TOM HANKS: Hi everybody! Hey, hey. Yo what's up? (Applause) How you doing? PETER SAGAL: I feel like I should clarify for the people. TOM HANKS: Peace and love PETER SAGAL: that's Tom Hanks. TOM HANKS: Yes (Laughter) PETER SAGAL: He we often take each other's place. As you know, last year Tom hosted my show. "Wait Wait, don't tell me" and a little while after that. I took his place in the latest Dan Brown movie. (Laughter) I mean it is just a wig they can put the wig on anyone. TOM HANKS: what you got to do is run around with a very interested look on your face, you know, that's not a trompe l'oeil roof. It's actually made of wood you could crawl around honestly can. But we had to go out on the roof of the Piazza San Marco PETER SAGAL: Yeah, yeah in Venice TOM HANKS: St. Mark's Basilica Chapel in Venice, because there were a bronze horses of PETER SAGAL: St. Mark, the horses of Saint Mark TOM HANKS: St. Mark that were cast by some of the and made a big deal because we had to go out there and examine them. Oh and this horse has that and that horse has that. Well, the truth is they are exact replicas of bronze horses that are indoors.. PETER SAGAL: right (Laughter) TOM HANKS: That do not have slippery wet tile around them PETER SAGAL: How cinematic would that be? TOM HANKS: But I actually, well that was exactly what the problem was. I said, dude. What's it, theres write ins. well, we can't we're not allowed well, we can't indoors. Yeah, besides that we want some production value here about running around. So you can take the next one because I'm done. (Laughter) I like to call them the Robert Langdon Mysteries. PETER SAGAL: Yes. TOM HANKS: Are you shooting another DaVinci Code movie? No I'm shooting another Robert Langdon mystery PETER SAGAL: professor of symbology and TOM HANKS: and no one calls them the Robert Langdon mystery PETER SAGAL: No, no they call him the Denver. Anyway. Hello. Tom Hanks. Thank you for coming to Chicago. TOM HANKS: Thank you very much. (Applause) PETER SAGAL: So You decided that you just hadn't done enough with your life. So you became an author to fiction every I mean, I know everybody asks you that. I have been a writer. You have been a fairly successful movie star. Why.. (Laughter) TOM HANKS: My day job, yeah It's a checkered career, but nonetheless PETER SAGAL: I mean there's everything you've done. There's Turner and Hooch it balances. (Laughter) TOM HANKS: There's some damn good stuff in Turner and Hooch PETER SAGAL: really? Turner and Hooch fans? (Applause) PETER SAGAL: Seriously? TOM HANKS: Yes, Yeah. PETER SAGAL: All right, I apologize. How about mazes and monsters any fans? No? (cheer) There we go. TOM HANKS: That's that's a throw back that so kind of hurt there PETER SAGAL: So I have lived the life of a writer and I have dreamed of the life of a movie star. Why would someone with a life of a movie star decide to go be a writer? TOM HANKS: Well, That the day job is that of doubt and you go through this phase where all you want to have is a job as an actor and then you don't get them for the longest time. And if you're lucky enough to get one you really are looking forward to the to the next one and you will particularly early in the career People said, why did you make that movie and I said because someone asked me to be in the movie are you insane? that's like saying, why did you cash that check? (Laugher) They gave me the check. And if the longevity and you know, the collection of wisdom is up to the fate of the Gods. You don't know what's going to happen. But as time goes on we ended up, you make alliances with this with other people that would like to stretch themselves and get farther across the horizon from what they've done and I've had a I formed an alliance and we called the company Playtone about many years ago PETER SAGAL: Record company from your film TOM HANKS: Yeah, and we actually yeah and we made we made movies and TV series and all sort. Some of them with me and many of them without and we lean in each other's doorway all the time and say, you know, I had this idea or someone has an idea someone comes in and says something and the first thing we do is we parse out what the theme of that is. What's the theme and whether or not it's worthy of examination. Because sometimes people come up with ideas and I say "I don't care" but if there's a theme that is going to be some aspect of the human condition or some aspect of why people are nice or cruel to each other or a moment from history that we don't want to know. Well then that's a theme you can land on but then you have to decide whether or not well, what's the best medium for that? What's the best venue? Is it a motion picture for which there is a myriad of obstacles that will get in the way of being able to bring that to the screen. Cost, budget, people, whether or not anybody will release it and I've made versions of movies that nobody wanted to release and that's okay. We still took a shot. But then there's also well maybe we need six or ten or more hours in order to get down and really get into it as well. Or maybe it needs to be a documentary. We just got to go and get the facts and present them in an entertaining way. But there is..There's plenty that end up falling through those cracks that cannot be examined in any way except perhaps in prose. Now. I'll give you this example of it. If you if anybody has read it or is going to take a look at it. There's a story in there called Welcome To Mars, it's about a dad who takes his kids surfing on his birthday. And why does he do it a kid finds it out later on because it turns out he's having something of an illicit relationship and the kid discovers it. Well that came about because I started I'm a horrible Surfer and I have more I have more memories of being injured in the water than I do of having pleasant rides, you know, so there is that but I was surfing one day and I came out of the water and I'm going to say came out this was probably 1986 and I saw a guy in his surfers outfit sitting in the passenger seat of a very expensive car. There was a very pretty woman behind the wheel. They were just sitting in the parking lot laughing and talking and I always thought what's going on there? What is that? Is that a lady stopping by? Is that a guy is this in clandestine? What is it? And that always just lingered in me as a possible story. That would be some brand of a theme about how complicated relationships can be with people and then added some other elements to it. And that's part and parcel and awful lot of the stories that are in here if things you know little embers that had been burning in the belly for a while PETER SAGAL: Wondering about the process though because you are obviously have acted quite a bit. You've produced quite a bit you've directed two feature films that I know of. Those are all very very collaborative. TOM HANKS: Yes PETER SAGAL: Sitting and writing a book is sitting by yourself TOM HANKS: And it's often the greatest luxury you can afford. PETER SAGAL: Most people I know including myself find that a burden that you're just have to sit there and just not do anything