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:35:24 That's what separates us from, you know, um, you know, the chaos theory. We don't have to live in chaos if we choose not to.

Jay Shetty 1:35:34 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:35:35 And if we're only looking at the past in order for some degree of, oh, it was so much easier back then, no, it's, uh, it's never been easier. As I said before, you know, no one re- no one knows that they're living, they're living in the 1400s. They were just alive back then. And, uh, uh, it, it, it might be highfalutin, but what it says is... Oh, I'll tell you this. What it says is our best days are yet to come.

Jay Shetty 1:35:57 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:35:58 We are going to progress from here, and if you're just looking at the past and saying, "Man, that was when it was great. I wish we could go back," no. You never want to go back. You always have to understand that our best days are still ahead of us.

Jay Shetty 1:36:12 Mm.

Tom Hanks 1:36:12 Otherwise, what's that say of us if we don't move forward?

Jay Shetty 1:36:15 Well said.

Tom Hanks 1:36:15 It says we gave up or, or got lazy or ended up putting too much, too much power in, uh, in maintaining a status quo that ends up being a division between the haves and the have-nots.

Jay Shetty 1:36:30 Absolutely. Well said. Uh, fifth and final question, we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

Tom Hanks 1:36:41 Man, you spring this on me?

Jay Shetty 1:36:42 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 1:36:43 You, uh... Really? I, I'm looking at a wall of shame of people that-

Jay Shetty 1:36:47 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 1:36:47 Your Polaroids of people that have been- They all came up with something for that?

Jay Shetty 1:36:51 They did.

Tom Hanks 1:36:53 One law that everybody had to follow. A law, meaning you could be punished if you don't obey this law?

Jay Shetty 1:37:03 Sure, sure.

Tom Hanks 1:37:04 Hmm. Well, it can't be like a philosophical thing like, uh, be kind, you know? Um, being kind is in the eye of the, uh, both the kinder and the kindee. I would pass a law that says no one is allowed to infringe upon the right in regards to what somebody else reads.

Jay Shetty 1:37:35 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:37:36 That is, no matter how disagreement, whatever that disagreement is, to be free is to think. And the most physical manifestation of thought is in the choose- choosing of what you read.

Jay Shetty 1:37:50 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:37:51 So I would say that no one is allowed to infringe upon the right to determine, infr- interrupt, uh, figure out what the legal... But no one is allowed to infringe upon the right of an individual to read what they choose to read.

Jay Shetty 1:38:09 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:38:10 That would be my... That would be the law.

Jay Shetty 1:38:12 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:38:12 Now, take a look at all the societies.

Jay Shetty 1:38:14 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:38:14 You know? I'm fascinated by, [laughs] I'm fascinated by communism, man, 'cause tho- those guys were idiots, you know? They truly were. And the idea that in East Berlin you cannot read-

Jay Shetty 1:38:26 Mm-hmm

Tom Hanks 1:38:26 ... [laughs] you c- you cannot read, um, uh, To Kill a Mockingbird or, or, you know, any, any... Or Doctor Zhivago, for crying out loud. The idea that you can maintain order in society by preventing somebody from reading what they want to read, this is madness.

Jay Shetty 1:38:44 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:38:44 This is tyranny, and it's about... This is, this is, this is dr- draconian. What's the word I'm looking? That, that's despotism at its absolute height-

Jay Shetty 1:38:52 Mm-hmm

Tom Hanks 1:38:52 ... that you c- you can do that. And I think on the opposite of that, absolute freedom to read what you want to read, and along with that, create what you want to create as well.

Jay Shetty 1:39:01 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:39:01 That should be the default position of the human condition, and isn't it amazing that it's not? So that would be the law I would pass.

Jay Shetty 1:39:10 Powerful, unique, and completely original answers, so worth waiting for.

Tom Hanks 1:39:14 Well, as an author, you know. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 1:39:16 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 1:39:17 As a guy who writes, uh-

Jay Shetty 1:39:18 Yeah

Tom Hanks 1:39:18 ... I'll, I'll, I'll bow to that.

Jay Shetty 1:39:20 Well, Tom, thank you so much again.

Tom Hanks 1:39:21 Oh, this was magnificent.

Jay Shetty 1:39:22 I'm so grateful.

Tom Hanks 1:39:22 Thank you so much.

Jay Shetty 1:39:23 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:39:23 No. Oh, it was great. Great.

