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

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 he starred in dozens of movies over his 40-year career and you know him you love him I'm H 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 whereas you keep saying more will be revealed as well this two shall pass and more shall be revealed the number one Health and Wellness podcast J shett J shett the one the only Jett Tom Hanks welcome to on purpose it's truly an honor and a gift to be in your presence to have you here 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 how likewise and

I watched here which is out on November 1st I have so much that I want to talk about it through and through your lens 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 okay all right man all right let's throw deep right off the bat 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 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 Jean Gabor you know 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 because 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 I consider myself the lucky one 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 want to go I I wasn't a participant in 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 part of it is being open you know kind of like taking over cracking a few jokes not getting in trouble and that's different from I would say like my older brother who was very shy and we were 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 role of the dice

number three of four right there when the parents are too busy with all this other kind of stuff and and uh my my siblings were not much older than I was but older than I they were social beings long before I was I didn't become a social being until I was like seven years old or whatnot and by that time I lived in very many places so you long winded conversation 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 good at 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 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 like I'm done there's stuff that I cannot control

I have left many uh uh wonderful atmosphere or a loving atmosphere or a friendly atmosphere and like Ernie Banks the you know the ball player 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 wow now is that great is it fasile or is it um so Mercurial that maybe you maybe you shouldn't trust me is it is it does it feel like it feels like and sounds like a healthy Detachment 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 whatever so you can navigate and you know I I think my experience is about 90 90% of the people that you come across pretty decent folks 5% are and I'll say 5% are sociopaths you know and you cannot avoid that other 10% those two five% 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 90%

because 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 and actual suitcase or the back of my car 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 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 and a lot of times being solitary can be confused with being lonely and it lonely can being lonely can lead to anger and resentments and stuff that you got to work through and 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 well I I think what you 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 and and then at the same time you have beautiful relationship with your wife you have long-term friendships with people in the industry Ron Howard Steven Spielberg you have you have people I worked with to it so how how does that dance work

because I do think that the magic is in the dance not in the choice I'm going to 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 for me 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 uh High School Is Like Show Business Without money you know it truly was um and when I was when I 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 I your school is somewhere in that direction just walk that way and when you see kids your own age just follow them and they will lead you to whatever School 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 role that history was great Sometimes some reading was great but I was no artist I was no you know I was no math ition you know I kind of like 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 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 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 this guy I had 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 high school at night looks different at night right then I sat there and there was you know bunch of people in the auditorium and then they came out and did this play and I thought this is school you can do this at school school isn't this thing just to survive this isn't this thing just to fill up your time to leave as soon as

you can and get there at the late I know I never cut class I 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 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 we did uh um Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams how about that 16-year-old 17-year old kids playing Night of the Iguana then we did Shakespeare 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 uh some people can't get up and it was a bunt for me I I did 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 I'm met him in fifth grade and he said to me

he was going to be a draftsman he was going to he was going to be an engineer he was going to design buildings and he did that's what he's been doing all this life I knew I knew people that at the same age that 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 the small town 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 passing cars uh air trains going by farms and whatnot buildings with than it 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 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 did you write on those Journeys or was it mainly 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 you know at at the last moment yeah 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 came about and I was sort of like instructed on on how that come how that comes along but uh without putting it down on paper I had malleable cohesive narratives in my head for all of this stuff and I just thought

well isn't that what everybody does that's that's the way you do this right because it's not just showing up on time and you know learning your words and uh and 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 want to hear a story here's here's a show bu okay here's a show bu Story please please please uh Darlene Love You Know Who Darlene Love is legendary singer you know

singer uh a fantastic fantastic uh mtown artist among other things we were I was on the Christmas show of 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 miss love I I cannot believe that I am on the show with you you are you you have been

belting out you know so so many moments of the soundtrack of my life that 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 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% you know the jerks and the and the evil people ain't that just living you know ain't that ain't that better

than being alone in a room when you don't have a thought in your head you got to stick to the plan you got to lay your head down you got to fight for it you got to compete yeah okay there's times when you know you got to do that other kind of stuff and other times you just kind of like got to 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 AR for me to live is to chop wood and carry water and I said okay all right man I was wondering you talked about luck a lot there can we all become a bit more lucky the fellow who ran the Great Lake 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 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 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 upbringing I had no I had no qualms about hey let's go I got enough money for gas let's the I drove across the country with four other people one one one time and then the next year