or talk to anyone. You just have to be there alone with your thoughts. TOM HANKS: Well, it is a burden when nothing is happening. But as soon as something clicks it's like Katie bar the door. I lose weight when I'm writing sometimes because you forget to eat because you're just so you know so possessed and it is a back and forth and back and forth. Okay, you might like this. When I was a kid, Kirk Douglas was on The Tonight Show. PETER SAGAL: Yes TOM HANKS: Everybody knows who Kirk Douglas is? Right, okay. (Applause) PETER SAGAL: Mr. Danielovitch TOM HANKS: Yes . This was you know, this was in the 70s or the 80s and Kirk Douglas was on and he had written his memoir called the Ragpickers Son. All right, which I did not read, but maybe I did read it. I can't remember it's a long time ago. But anyway, you're at home and you know, you got potato chips and in your PJs and watching Johnny Carson late at night and Kirk Douglas is on talking about his new book. (Laughter) My father was a ragpicker, you know, that's it. That's how I got to tell you Johnny. My dad was a ragpicker. All right, great. (Applause and Laughter) And and I said Okay that sounds pretty cool. I might have to get to that and Johnny asked him some question about writing and Kirk Douglas said "Well, you know Johnny the secret about writing is rewriting!" (Laughter) Wise words from none other than Kirk Douglas PETER SAGAL: By the way is still alive and could see this TOM HANKS: He is 982 years old and I believe he and I believe he talking about his new book. PETER SAGAL: I know because I read some of the interviews with you that everybody especially because you're a person of some public interest everybody reads this fiction and they want to find you. And I think I found you and I'm going to ask to your read very very brief because we don't have a lot of time. Just the part that I've highlighted This is from the center story in the book it's physically in the center, which I do not think as an accident. It's a story called These are the Meditations of My Heart. And the character is a typewriter repair man and salesman. TOM HANKS: Should I set it up or PETER SAGAL: As much as you like? TOM HANKS: Well, this is the story of how I got my first true typewriter. I took it to a machine business machine repair and I handed over my typewriter and I asked them if they would service it because it was beginning to you know it was plastic it was this cheap thing and it was coming loose here and there's space bar skipped and a guy who had an accent looked at and they said "I will not touch this machine." No, he did not "I will not touch this typewriter." I said, you know, I could swear that the sign out front that says you repair typewriters. He says "Yes, I repair machines." "This is a toy a toy!" and he pointed over to this wall of Trowbridge "These are machines" and I walked out of there with a Hermes 2000 typewriter that day that he gave me five dollars off. I said "you got to give me a trade-in for this thing" (Grumble) "All right five dollars" because he just wanted me to.. PETER SAGAL: What's interesting is of course that is the plot of this story the five dollar discount, But when I read the voice of the typewriter repair man, I heard you because I've heard you talk about typewriters TOM HANKS: Yes. Okay So, this is what he tells to the girl who has brought the typewriter in "Make the machine a part of your life a part of your day." Do not use it a few times then need room on the table and close it back into its case and sit on a shelf in the back of a closet. Do that and you may never write with it again. Why would you own a stereo and never listen to records? Typewriters must be used, like a boat but sail. An airplane has to fly. What good is a piano you never play? It gathers dust. There's no music in your life. Leave the typewriter out on a table where you see it. Keep a stack of paper at the ready. Use two sheets to preserve the plate. Order envelopes and your own stationery. I will give you a dust cover free of charge, but take it off when you're home. So the machine is ready to use. PETER SAGAL: A manifesto of typewriting. TOM HANKS: That's exactly right. (Applause) TOM HANKS: who's got a typewriter? They know where it is in their home? Anybody have it out? All right. PETER SAGAL: The book is called Uncommon.. TOM HANKS: Hope all your emails are hacked by Russia. PETER HAGAL: Yes. (Laughter) TOM HANKS: And here's the deal, they will be. (Laughter) PETER SAGAL: Do you live by that creed? TOM HANKS: Yes, I do. I use a typewriter every day. Back in the hotel. I had oddly enough one of my typewriters up and ready for me to use. I typed a letter to my son this morning because he was home in New York and I didn't see him. So I left a A typewriter is a it's a machine of permanence anything you type on a piece of paper is not typed onto piece of paper, it's typed into the fibers of the paper. If you would strike a hammer hard the letter k on one side it will have a dark letter k on the back side. You will see the imprint of the backwards k because it is gone into the fibers that make up the paper. If you keep that letter or shopping list or love note or thank you note in a box out of the sunlight and your house doesn't burn down that letter will last a thousand years. It's as permanent as words chiseled into stone. And in fact, words chiseled into stone might get washed away by rain and wind when if you keep a safe piece of paper and there's oceans of versions of this anywhere it can last forever and one of the things I like to do now and when people ask me, what could you really do with a typewriter? I asked him if they have kids and if they have a baby or if they have youngsters and I say get out two sheets of paper and write a letter to that kid about who they are right now and where you are and what you were doing and put it away in a safe place. And when that kid is 72 years old he or she will read that letter and they will see not only themselves but they will see their father or their mother and it will be a union brought about by a an object that is as unique as a snowflake. No one else can create it that same way. It is one of a kind. And that's different as are the irises in our eyes in the fingerprints that we have. Now that seems like well, what's the point you could do that with an awful lot of things but I think a well-written letter that comes from the heart with typos and misspellings and whatever it is, is still as unique as a Andy Warhol, silkscreen or a Gauguin oil painting or you know something that was scribbled out by Wordsworth or Leonardo DaVinci, and anybody can do because typewriters a cheap man, they're all over the place. You don't need to pay more than 50 bucks for a good typewriter. But if you need it working in might have to pay $750 (Laughter) PETER SAGAL: And that's all the time we have tonight. Thank you so much. I actually said to myself don't get him started about typewriters. (Laughter) TOM HANKS: there's typewriters in every store PETER SAGAL: There is and was that something you decided to do as sort of just as a thematic theme? TOM HANKS: No, I