Jay Shetty 1:39:24 Such a pleasure, and I can't wait for everyone to go and watch Here on November 1st.

Tom Hanks 1:39:28 All right. Yeah, we'll pay that.

Jay Shetty 1:39:29 So, yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:39:29 Oh, yes. Go on in now. By the way, you can only see it in a theater. The-

Jay Shetty 1:39:32 Yes

Tom Hanks 1:39:32 ... it, it, we... Okay, here's the thing. This is why ev- this is why our crack staff is so petrified. W- there is no streaming deal for this movie.

Jay Shetty 1:39:39 Yet.

Tom Hanks 1:39:39 You know? You, you, y- you're not gonna be able to, you know, log on, enter your passcode, you know, share it with your friends on... Or the only way you're gonna, you're gonna have to drive to a place and buy a ticket at a certain time and sit in a room with a bunch of strangers-

Jay Shetty 1:39:54 I love it

Tom Hanks 1:39:54 ... and watch this movie. It's al- almost unheard of. And of course, everybody is petrified that that's gonna be the requirements of seeing a movie, but that's the way it's gonna be.

Jay Shetty 1:40:02 [laughs] I love it. Theaters are still one of my favorite experiences.

Tom Hanks 1:40:05 Oh, yeah.

Jay Shetty 1:40:05 Yeah, it's-

Tom Hanks 1:40:06 It's the ex- you know, uh, not to continue along with that-

Jay Shetty 1:40:08 No, please

Tom Hanks 1:40:08 ... but this, there's this thing that we talk about all the time right now, and I actually believe that podcasts is-

Jay Shetty 1:40:13 Mm-hmm

Tom Hanks 1:40:13 ... can be an example of it. It is the experiential economy, meaning that it is one thing... Look, everything is a one-on-one. You listen to a record, you see a band. But the experience of being with others, as opposed to being in your house or being on your headphones or being like that, being with others has a value to it that in some cases is worth money. Okay, that's commerce. But on other cases is to be sought after. My wife and I went to see a play in New York. It was a revival of Into the Woods.

Jay Shetty 1:40:48 Mm-hmm.

Tom Hanks 1:40:49 And it was more or less right after the pandemic. Theaters were back open again. People were, people were essentially living their lives again. There'd, there'd been enough, you know, uh, everybody had gotten enough vaccines and what have you, and, uh, COVID wasn't killing as many people as it had. And so we went to the theater 'cause, uh, we had, we knew some people in it, and, uh, it was... Here's, this thing happened. You know, it's a theater, a mumble everybody, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sold out, big hit, and mumble, mumble, mumble. And when the house lights went to half for the first act, there was a standing ovation. People stood up before a word, before a note had been sung. Nothing had happened on the... What was happening was the show is about to start, and it was a standing ovation.

Jay Shetty 1:41:41 [laughs]

Tom Hanks 1:41:41 And I, I literally said, "That's the, that's the experience. People are reacting to the experience of being with strangers or a handful of friends with strangers in a room, and nothing, what is gonna happen in this room will never be repeated. The only people that will participate in this is the folks that are here right now." And movies oftentimes can have that same experience, 'cause I can remember going to see 2001 or Jaws or Close Encounters of... or Aliens or, you know, or, uh, Full Metal Jacket. I can remember the specifics of all those things.

Jay Shetty 1:42:15 Yeah.

Tom Hanks 1:42:15 And it's the same experiential, uh, experience, and maybe it's, maybe it's part of the economy or maybe it's just part of the, the great human purchase that we all want to, we wanna participate in.

Jay Shetty 1:42:26 For sure. Thank you, Tom.

Tom Hanks 1:42:27 Thank you.

Jay Shetty 1:42:28 Thank you.

Tom Hanks 1:42:28 Great, great talk.

Jay Shetty 1:42:28 Such a pleasure.

Tom Hanks 1:42:29 I might-

Jay Shetty 1:42:29 It was amazing

Tom Hanks 1:42:30 ... I really enjoyed it.

Jay Shetty 1:42:31 If you loved this episode, you'll love my interview with Will Smith on owning your truth and unlocking the power of manifestation.

Speaker 1:42:38 Anybody who hasn't spoken to their parents or their brother, call them right now. Don't think you're gonna have a chance to call them tomorrow or next week. That opportunity with my father changed every relationship in my life