I drove across the country by myself did not bat an eye 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 and along with that will come all it's a look it's a 50 you okay it's a 50-50 have you 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 going to come up heads a seventh time a six time six time in a row is it still 5050 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 the uh shouldn't the other requirement be um Faith or some degree of disconnected to it to whatever the end result is going to be you're going to have

to be I was I I was talking to a friend of mine and he said 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 going to happen and I just well okay yeah yeah all right let's let's try to do that so you have to be all right with what's going to happen right or wrong disaster disease you know what 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 what what's helped you get closer to that that sounds hard it is sounds impossible yeah yeah I am 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 suddenly 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 wrote a I wrote a a scooter uh vesa and so because of I wrote a vesa for about two years until I realized that I have been so close to killing myself on this thing making a stupid M thing that I'm going to give up this vesa 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 breath between you know

cracking up or falling down or needing that crash Helmet or not so it is uh a degree of that uh that experience and also being I think open to some of the most basic I don't want to say philosophical uh truths but I have been to the Holy Land I have seen the sites that are um precious uh Divine I was I I was actually working this a long time ago this was before the great many of the Great problems that were going there and U I was driving back being driven to Jerusalem I was

with a guide and I said Hey so uh so Mo tells me tell me tell me about where we are and he says okay I will tell you this is a we are bound by a k boots this is a very old K boots you know kib booots yes this is a very old one has been there a very long time very popular and uh now we are coming up of a mosab you know what mosab is mosab is not like a kabut it's different more uh more socialist less comfortable but this is also much

like that and people live there and they work and they farm and uh this is where uh David killed Goliath and coming up here we're whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa back to car up just a little back this out 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 this is well tell me about that okay well okay there you see the valley yes okay and on one side was the uh the Philistines

Phil philistin they were they were there okay and David and the Israelites were were here and uh they sent down to the middle their the the the the Gant the uh G the giant yes yes the Goliath yes and uh David 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'm not going to argue with that absolutely not going to argue with that so moved along um and I you know you visit great Cathedrals

and whatnot been all places around around the world some of the great face and we were in um we were in Japan the family and I we had this fabulous guy 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 signs and they would hang them up like ornaments so this this tree is 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 oi what did you write he say 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 that's all we talked about you know dinner later on you you know what so the the the ongoing education of we're never going to 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 this two shall pass if you are successful be that 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 you 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 got to stick to the plan you got to lay your head down you got to fight for it you got to compete yeah okay there's times when you know you got to do that other kind of stuff and other times you just kind of like got to 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 yeah does that make sense 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 repl he would always repeat to me there's no substitute for mat maturity and and it was no shortcut to it yeah yeah that maturity was just something and yet didn't you know somebody when you were young who was the same age as you that had it absolutely oh I I came across all sorts of people like that yeah and I just said what first of all what

makes you so special and what makes you so smart what makes you so calm you know uh what was it did you ever figure out I have the vaguest idea 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 that you know uh um some friend of mine we were went to their their uh son's B Mitzvah and um I'm not Jewish but I said uh you got B mitzah oh yeah of course I

got B Mitzvah and he said and he said let me tell you something about the bom Mitzvah this is what's great about it because my 13-year-old son would he's getting B Mitzvah and I told him I said after this my son your sins are your own he's 13 but this is 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 yeah that said there is a time when you and you alone are responsible for everything that that goes on goes on in

your life um uh I I have a I have a friend who is studying uh with a a Buddhist monk you you know a guy whose name he's literally got his name venerable in his first name how about that wow when I was talking to the venerable you know whatever and I said look I know squat about Buddhism outside of you know what I you know see on TV shows so uh well 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 yes 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 if I had heard that at the age of 22 I would have had the slightest an idea of of what but at the age of 68 yeah uh I you know I think I can get

a little bit closer to that uh definitely to that 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 were exposed to more generations and so people who were in their 20s but knew people who were 70 and spend quality time with them or people who were in their 50s and spend time with someone who was 18 or 21 and that kind

of ju a position 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 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 pickle ball uh by the good a humbling experience for me yeah

he's playing pickle ball and Tennis for 4 hours a day and I 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 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 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 you can ponder why bad things happen to good people and vice versa yeah corre it was a place spent literally meant for that this is why you come here exactly and now what's happened is let alone three spaces we don't we just have one so we work from home we live at home 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 the generational thing I think is wickedly important whether or not you like they they don't you know sometimes it's just the old person that's sitting in the corner you know um but other times it's like you know a big there is some aspect of the big family that is not for everybody you know because God knows

not everybody wants to come to Thanksgiving sometimes because they don't want to have that same fight again I had a I had a friend who who um he had his his grandmother was like in 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 uh he was arguing with his parents about not wanting to do something I can't remember what it was it didn't matter but every was say why are you doing that why what's that about how