we had I had done about three of them and one of them was had a typewriter figured very prominently and my editor at Random House Penguin, Peter Gathers who's a brilliant guy, he said I really liked that little bit about the typewriter in it. I think what if I just like an Easter egg put a typewriter in every story. let's go ahead that's a good idea. It ended up sometimes if I was stuck and I wasn't getting where I would just think how could I put a typewriter into a story and out of that would shape some version of you know, a beat of something that could become, 44 Pages or 17 pages of the story. PETER SAGAL: Again speaking of my own experience. Sometimes when I would write I would discover things about my own thoughts that I did not know until I tribute in the somebody else. Did you have that experience writing this writing this book? Did you find out somethings? TOM HANKS: Oh, yeah. There was sometimes I type some that made me laugh so hard I had to stop you know, which makes me sound like a real dick (laughter) I'm sure that's never happened with you Peter? No never (Laughter) PETER SAGAL: If I ever write or come up with something that makes me just think it's the funniest thing. It is guaranteed. No one else will.. TOM HANKS: well, here's what you never do. You never laugh to yourself and pick up the thing you wrote and honey come here and listen to this because she looks up at you. Like "I'm busy". You know, she doesn't want to hear she doesn't think it's funny at all. There were there were stories that began that I thought were about one thing and ended up being about others and I had to go through a process, you know, a lot of the times when you're working on a movie you ask this question is any of this going to work? You know, is anybody going to care about this? How're we going to cut it? And the smart director I know said well Tom the movie will tell us what it needs to be and that was true on some of these stories. There's one in particular that is called Christmas Eve 1953 and I thought it was really about how this man cape survived the war came back had a family and instead of being in the Battle of the Bulge what watching people die? He's setting up his the kids toys around the Christmas tree and I always thought a lot about the lot of the veterans I had met the guys who had been there. I was thought how did they do that? I understand how they get to be old men you know that but how do you how do you still be in the prime of your life? You're 29, 30, 31 years old at just 10 years before it you were surrounded by blood and horror. How do you then go back and start work? Well, I had a story about a guy who did that and that's what the story started being about. But then I realize that he was going to get a phone call at midnight just like he gets every night on Christmas Eve from a guy who was in the war who didn't come back in the same fashion. A guy who will never be able to sit around his Christmas tree will never have kids PETER SAGAL: and that surprised you? TOM HANKS: yeah that took me that took me by surprise and there's other elements in some other stories that did this in. PETER SAGAL: one of the things I noticed about that story and I should say that I grew up like a lot of people reading short stories in the New Yorker say and usually stories about something when somebody when something terrible happens to them be it a terrible case of ennui if it's a New Yorker. TOM HANKS: ya, yes PETER SAGAL: One thing I noticed is that there are very few bad things that happen. For example, one story perhaps my favorite the one about the small boy in his ninth birthday. And he's like a lot of characters in the book come from a broken home what they used to call divorced parents and he goes off to spend a weekend with his mother who may or may not be paying enough attention to him. In this I'm actually tensing up because you just sense a little heartbreak, but instead she's taken by his mother's we assume new Bo on this airplane ride, and it's fantastic. It's beautiful and you describe it so amazingly how it would feel to a 9 year old TOM HANKS: He let them fly the plane PETER SAGAL: never been in an airplane and he's flying the plane and then he lands and that's the end of the story. Yeah, and I'm like what a wonderful way to look at the world that when things are going badly or maybe things are not comfortable. Maybe bad things have happened and you find yourself not in the home you want to be another thing that shows up. You get to go for an airplane ride. TOM HANKS: you have to ask this question that you never ponder when you're doing it, which is what all these stories mean. You know, what is the connective tissue that make them what they are and I'm yeah, you know, there's no bad guys and there's nobody that's.. And there's no murderers and none of them are murder mysteries are conspiracy theories. They are about, I think, they're about people who just want to get to the end of their day. And feel good about themselves and there are many times when it looks like that's not going to happen until they are aided and they are actually promoted along by people. They never expected to meet or to help them in any way and I think that's that's an awful lot of my growing up in my American experience. You know, I think that we were talking backstage with somebody and I said look, I think ninety percent of the people in this world are good and I want you to have the same fair shake that they had. Five percent are assholes. that's just, come on, you know, let's not beat around the bush and a certain percent of them are stark raving mad or not in control of their own facilities, but for that 90% that's mostly where we live and throughout and I can tell you from my own experience in my own just trying to get by to the end of the day at some point. I have met with some degree of fairness, if not, out-and-out kindness hundreds of times more than I've been that I've met with any sort of ass holiness to coin a phrase. PETER SAGAL: Really? Yeah. Yeah PETER SAGAL: Can we talk about your day job a little bit? TOM HANKS: Yeah. Sure PETER SAGAL: So, what's Julia Roberts like no, I'm sorry. (laughter) TOM HANKS: She's just one big set of beguiling eyes. PETER SAGAL: I was thinking about the roles you've done recently and a whole bunch of them have been real people. TOM HANKS: Yeah Yeah Captain Phillips, Ben Bradlee, I think most recently that your most recent? TOM HANKS: Well, I just played Mr. Rogers. PETER SAGAL: Well, yeah. Mr. Rogers (Applause) people that I think are pretty excited about seeing that. TOM HANKS: Can I just say I have another movie that will be out before that we're going to have to call the movie that is not about Mr. Rogers. (Laughter) PETER SAGAL: What is that movie? TOM HANKS: It's called it's called Greyhound. It's based on a C.S. Forester novel called the Good Shepherd. It's World War II a destroyer right smack dab in the middle that it's 48 Hours of a captain who has to get to the next day. PETER SAGAL: So another captain? TOM HANKS: Yeah, I can't get a promotion to save my life (Laughter) PETER SAGAL: That's like four captains. I never see you higher than captain. TOM HANKS: The thing you say about playing real there is a there's an economic model that is now going on in the business of Hollywood with the business of show. They don't call it show art. They call it show business. And part of that is they want to have a pre-sold audience. Meaning they want people to know what the movies about before they see the movie. And real life characters help that become, you know, a marketing tool. PETER SAGAL: Oh, I saw that guy land on the Hudson? I'll watch a movie about that. TOM HANKS: That guy, you know, he found the Pentagon papers and stuff like that. PETER SAGAL: But is that something that you I mean, I'm assuming that you have a lot of choices these days. That the days when you're happy to have work. TOM HANKS: There's been times when I said I don't want to do it. I've played too many real people here and I would like to have the luxury of making something up from whole cloth. As opposed to having a meeting with somebody and have to accept. Everybody I have played that is lived. Jim Lovell, Charlie Wilson when he was still alive. Chesley Sullenberger, Richard Phillips everybody. I've had to have this conversation instead. Look, look I'm going to be the bearer of horrible news right now. Okay, I am playing you. So for good or for bad, I am playing you. All right? You wanted somebody else you are shit out of luck. (Laughter) say it again with me. I am playing you. Now, now I want you to know that I am going to say things you never said. And I'm going to be places you never were. (Laughter) I'm going to do things you never did. BUT I want to be as accurate as possible. (Laughter) (Applause) PETER SAGAL: I just want to say to everybody out there that having Tom Hanks do a scene with you is weird. I'm not used to it. Usually I'm looking at him doing it from profile to someone else. TOM HANKS: That is a burden because I've said this at times not not just the things I've been in but also the things that we produce down to the company Which has been guys our job here is not to screw up people's lives. Our job here not to alter their motivations in order to give us a creative beat somewhere and here's an example of this. There was a character in Band of Brothers who was alive at the time and there were a lot of many stories about him about how tough and uncompromising he was and one of them was is that the story was that he gunned down prisoners that they had taken during the D-Day invasion. And these guys wrote it and they wrote it and they showed the scene where he guns them down. And I said you can't, we cannot do that. They said, well a lot of people said he did. Yeah lot of people said he did. We cannot do that. We cannot show without hesitation with all the clarity of a docudrama that we've made on HBO about a guy who gunned them down. Well, there's a lot of evidence that he did. Well fine dramatize seven versions of it in which he did and didn't and come close and almost did so that we have at least a Rashomon version of what may or may not have happened. And it end up being 17 times more powerful than and it also made us much more afraid of this character throughout the rest of the we knew he was really tough. And here's the reason why that paid off. We showed the movie to a bunch of veterans at the premiere at Utah Beach in France and guess who was in the theater watching himself being portrayed up there? The man himself who may or may not have gunned down a bunch of prisoners. And I asked him later on, are you Okay? He said "yeah, that was pretty much what it was like". (Laughter) but we would not have been able to do that. If we try to turn him into some sort of like maniacal, you know anti-hero to our PETER SAGAL: Did he tell you whether he did it or not? TOM HANKS: Oh, he did it (Laughter) He did..he did a lot of stuff. Yeah, but it was it was a vibrant time. Let's put it that way. PETER SAGAL: Again presuming you have some choice in the work you choose to do. Is there something about the real people or I guess even the fictional people you're choosing to play these days. That draws you right now I noticed for example that most of them are heroes in a who are caught in a moment of intense trial. TOM HANKS: They all have taken on a job and that job has ridiculous responsibilities and they have trained for it and they are prepared for it and they are they always run the risk of making the mistake that will destroy them for the rest of time. Sometimes getting themselves killed. Sometimes getting other people. Sometimes not doing it right. I'll tell you, you know Chesley Sullenberger, Sully and if you saw the movie this was hinted at he still would view the loss of any life from that crash as a career-ender a tragedy that would have altered, you know, the scope of who he is as a man and what he did as a professional and that includes if somebody had drowned in the East River by accident or been crushed as the taxis to ferry boats came and get them so the desire on those it's actually a huge risk, if you're making movie because you don't want to screw up somebody's life life or alter the true record of why they did, what they did, when they did it. Because you don't you don't get a pass just by saying putting up on the screen based on a true story. If you're going to put those words up there based on the true story that you got to get as close to the truth as possible. Even though I'm going to say things you never said. Or places you never were and do things you never did. PETER SAGAL: I was just thinking though specifically about the kinds of characters. You have played in the kinds of real life in many cases heroes you've played if you've learned anything about the nature of heroism? TOM HANKS: Yes PETER SAGAL: In a time when we probably could use it. TOM HANKS: Yeah. There is, it's the pressure of command that the people who do the job well and look we all have bosses right? Some of these bosses are great, smart people and some of them are clocks, you know that but they're still in charge charge and so they still have this job to do. They all at some point if they're lucky will, let me put it this, not lucky, but if they truly have the well wherewithal for the jobs that they have taken on. Will get into that spot where they are not afraid of their actions and they're not even thinking about of the outcome anymore. They will just play it like so many hands of Solitaire and if they do it, right they will win the game of Solitaire. Richard Phillips in Captain Phillips his whole thing when those guys, they were the scariest human beings on the planet by the way, the Somali pirates even the guys who played the Somali pirates. (Laughter) They were all four of the scariest guys I had and we met them when they stormed the bridge. We never seen them before. They came on looking like, you know, the true skinny Renegades that they were and that was that was real. We were really scared by them because they were yelling at us and they were slapping us around and then we after you know the third or fourth take, they're kind of like I can't believe I'm in a movie