can you do how can you blah blah blah and my friend said well hey man because Life's too short and this 90 year old grandmother is just sitting there and she said no life's not short life is long which I interpret as being life is long so if you're doing something stupid you know you're spending a lot of time relishing you know living inside inside that that stupidity yes and uh my my my kids my are my are my old my youngest kids um essentially were raised raised Along by us as well as uh a

couple of people that have you know been uh employee like families for members of the family but also their their grandparents their yay and Papu as they say in Greek people who 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 from what I got from mine the there is a joke in my family about how bad I am with tools 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 it let me show you how to scrape that off that it was always oh come on you knead don't you know how to sand a board don't you know the difference between a standard ratchet socket wrench and

a and a metric and I never did because nobody said let me show you how you do this you got to 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 it just has an effect over time and uh you know for in many cultures you have to look at that and say 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 the the the deeper because you're going to 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 he was Greek but grew up in Bulgaria and had to escape the communist whatnot which is a fascinating story unto itself but but 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 day oh I think what it was is he he said take the donkey up there and he didn't want to wrestle with the donkey he just wanted 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

cuz the donkey would scare off the dog you know like that so you know you don't that's the kind of stuff you got to pick up over time but did you did you have uh multi multiple Generations in the home as you were growing up I I felt that for me my my monk teachers became that for me cuz they were older and so I had had a mon teacher 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 breath of you know Human Experience it' be nice if it worked across the board but sometimes you know Grandpa's a drunk and you know and uh and Grandma does nothing but smoke cigarettes

and you know and watch Wheel of Fortune so maybe it's not always great it's it can be it can be it can be 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 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 wake of an eye you comprehend it all you were talking about your experience with your father and and you know with the tools and it's so funny because my dad was the opposite he was he was useless at DIY and so I'm useless at DIY there you go and so I have that exper my dad was great my dad could fix everything there

was there was a story I was talking to my older brother once with that he and my dad um my dad was why why in the world spend a lot of money for crying out loud we could get it we could get Electronics get make our own amplifier we don't have to go off and pay all this much money we hook it up to a turntable and a speakers there we have stereo system so they got a kit and I saw them working on it together and I was kind of jealous and I'm 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 have done anything to trade sh places with you my dad was so miserable as we're doing it always you knead don't you know don't you know how to solder and it's like oh so you it's a perspective of everything is going definitely did you try to did you try to parent differently like did you try know you tried 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 knead I was with you for all those years and said yeah sure Dad yeah been kind of waiting for this why don't uh why did you why did you unload so no that but I would say at the same time I think there was you know it does it come up to be 5050 maybe the uh the attitude and the uh you know the the life that

we led the the laughs you know uh that stuff's worth its weight and you know gim and crusted gold so what's something that they've taught you you what something that they've how different they all are 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 and that was a 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 New York let's go down the Park and we'll take our gloves 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 called 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 going to go down in the uh and uh throw the ball around it got away from me forgive me and

he said no it's okay D and he sounded disappointed that'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 where one is in order to feel free in 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 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 of a with all that you have with all you kids with all your advantages I do

not want to hear that you're bored and they have never they have never said that they're bored theyve they have always had some action thing that was going on whether I understood their passion for it or not yeah What attracted to you that isolation and disconnection at that moment in time what was it that was so appealing about I think I just had to get used to it because I was number three there people ran out of time you know they didn't have the wherewithal of the interest because I was so young when my parents

split up and there were so many other factors that had to go into 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 repri for them so um I just got I just got used to occupying Myself by being alone yeah and that's really great and it's can be really detrimental yeah I can relate to so much of that as well I felt I was the eldest just one of two and my parents 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 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 but as the older one did they have some expectations of responsibility put on you did like where are you going and you have to be back by now were there rules placed upon you 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 I've drawn that line fairly often for myself is I was emotionally depended on by both of them okay so I became the therapist wow

that's that's a burden I'm sorry no wonder you went off for three years to sleep on the floor sleep on the ground 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 of like he gave me that ability to recognize how it takes two to tango and I think I think this is a viable study about where you are in that pecking order every now and agreed about it because because I was last and last by

like five years I had no rules I had no exper they had they had spent so much time trying to establish that with the older you know my older siblings they didn't want to bother with it anymore 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 they were thrilled that they didn't have to you 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 but I was not the oldest you know I did not have somebody that was establishing the rules and uh you know the the structure of the family yeah that was yeah and that was different for me too I had I had expectations Ed academically which is normal in an Indian family but there weren't any rules from me as well so if I was out and about and doing whatever it was it didn't matter and so so I'm going to stereotype