with you. (Laughter) Well, they were. About the third week the younger one would say, we were sitting there I said, "how you doing little buddy?" "I'm okay, how many shots before lunch?" (Laughter) So eventually you get to do that But Richard, I was asking so Rich, you know, they're on board. What are you trying to do? I said, I'm trying to get them off the ship. That's it. How do I get these guys off the ship? If you can get them off the ship, the ship will be safe. The crew will be safe. My job as a captain is to get them off the ship. That's pretty straightforward stuff. And as long as he always had cards that he could play. So, I don't find that anybody is resolute and unafraid and yet at the same time, they were preparing, the smart ones were preparing for the worst and trusting enough in everything they've been through to say when the dirt hits the fan I'll know what to do. PETER SAGAL: Right and yet at the same time, it just doesn't seem to me that training in any of the characters you've portrayed would have been enough to I mean, maybe Sully Sullenberger who knew how to land a plane TOM HANKS: He did do that PETER SAGAL: But he kept his cool. But even Captain Phil TOM HANKS: Let me tell you something interesting about Sully Sullenberger and this comes back to the long experience of it. His control panel went completely dead. PETER SAGAL: Yeah TOM HANKS: He had no.. which was a fake thing. He even said I said, well what happened when the control panel went kablooey he said "Tom the control panel went dead. We had no gauges whatsoever" I said "That's not going to happen in our movie." We're going to have all things going (control panel sounds) (laughter) (warning sounds) (laughter) TOM HANKS: We need it all that stuff. PETER SAGAL: Would've been so cool. If instead of like because Clint Eastwood is famously cheap if he had just had you do that. (Laughter) (Control panel beeps) TOM HANKS: Because as Sully explained, but Tom when the engines go down the generators go down. So we had no power. So essentially black screens like the TVs were turned off. But his body had been in flight so many times that he knew the rate of descent. He knew the speed that they were going. He felt it all inside. So, luckily they had the hydraulics that's on a different kind of system so he could control the plane. But he also knew how fast they were coming down. So, in his mind, he said we have this amount of time to find a place in order to land and that's not we didn't explain that in the course of the movie. That's just something that you bring to it. So, you have to take on an awful lot of the physiological traits of you know what they did and how they got there. And if you know in war movies, they never show the two years of training that they went through, but those guys in the landing craft and Saving Private Ryan they were they're actually Veterans of the North Africa. They were the Rangers that were at the Kasserine Pass. You find this stuff out and then you realize that you know, the reason that a guy like Captain Miller is shaking his head is because he doesn't want to fuck up. He doesn't want to get anybody.. He's not afraid to die and they'll take all that. He does not want to do something stupid and that fear I think is actually something that is in all those people when the time comes. They don't want to do something stupid. PETER SAGAL: I think what I'm getting at is it seems to me as someone who has seen your movies like everybody else has in the last decade is that you've gone from being simply a beloved popular actor to somebody who represents something and I'm trying to figure out well.. TOM HANKS: Why that happened? (Laughter) TOM HANKS: How in the world? What? PETER SAGAL: I know look this week I, just because we were doing this competition, I got two letters meant for you because somebody thought that I could pass on these messages and these messages are from people who really admire you. Who sees something in you that isn't just about a very successful actor. You're not just a celebrity to them. So, do you know who you are in the world to people who you are representing these days? TOM HANKS: Well, look, I know I know what the social contract is with Cinema. I am as much, I rely on the cinema to expand my life as much as anybody does. And I realize I'm lucky as hell in order to be able to you know to get to be given a check for doing what I do. I know the power of either being alone in a movie theater, even if you're in a sold-out crowd and identifying with something so deeply up on the screen that you think that's me. Even if you're at Wonder Woman, you know that there I'm not saying it could be PETER SAGAL: Oh you did that too? TOM HANNKS: Oh stop! Shut up. (Laughter) TOM HANKS: I knew I shouldn't have said Wonder Woman with this guy. (Laughter) TOM HANKS: you can go see a movie that is not about anything in your world or anything within your your kin and you can see but like I remember seeing the Seven Samurai on public television when I was 13 years old and my joke was when I went to school the next day because it was in subtitles. The next day I went to school I said I read the best movie last night on TV. But as you were watching it, eventually you stopped reading the subtitles and Kurosawa, you know and Toshirô Mifune. I'd never seen any of these people but I just knew this was the most powerful acting I've ever seen. And I was engrossed in a way that had me on the edge of the seat like any movie of a popular time would come. The power of the cinema does that to you. And I have been in a hotel room somewhere by myself wondering you know, how did my fate land me here with so much unhappiness and sadness and seeing a movie on TV that transported me out of it. And I will tell you that every now and again I get a letter from somebody. I got, don't laugh because if you laugh at my movie reference in this I'm going to coldcock you Peter Sagal. (Laughter) I got a letter from a lady who said I was getting a divorce. My mom was sick, I was on the road for my job and I had never felt worse about my life and Turner and Hooch.. (Laughter/Applause) came on and for two hours I escaped all of this burden and that and she went to bed happier than she would have if she had not seen Turner. That's what movies can do for you. And I know I'm a part of that sometimes and I could give you a list of actors and actresses have done the same exact thing for me. And when I see them, you know, I have a tendency to foam all over them because I can say oh my God, you know when I saw the first time I saw..I sat backstage with Fellini at one point at the Oscars one night. And so how do you make small talk with with Fellini? PETER SAGAL: I don't know. I've been doing it with Tom Hanks. (Laughter) TOM HANKS: In the I end up saying something about you know, how much what La Strada meant to me. You know, it's at that kind of. He directed La Strada? Fellini directed? PETER SAGAL: Yes, yes TOM HANKS: Thank God because if it was an Antonioni PETER SAGAL: oh that would be so funny. If you had said that to him and only found out now that he didn't really.. (Laughter) TOM