of the Indian family are they are you all brilliant students do you all work really hard and finish all your home you're forced to yeah forced to you're forced to prioritize homework education is all that matters your social skills life relationships don't matter I am it's all about how well you glad I'm not an Indian and there's no way I could have been oh Lord yeah it's all about how well you perform academically your whole life revolves around that were your parents like uh High academic achiever well I think they 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 okay and then after that also became an entrepreneur and became a financial adviser so they' both struggled and worked hard to I love it it was going it was going right where I thought it was until you said and then became an entrepreneur just yeah which I didn't realize growing up that she was an

entrepreneur well that comes from somewhere of that structure of uh uh education and homework done even no matter the gender exactly 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 that I'm so grateful I got to watch um a couple of days ago 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 so fixated on first of all the way it's produced and created is is beautiful and the way it's a pretty deep throw it's so deep 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 to me I can't help but project dear oh dear oh but you you because because it was the four of us you know Bob uh Bob damacus and Eric Roth and Robin and I and everybody everybody else in it you know Paul and every other actor that

we C the the scenes are very very specific of a moment in a family's life yes 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 the emotional connection to every single moment in this thing was really quite resonant for us all and I had to when I people say what are you working on oh I'm making a movie called here I say not H EA R it's h e r e I said well what's it about I said

it is about how important things are when they happen here you know because you cannot control them and U they are if you the film I mean all of the permutations it goes you know we say the camera stands still in space but it moves in in time you know everybody every character in is going through that profound thing that happens in a specific moment in their life and where does it happen it happens right here so we were always talking about presence you know 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 they don't know that 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 that that takes place they don't know that they're living in 1911 they're think they 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 examinable in a very specific type of Cinema 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 Robin and I came along yeah 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've have 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 in time 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 well I had to wrap my head around this thing that I had never experience experienced we lived here I've never lived any place you know I you know now now now now 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 want to say importance but having so much emotional centeredness 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 I well I got it you know we got married and you know finally I did but I didn't get it until I was 35 years old 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 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 piece they were sort of undone by it and I didn't understand it uh I I I literally in the back of my head if not verbally said what's a big deal you know how's that per for for a perspective it is a huge deal if you're actually there and Richard you know 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 her

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 that experiencing that in examining that was oh my Lord I can't tell you how many how much conversation we this whole movie was just one big ass conversation about what it means 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 and what it meant to this the H aspect of of of this story that we were trying to tell and Bob particularly I mean Bob's and we all I think incorpor ated our own approach to our art form and and Commercial life to it Bob is 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'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 Paul everybody everybody in the thing is like I know the lines turn me loose let's go let's go what are you going to do are you going to try that let's try that where are you going to just take it you

know this ongoing game of uh improvisational emotional football in which you just and I mean football is the international sense Premiership the Championships League it is a ball that is kind it's a matter of inchin it's a matter of a curve it's a matter of being in the right place at the right time in order to to receive what's given to you and then pass on to somebody else yeah it was uh I know the film uses digital anti-aging technology and you get to see yourself uh many years younger what was there any special feeling

of that you no it was It was kind of great I mean because it's a great tool because it's been you know people are aged and young up in movies you know since the since uh Edison stole George meler 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 absolutely uh you know we all had you know you always have hair and makeup we we went through extensive everything you know they did they at one

point I'm sitting there and U Jennifer our fabulous makeup artist she's just looking at me she just grabbed both of my ears and then lifted them up and and shoved them to the into the top of my head and I saidwhat are you doing he 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 up on the side I said uh have at it girl uh so the that 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 yeah and immediate and listen what what it one of the things that it shows is just how old I are uh because you know you got to have posture and energy uh if you're if everything else about you looks like you're 22 years old you're

going to have to embody a 22y old I'm going to tell you right now it's very hard to leap off a couch in enthusiasm uh as a as a as a 67y old guy at the time that we did it I didn't even think of that mention hey you know what had a lot of tea had a lot of protein bar you know got a lot of rest got a lot of stretching you know in order in order to make that happen Yeah you mentioned presence there and that was a theme that definitely struck me

what do you find helps you be the most present today as you're living there are times that 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 for shabbo Community College when he 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 M and

that is a degree of being oblivious to the specifics of what you're doing 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 ask any actor this thing is said 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 or the it is so much fun

to come to work that day all right so that's one thing that you have to do and the other side of it is if you have to be charming and convivial and funny on paper on stage of day chances are you're going through some personal hell you know off uh you know off camera that you just have to be oblivious to 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 do Joy does does it promotes it the 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 that you could possibly bring yourself and being open to just knowing it so well everybody says well what do you mean my 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

trouble seem so far away now I need a place that's here to say oh I believe in you you got to be able to Rattle it off that fast that easily it's got to be so much a part of you that you don't have to think about it at all if I actually sang the right word words to you 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 in your career when you're even 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 impostor syndrome in the past 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 somebody wanted me to do

a movie all right and it was great and I should have done it it was going to be for a lot of money and P you you go somewhere cool you get a good pum 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 c osity 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 to I was searching I was I was having a one-on-one uh talk with the director and I was just said look I said I don't I don't have the I don't have the U I don't have the countenance and the director said countenance the hell do that mean I said there is a thing that we all carry with us we have a countenance that comes from everything we've said

all the work that we've done all the all the times that we've either succeeded or failed because 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 order to in order to examine this theme that only we could have done unless we all got together and challenged each other and made it happen 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 Milla I still find myself uh completely at the mercy of that instinctive moment of said oh my God that's what that's what I think you know and the next thing you know you want to do it and you're talk talking about it continuously and there is nothing that anybody says that detracts from that initial yes initial experience uh because you know other other you know that there's there's plenty of other things that you can do um uh because they're fun I

me my my uh my Beginnings uh the first time I was a professional actor we were in reparatory theater uh at uh with my Vincent Dowling at a place called The Great Lake Shakespeare Festival in Cleveland Ohio and because we were in rep we did everything we did we did Hamlet and King John and aell at the same time we were doing fabulous ripn comedies that everybody everybody dug the countenance then ex is exchanged between them between the two and that's something that I it's not a burden at all but it is a 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 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 you need somebody that's going to come in there like a you know like like a like a mad dog and and devour that

bone and I I just my countenance doesn't match up to that yeah it sounds like you've never compromised that oh I've compromised plenty of time but you know making mistakes you know there was a period of time look I look at my IMDb it might be up in triple digits by now you know and it 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 a stuff that you do in your 20s and in your 30s 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 except by schedule but now it turns out to be that's where you start shaping um 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 you know everybody thinks you're great 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 cuz I didn't know any better but there's a moment I guess when he said like ah you know I don't I don't want to I don't want to 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 incourse I might have thought I made the biggest mistake of my life uh you know I if you take any great take any any great magnific take let's just pull from

the take Fay dunway and Lawrence Olivier they have very specific countenances there is a thing that you will say oh my God the countenance of Lawrence Olivier really really Aussie Davis well you know any great that wow that countenance matches yes and that's I guess that's what I'm talking about there was a there was like a you know some sort of cosmic weight that they carry along with it that makes sense for what they're doing yeah for sure there's a listening to you speak about I mean it's so relieving to hear that you've compromised sometimes

like because it's a relief I think every come by my house we have a night of compromise you know how about that you want to do that we'll bring the love it we'll bring the DVDs and say this is the DVD of compromise I'm me that would be amazing no I think because I think we're so good 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 seems 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 wanted to revisit relive rethink Eugene O'Neal wrote All Wilderness he wrote that play as the life he would have he wanted to have he wished he had had the family that he had wished he had and I always read that you J only is a big reason why I

became an actor because I saw great Productions of his stuff uh back in 1975 76 and when I finally saw all 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 wish he had I thought about that when we 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 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 was a Dean Martin Show or you know an episode or something even down to some of the commercials that we wanted to and um those moments were transporting for 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 walking to school by myself or the first year 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-minded getting the same thing out of a TV show like an electric fireplace but it was Solace it was a togetherness uh that bellied what was really going on in in the house and there's a couple of those particularly when uh um the kids are little than Robin and I are in early early years of our marriages um that were Sublime uh right then and there because we're s we're laughing it's there the

kids are being goofy there's a moment that 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 they are when you're just sitting around on a Thursday night you know content and and and happy and nothing is happening except you the Sens of presence that's there yeah um there's a couple of them that's funny that that you should ask that because a real realize now that uh

the amount of the amount of suggestions we all had for how we would sit there yes 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 yeah it felt so real it it feels so real it every every scene every conversation every event feels so real one of the things that we learned because it's shot in this very specific you know uh aspect ratio you know 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 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 no when Apollo 8 flew around the Moon we had this was the TV we had his old black and white thing

with General Electric 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 much you know it was on legs and it had the cloth speaker said General Electric and anything 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 he that's a TV from the Johnson House you know it was like that so it had these kind of like talism that came along

with it uh that oddly enough they were they were both great to see and Bittersweet to remember does that make sense yeah yeah for sure for sure do you I know you're fascinated by space do you have any desire to go to the Moon oh you know if if they were going to do a thing where you know regular blos could just go up and go around it I mean I I take that you would oh yeah just just to do it but oh yeah I think would be I'm sure ELO musk would love to

take oh I'm not going with him but he's not going there anyway you know they're just going up now but i' 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 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 I'll get down to whatever weight requirements are necessary because I wouldn't pass it