HANKS: Oh that would be nice Thank you. So I'm aware of what that is, but at the same time and I know that the work that I put into it and I you know, I like to think that I work hard, but I guess what I'm saying is I don't discount what that connection is between an individual and the movies that they say. PETER SAGAL: Well, I guess I mean, I know we could go back and we have some questions from the audience but let me put it this way the events in Pittsburgh recently. I don't need to tell anybody about and it just seemed that probably I would guess entirely by coincidence. We all saw the first shot of you as Fred Rogers. TOM HANKS: Yes, we drove past the Tree of Life synagogue over and over again because we shot at the studios of WQED where Fred made the neighborhood. PETER SAGAL: And I would pause it that if the news came out, oh they're making a docudrama biopic about Fred Rogers everybody would go "Oh great. Yeah. Well, I hope it's better than the queen movie that just came out" but seeing you. I'm sorry. Did I just insult people who really like the Queen's Lieutenant? I'm sorry. Okay. TOM HANKS: I's got Rami Malek in and he's one of the greatest PETER SAGAL: Oh, he's terrific (Inaudible) TOM HANKS: It was a little thing called the Pacific on HBO a production of Playtone. PETER SAGAL: Yeah, I understand but I'm going to say that whatever the reaction might have been the fact that it was you in that sweater made everybody thrilled because there's something about the way that you Tom Hanks invest character that encourages people. TOM HANKS: Well, there is the.. I.. look I'm not going to there is a countenance that goes on along with this business. There is, I mean, there's a reason Robert De Niro was in Goodfellas. PETER SAGAL: Yes. Oh I know but he doesn't cheer people up. TOM HANKS: No, but but nonetheless. It's still countenance with a capital C. There is something that goes along with that. What I try to do and sometimes I do fail but I always try to understand that countenance in the casting choice go with it, but hopefully also expand a little bit of the horizon of what that's going to be. I haven't always been able to do it. But when it clicks that means there's just more of something. On that I can that I get to do the job that Shakespeare says which is hold the mirror up to nature. That's what I'm trying to do. And I realize that I bring a bill of goods along with it. That's not a bad thing. Here's the only time that it's a bad. It's when all reviews about your movies the first three paragraphs are about all the other movies you've done. You know, and now you're doing this one to it. "Well Tom Hanks who did this and that and that in The DaVinci Code and was you know been blah blah that a now he's trying to play Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post. " You know, and it's.. PETER SAGAL: he's no Jason Robards (Laughter) TOM HANKS: You and I are more or less of the same. I started working the same year the video cassette recorder was put on the market. That means that my movies or anything I'd ever done as long as it came out on video and then DVD and then on Netflix will be seen for the rest of time any damn time anybody wants. In the old days you had to wait till they came on or played in Revival house and maybe you remembered in the one time you saw them. So that countenance thing goes along even farther now because I've been the babysitter for an awful lot of kids. PETER SAGAL: I know. TOM HANKS: All right, Mom and Dad are about to go out. We've rented "Big" you get to see it. I know you've seen it again. We have Splash too you can watch Splash if you want to. Just remember we cried at the end of Turner and Hooch we cried but will be.. You know, so I know that I been there. That's just the beauty of the art form is that you can it is revisited constant. PETER SAGAL: We have a couple of questions from members of the audience who submitted them earlier we've selected a few will put them up on the screen. TOM HANKS: Really? I thought this was a temporary graphic? PETER SAGAL: No, this is as good as it gets. Oh my God, they've been actually.. (Laughter) TOM HANKS: Has that been going on the whole time? So you get to say I read the best interview with Tom Hanks last night. (Laughter) TOM HANKS: Anybody Deaf could is actually doing that anybody hearing.. PETER SAGAL: (reading screen) Hello! "I am the person typing the captions (Laughter) TOM HANKS:" that's me!!" (Applause) TOM HANKS: Let's hear it for this guy. Are they up there? Or back here? I commend you! (Applause) TOM HANKS: Hey, there you are! PETER SAGAL: That's great. We actually do have some questions from you. So, if we can put them up.. TOM HANKS: That is hilarious I'm sorry. That is just fantastic. (Laughter) I'm sorry that is truly fantastic (Laughter) TOM HANKS: "Which character in your book, write this as I write it, which character in your book do you love the most and why?" Says Jill Fullin. There you go. We want Jill's name up there twice. I think that's fabulous. (Laughter) TOM HANKS: Loving the most is one thing, identifying strongly with them is in I mean look, I love them all. There's just no doubt about it. And it's some of them are all quasi versions of something that I remember from growing up. I will tell you this that there's a story in there that is called "Go See Costa." That is about Essentially it is a version of the story of my father-in-law. Who escaped Bulgaria right after the war and escaped Bulgaria in harrying horrifying ways. I mean this was a guy who was tortured by the Communists, who was kidnapped in Greece and taken back to Bulgaria and thrown into prison and beaten and tortured because he dared to leave the communist country. And I knew that I was going to write that as soon as that was actually the second story that I wrote for the book. Long ago my son Chester had just been born and I got up early with them and Dad, he was well retired. He always got up early as well and we would have in coffee and "God I tell you I tell you know, I like to get up early in the morning and no, it's good. It's good. I'm going to sweep. I'm going to sweep, I"m going to have my coffee. It's good. I like it" So you're happy? "I'll tell you, tell you God Bless America. God blessed greatest country." He was a bartender. It's how we you know raised his kids and "God Bless America". And I say Hey Dad, how did you come to America? And for the better part of two hours he told me the story that is more or less what is in Go See Costa. Which was bent on daring luck and the odd goodness of a number of people. PETER SAGAL: Once again the odd goodness of TOM HANKS: Fair people that didn't give him an easy time, but we're.. And after it was done and my wife woke up later on the day got on it, she said what'd you do this morning with Chet? Aw he was fine. I just talking to your dad, my God. He told me the story of how he came to America. And my wife said "How did he come to America?" Because he never told her because he was just a guy that made it. He made it through the day. He wasn't doing anything spectacular. He didn't know that he was an