up but I said but only if all of the windows are are clear because a lot of times those they have gone up and the the windows get kind of like messed up because of zero gravity and the vacuum outside and the building material right was that Fascination only from movies is that where it came from no no that came from uh I was right smack dab in I was that I was that educable generation for which it was space travel was the embodiment of every discipline 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 going to think about this but uh the idea of being alone in space in a space suit it's kind it was kind of mirroring my life when I was like seven eight nine 10 11 years old w yeah I mean it's uh I don't know if you saw that movie Fly Me to the Moon recently no I did not but it's you know it's streaming

and the new movie economy so I know it'll be there for a thousand years so I just watched it Rec I'll cat F it's a little bit of a the uh conspiracy theory really didn't happen yet normally I hate that kind of stuff but uh that's good quality people so I'll try to check no I'd love to get your thoughts on it when you see it yeah and you other Fascination is world wars well this is another thing that goes back to um the study of it let me put it let me put it to

you this way um I was born in 1956 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 go back again they did not know the war was going to end in 1943 they had no idea how long the war was who's going to live who's going to die who's going to win who's going to not who's not

who's going to come back 1943 if you're alive they're not saying hey don't worry about it the war is going to 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 you know parents of uh of of my Palace they would talk about those years their youth in three distinctive Parts three acts of their lives you know which 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 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 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 it was during the war and also said well where were you oh well that was during the war well where were you well I was in a b you know I was 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 we're not for the war then the rest of their lives when we show up you know and with this next Generation shows up when they kids show up all this stuff happened and again the narrative has completely changed we have to understand that was after the war 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 that it had been before the war and during and you know

it the people that you the people who did it well you know the the storytellers the teachers or even the friends of my dads when we're sitting around and everybody's relaxing 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 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 7 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 it goes along with that 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 going to come home and now these four kids are up on there saying yeah yeah yeah and playing guitars and stuff like that everybody everybody's

making a big deal about it part of it is never saw this coming never would have never and in a lot of ways now us younger generation did not have the same attention span for what they had what they had been through I mean until the you know you could talk about Elvis Presley all you want rightly so he was a he was a massive generational Force changed the world in a lot of ways but still Visa V a World War II Generation The Beatles come along in 1964 and it's almost as though the last

vestage of that generation carries import you know has has weight that we can pay attention to even though I've you know i' I've never stopped studying of it because at the end of the day it's just great storytelling you want to talk about great protagonist antagonists you want to talk about the irony you want to talk about the the the the uh schizophrenia of what can happen in good and 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

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 not that that happened in you know 100% in 1945 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 post pandemic yeah you could maybe you could probably look at it there was a moment certainly

the AIDS crisis came along and the pandemic of the a of AIDs that certainly altered all of society in the same way talk about you could talk to an awful lot of guys who will say well you know I'm saying that was before AIDS you know that that means a lot and yeah you would say the same thing about certainly the the the covid pandemic we went through something that I mean my look I got grandkids who are now talking about their lives and well that was during covid yeah 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 Co 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 you know it might be a little young to remember you know before covid but they do so yeah so what's going to be next do you think yeah what's going to be that next threea structure to our uh to our Collective history well as you keep saying more will be

revealed as well there's a this yes this too shall pass and more shall be revealed and we will never all know of everything that we need to know yeah and uh you've been seen as the um or even in a Paul voted the most trusted man in America that's something there's an anomaly in the vote taking process there how does 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 how does how do you how do you

deal with that kind of a oh you know I don't know there's there's a uh um yeah 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 you know if you were going to take somebody who is who is an artist and say uh who's the scariest person alive you know you'll you'll come off with you know I don't know you know Vincent Pride you know what whatever I'm an artist I'm a Storyteller and I think I'll take that

as as a u 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 and say hey sit down I want you might be interested in hearing this is that you're you're this an onyx exchange uh between myself and the audience and if it's an honest exchange then you could come to trust them you know that's not a bad thing that's not a bad thing absolutely and and it's it's quite magical actually I mean trus

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 did you know uh Divine Providence uh you know uh maybe it's kind of like the same thing that happened when I was in school uh and in high school and I said this can be school um there was a thing with uh with the with reader I just thought wait it could

be like this it could be like just sit around that's 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 kind of go oh I you know I I I you know i' like to say and then you know and then we met and I said and you know and then that was that okay yeah that's pretty much it then then you get on with it and uh you know years later um no small amount

of no small am 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 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 you know we we we do she does too and that's the exchange yes uh and it's it remains glorious and and you're and you can't create it

anywhere else you can't fake that yeah there's that beautiful uh speech that you have in 2020 when you talk about how a man is blessed with this beautiful family he has in front of him when you in tears and that you know you can't for number one I am a sap number two you I you don't expect you think you're going to be able to get up and you know get away with it so you think a I'm going to get it I'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 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 it just 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 and here does the same thing the movie Here H re yeah there's a sense of your watching your life flash back it you what I really loved okay this I I guess we have to be careful about spoiler alerts yeah so we we don't trying I'm we don't want to go there 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 wake of an eye you comprehend it all

and I think that's what the that's what the the movie Works towards if I can be so bold and in many ways that was the theme that we were all working towards 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 yes a few times yeah where something went down now maybe it's something from thousands of years or maybe it's something that you witnessed on TV yourself you go to what like you

go to like Washington DC M and uh stood on the you know look I made a movie in front of the Lincoln Memorial I couldn't believe that was happening and then years later I'm going back and there there is a plaque at the top of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial which is where Martin Luther King stood and I have since gone back and read about that extraordinary day that did not happen by accident in fact that was originally going to be a protest it was going to be a Sittin and the powers at be

all got together and said rather than make it a protest of a Sittin 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 armymen standing by ready in case it was going to be a riot at a 19 64 63 a riot was definitely a a possibility would have been a massive amount of cilic unrest and instead it was all of these speakers Marin Brando was there for charlon hon was there along

with everybody and uh Martin Luther King was everybody could only speak for seven minutes because 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 and there's a reason that plaque is that that plaque is there in order to in order to place and to be there and see it it then just Envision every it's powerful Place powerful powerful spiritual yeah are there other places you've been to like that or Revisited multiple times to decode and discover and

uh oh yeah um I'll tell you I'll tell you one uh who cares what I said on other podcast um when we when we were doing um believe it or not when we were in Philadelphia cuz I was making in Philadelphia kids were you know I our only had three kids there and some of them were with us and we were we it was a freezing cold day we had a day off so we went and saw the sides including um Independence Hall the Liberty Bell you know a whole bit what are you going to

do in Philadelphia you're going to go do that you're going to see the Liberty Bell you're going to 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 maybe a lot of 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 CU it had Congress the Supreme Court and the Senate right there and uh we were there and 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 look the same 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 there a Riser there and he said that spot in front of in front of the that uh the deis 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 might 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 modom of a thing they call democracy which wasn't really democra I mean women couldn't vote if 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 want to pay their taxes to the to the crown but look what look what look what happened there I mean I I you know I've been you know plenty of cool joints and but there there the this idea not unlike the the place

where Martin Luther King stood the idea that was communicated right there was tantamount to being in you know some version of the holies of holies of you know a precious Shrine a place of great faith and hope I mean speaking to that impact you received uh honorary Greek citizenship oh yeah uh for forp for your amazing work there well yeah yeah look we just love you we love Greece and you know it is the Home Country to uh to my wife's uh family and uh um it well you can do a this is something that

that that we do and that do in Greece you know you go off to some other Island you're swimming somewhere or 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 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 for and by the way there's a port right there which was you know place of antiquity of that but to be able to look

at something that is unscarred exactly as it was it's like looking at primordial Forest 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 a ship in order to get there um I I I've done that you know any number of places you know great historical places like that and uh it ends up uh it makes you feel really really teeny tiny sometimes it's like who are we but you know specs in the course of all of this

it's like standing under you know a big mass of sky and finally seeing on a really super dark night the you know our galaxy or the you the Milky Way our solar system and it's like wow I haven't been out of town for a while I forgot how big that sky is and uh that that's a part of this is that it's important to go through that so important so important have you ever seen a uh a solar eclipse I I I'm I'm sure I've kind of but not I not yeah not the last one

but the one prior to it we made sure that we were in the path of totality 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 you know the Clockworks of God and it's they can predict it they know what it's going to be and every step of it is you cannot fathom what you were seeing and I it made

me feel on one hand it made us all feel one hand really super tiny but at the other hand magnificent because we're a race that knew when it was coming and could predict it could make sure we're there watching it was really marvelous where was that when you read it there was like these paths you know you can look at it on a map and we just made sure that we were up in the panhandle of Idaho in order in order to take a look at it 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 okay next one Tom it is 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 my it's been it's just been a delightful conversation i' I've I've learned i' love loved hearing

about your history you know how you got there for for the oldest boy of a of a what is it a a fractured marriage between Indian Indian mom and dad you've uh uh I think you've done well in your in your Pursuit 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 one word to one which I will probably I will probably break the rules so don't worry if you do okay 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 throw deep baby and why 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 I love that uh Second question what is the worst life advice you ever heard or received um uh do Fantasy Island I didn't take it but uh there was no reason to do Fantasy Island that's great uh question number three how would you define your current