absolute friggin Superman that against every conceivable odd. He was able to get to where he was today. He was just a son from (inaudible) the old country. And so when you can get into it to answer Jill Foland's question, which character in a book do you love the most of all? I'm going to say, it's Dad. There you go. Thanks Jill. (Applause) PETER SAGAL: Next question, please TOM HANKS: Pat.. (Laughter) TOM HANKS: I'm fond of a palatino I like a good palatino, pretty good. If you have if you write on an Apple there's nothing wrong with American typewriter. That's a good font. I'm not big on the boring font. Like are being typed on the screen right now. (Laughter) I like a font with character. I like a font that maybe is not necessarily needed to be seen by 2,000 people from 800 ft away. (Laughter) PETER SAGAL: Do you have one of those select tricks with a little tight ball? TOM HANKS: I do. I have a couple of them. Yeah, I have about 200 typewriters and I rotate them into use. And they all.. Some are objects of art that will never be used but the others are they.. there's no reason to have a typewriter unless it actually works. So you don't need more than one you only need one typewriter. And if there's 249 people here that would like to take one home. I need to get rid of some typewriters. PETER SAGAL: Jay Leno has cars. You have typewriters. Next question, please. TOM HANKS: President Obama said of you when you receive the presidential medal of freedom. "He is a good man." All right, "which is the best title of you can have. This is the very same reason that you have been my favorite actor", Aww come on. It's Karynda Walls! "Since I was a little girl. Can you talk about how to be a good man to be someone known or his integrity in an industry where that kind of reputation is somewhat" Well, let me tell you let me tell you Kirinda. (Applause) Start every morning with a Bloody Mary (Laughter) That is God bless you that's very nice. that's lovely to hear and I think I might have talked about it a little bit here in the course of it. When I grew up, America the country were in was fraught with difficulties that we talked about all the time. PETER SAGAL: I can't imagine what that would be like (laughter) They were I mean, you know in school in the dynamics of everything. We were aware that that you know, there was oceans of trouble that we're everywhere. But we were also operating on a type of faith as well as a type of instruction that said America is a place where you make things better, that you work at it, that the best way in order to make things better is to be fair. That means everybody has the same opportunity that they can blow if they want to in which case they made their choices. But if you want to make your community better or make or you know, somehow solve problems, you have to get together with like-minded people and you have to respect certain things that is in fact, what made us Americans. Respect for the law, respect for each other. Respect for your neighbor, no exceptions. And that's the ethic that I got naive or goody two shoes or whatever it is you would like to call it and I saw that. I grew up in Oakland CA a place that was rife with all sorts of difficulties all sorts of troubles. But when I got on a bus, an AC Transit bus for 15 cents, which would take you anywhere in the city every color of the rainbow was on that bus. And the only thing that happened on that bus was it stopped, people got off and people got on. That I didn't realize it at the time, but that was an extraordinary experience to have day after day after day after day. So, translate this to later on will where does this come into process? And what does it mean in the bigger macro focus? So, I'll tell you this story when we were in Philadelphia and we were making the movie Philadelphia we had time off to go see some of Philadelphia. So, what do you do when you're in Philadelphia? We see the Liberty Bell. So, we went down saw the Liberty Bell was freezing cold outside. So weren't a lot of people and we went to Independence Hall. And Independence Hall was you know, there's a house of Congress down on one side. There's a house of the Senate on the other and upstairs was a supreme court the original stuff. And we went up there and an employee of our government, our federal government employee by that I mean a park ranger. Yeah, with a green thing with the Smokey the bear hat he was going through his things there that the furniture here all re-creations. None of them they actually do all that. We do think that that chair and that candlestick on the table are from the same era whether or not they were place here or not we don't know? But we do believe that ages of those are due date back to colonial times at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. What is unique about this room is not just it was the first sitting of the Supreme Court of the United States, but on that riser there in that very spot when John Adams was sworn in as the second president the United States with his predecessor George Washington president the room surrendering power to him in a lawful manner in which there was no revolution or death. It was the first time in recorded human history with the leadership of a nation changed hands without death or bloodshed being the cause. And the hair blew off the back of my neck. (Applause) So, I'm sitting there with my kid having grown up and I realized that when they decided to do that, the only people could vote were white landowners. If you were a slave you were not even a free human being. If you were colored you only 3/5 of a human being. Women were not allowed to vote. Look where we had come from that time. And consider me a dope. But I make a direct connection between that and the lessons that I learned when I was a kid. And I grew up in.. I moved eight million times and I grew up in every kind of.. I lived in bad neighborhoods, good neighborhoods, I lived in apartment complexes that stretch to the horizon. I lived lawless. I've had families that were tight I had families that were you know fractured. But was always there was this understanding that outside the house there was a fairness that was always held in the balance by the good people. So, the good people made it a point to be fair to each other. And so I will take, I'm delighted to be called by Karynda Walls, you know a good person and I think it's because I am an American and I have been raised by good fair people and I want to be just like them. How's that? (Applause) PETER SAGAL: We have one more question from the audience. (Laughter) Describe the perfect sandwich. Oh, I love "laughter". Oh, yeah. Michelle Welch the perfect sandwich does not have bread. (Laughter) Here's why does not have bread to me. I have type 2 diabetes which comes about and it's okay, it's manageable. And it comes about because I just ate crap all my life and I paid the price. So, I go to my.. do you have diabetes or anything like? PETER SAGAL: No, not that I know TOM HANKS: Anything any problems at all? PETER SAGAL: No, I have no problems TOM HANKS: hypertension? (Laughter) PETER SAGAL: No. My life is good TOM HANKS: cough. No, I'm going to just I'm going to get (Laughter) TOM HANKS: So, I was meeting with the nutritionist in my diabetes doctor's office and she was going to like, okay. Alright, your blood sugar's is still too high. So monkeying around I don't like the way you're insulin jumps back and forth on this kind of thing. So, let's talk about what do you have for breakfast? And I told her what I had for breakfast. She says change that don't eat that eat this instead. I said Okay. I said well I have like oatmeal and I try to have some you know, sugar-free syrup on it, put an egg in there, it'll be okay the answer to everything was put an egg in there. (Laughter) So, it came around and you know, what do you have for lunch, what do have for dinner you know, and she says, you know, sugar is about the dumbest thing you could eat. I said yeah, I know and she says, yeah you eat sugar don't you? I just said no... (Laughter) So we were talking, talking, talking, and she said okay look stupid, here's what here's what you do. You want to have a beer every now and again have a beer every now and again. You want to have a martini every now and again have a martini every now and again. But don't eat rice and don't eat potatoes and understand this bread is poison for you! I'm the type of metabolism that I if I eat anything that turns into sugar in my body, that's why I have Type 2 diabetes. So, young lady Michelle, the perfect sandwich alas has no bread. (Laughter) You want to play around with spelt go right ahead till the cows come home. You want to try gluten-free bread? Maybe? Maybe not. Go ahead if you could stand the taste of gluten free bread. Go right ahead. Along with it, I will say that this is what I used to make for my kids when they were go off to summer camp. I made I would make them what I called A Bomb Sandwiches. Which is every kind of cheese that is in the drawer, every kind of cold cut that is in the drawer, some lettuce that is in the drawer. Mustard and mayonnaise. Ideally, it's that thick. So, I'm going to say cold cuts and cheese because I can eat paleo without bread wrapped in lettuce. Michelle, perfect sandwich. (Applause) PETER SAGAL: I'm going to ask one last question because we got to wrap it up. But and this weirdly is a question. The last person I asked us was James Comey. Who I interviewed and I'll ask it to you. TOM HANKS: Hot dog! PETER SAGAL: I know! I asked him because he obviously.. TOM HANKS: You interviewed James Comey? PETER SAGAL: I did TOM HANKS: On this stage? PETER SAGAL: No on actually the stage of Wolf Trap in Virginia. he's exceptionally tall. TOM HANKS: He's like 6'4 PETER SAGAL: No, he's like 6'8 TOM HANKS: Eyi yi PETER SAGAL: It's terrifying. TOM HANKS: It's terrifying? PETER SAGAL: It really is. TOM HANKS: Yes, but that way he's so smart. He gets to look down on everybody. PETER SAGAL: It's true and he TOM HANKS: He gets to speak down.. PETER SAGAL: And he does TOM HANKS: Was this for the show? PETER SAGAL: This was.. TOM HANKS: Okay, so this is for well, PETER SAGAL: You know, he and I get together for lunch. TOM HANKS: Well Okay. (Laughter) PETER SAGAL: I asked him this question because he obviously knew all these secrets of National Security and what's been going on of late that we do not know. I'm gonna ask you this question because in addition to being a pretty well-known actor and author you are a student of history. You are a producer of popular entertainment based on history and documentaries or someone who knows a lot as you just demonstrated about America. And what makes it actually great. Here's the question. Are we going to be okay? (Laughter) In your opinion. You're not responsible. You're not in charge sadly. TOM HANKS: The answer is potentially, sure absolutely, because we have been through worse. We have and we have this amazing thing that comes around every now and again, which guarantees us to have the leaders we want or the leaders we deserve. And it's this weird thing that I first read about I think maybe in my Weekly Reader when I was four years old, they're called elections. (Applause) In which there I'm not sure which is more important putting into office the people we want. Or yanking out of office the people we don't want. Because they're both sides of the same. Democratic coin but I cannot help but know this collection of words and not see in it the path to all of us being okay. And here's what the words are. Ready? PETER SAGAL: Ready TOM HANKS: I might screw up some of them so don't hold me that and Mr. caption man, get ready to go. Ready? (Laughter) Here are the words that must be interpreted by all of us in our own individual way, but do aim at the same common goal for all of us no matter how we interpret them. And here's what the words are. We the people of the United States of America in order to form a more perfect union to establish justice insure domestic tranquility to provide for the common defense and to promote the general welfare and to guarantee the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. Hereby, ordain and establish this constitution of the United States. No matter who we are and no matter what our definitions of blessings of liberty, general welfare. The common defense all comes down to what the real goal of our entire nation is about and that is to form a more perfect union. And in order to do have a or perfect anything periodically, you know you got to clean house and hopefully the people that you put into office, the men, the women, the people you take out are the folks that will take their, what's the word I'm looking for? Their mandate deeply into heart and be what? Be fair and be good. (Applause) PETER SAGAL: I'm just going to say it. TOM HANKS: Can you go back go back up to the Preamble. Can you go back to the preamble? Is there a back? Oh type applause.. There you go. Just before speaking of people at Duke be with Kevin Turk and the folks from the International Tom Hanks day, are they here? PETER SAGAL: Yes, there is an international Tom Hanks Day TOM HANKS: There we go. (Applause) These folks started off just for excuses to have a beer bust in in some bar somewhere on the north side. And now they've helped supply all sorts of funds for some really great charities. Thanks good to see you here (Applause) Some of the class of the interns of Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival 1977 to 1978. (Cheers) You guys here too? Glad you're here, thanks for coming. PETER SAGAL: You wouldn't say it so I will. I know like every actor I know, no matter how successful, you present yourself as an actor a guy pursuing his trade which you do very well, but it seems to me that in the last decade or more the roles you've chosen, the film's you've produced, the performances you've given have served a role and that is to show us again and again and again in a convincing way what actual human courage, integrity and goodness looks like an action. And for that I am going to say that you, not only do you play them but are a hero. Tom Hanks! (Cheers and Applause) TOM HANKS: Thank you very much everybody! Thank you! (Cheers and Applause)