purpose uh to be present wherever one is whoever is one around be present be right there show up be present why because that will teach you then 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 you're life is going to be a wasted opportunity if that makes sense uh question number four h are you making the up as you go along or no no no these yeah every single question I've asked you today um what something you

believe you're learning and evolving into right now or something that you're tinkering with right now personally 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'm only

looking at the past in a version of there was an antagonist and there was a protagonist and the protagonist one missing the point of how 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 oh this is the home of great spirituality and there was a cosmic power here and this is where okay fine go ahead I'm not going to tell you that's not what's

going on but if you're not also see this ongoing fraking mystery of what humankind has figured out on its own you're missing out you know there's there is yes they call them the Great Pyramids they weren't necessarily built for great reasons sometimes they're just built in order to maintain the status quo of of the halves and the hav Nots yeah when I heard a guy say the Sphinx you know the Great Sphinx you could have been alive 2,000 years after the Great Sphinx was built and you're still in ferroic Egypt it's still before the Common

Era began and guess what you and nobody else has any idea who built the Sphinx that's how old it is and that it's bailed 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 if you're just there for the Nostalgia and you you don't want to you know ride the camel and 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 um you're missing out on a great life lesson something of that as important as physics or poetry so powerful why why do you think we do that I I think because we're looking for um a we we want to feel good about going to sleep at night you know we want to feel as though that there is this uh that there is this this U purpose that outside uh I think

a outside the C Cosmic understanding that hey you know what you know the universe is uh indifferent but the Human Condition is not 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 and if we're only looking at the past in order for some degree of oh was so much easier back then no it's 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 might be high futin but what it says is all right I'll tell tell you this what it says is our best days are yet to come we are going to progress from here and if you're just looking at the pastor 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 otherwise what's that say of us if we don't move forward it says we gave up

or got lazy or ended up putting too much too much power in uh and maintaining a status quo that ends up being a division between the halves and half Nots 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 man you spring this on me you really I'm looking at a Wall of Shame of people that the Polaroids of people that have been they all came up with something

for that they did one law that everybody had to follow a law meaning you could be punished if you don't obey this law sure 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 kinde I would pass a law that says no one is is allowed to infringe a prom the right in regards to what somebody else reads 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 so I would say that no one one is allowed to infringe upon the right to determine figure out what the legal no one is allowed to infringe upon the right of an individual to read what they choose to read that would be my that would be the law now take a look at all the societies yeah you know I'm fascinated by I'm fascinated by communism man because those guys were idiots you know they truly were and the idea that East Berlin you cannot read

you you cannot read um To Kill a Mockingbird or or you know any any or Dr zvago 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 this is tyrrany and its this is this is this is Draconian what's the word I'm looking that that's despotism at its absolute height that you 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 that should be the default position of the human condition and is it an amazing that it's not so that would be the law I would path powerful unique and completely original answer so worth waiting for well as an author you know as a guy who writes I'll I'll I'll bow to that but Tom thank you so much again this was magnificent thank you so much no oh it's great such a pleasure and I can't wait for everyone to go and watch here on November 1 all right yeah we'll pay that oh yes

go and now by the way you can only see it in a theater that we okay here's the thing this is why this is why my crack staff is so petrified there is no streaming deal for this movie you know you you you're not going to be able to you know log on enter your pass code you know share it with your friends or the only way you're going to you're going to have to drive to a place and buy a ticket at a certain time and sit in a room with a bunch of strangers

I love it and watch this movie it's almost unheard of and of course everybody is petrified that that's going to be the requirements of seeing a movie but that's the way it's going to be I love it D is is still one of my favorite experiences oh yeah it's the you know uh not to continue along with that but this this this thing that we talk about all the time right now and I actually believe that podcasts is 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 b 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 commer 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 M and it was more or less right after the pandemic theaters were back opening again people

were people were essentially living their lives again there been enough you know uh everybody had gotten enough vaccines and what have you and Co wasn't killing as many people as it had and so we went to the theater because we had we knew some people in it and it was here's this thing happened you know it's a theater a Mumble everybody blah BL 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 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 going to 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 because I can remember going to see 2001

or Jaws or Close Encounters of or aliens or you know or a full metal jacket I can remember the specifics of all those things 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 want to participate in for sure thank you Tom thank you such pleasure I really enjoyed it if you love this episode you'll love my interview with Will Smith on owning your truth and unlocking the power of manifestation anybody who hasn't

spoken to their parents or their brother call them right now don't think you're going to have a chance to call them tomorrow or next week that opportunity with my father changed every relationship in my life