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Sometimes life passes in the wink of an eye and it's like, "Wow, are we here already?"
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But there's other times in that same wink of an eye you comprehend it all.
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One of the greatest and most iconic actors of all time.
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He has starred in dozens of movies over his 40-year career.
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You know him, you love him. Tom Hanks.
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If you're just looking at the past and saying, "Man, that was when it was great.
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I wish we could go back."
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No, you never want to go back.
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You always have to understand that our best days are still ahead of us.
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Well, as you keep saying, more will be revealed as well.
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This too shall pass and more shall be revealed.
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The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty.
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The one, the only Jay Shetty.
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Tom Hanks, welcome to On Purpose.
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It's truly an honor and a gift to be in your presence, to have you here.
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And even the first few moments that we've just exchanged a few thoughts, ideas, and stories, I'm already enjoying your company so much and I'm so grateful that you took the time to do this. I can't likewise.
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I watched here, which is out on November 1st.
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I have so much that I want to talk about it through and through your lens.
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When I was watching it, to me the theme of home obviously is so strong and apparent.
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And I wanted to ask you, where do you feel most at home? Apart from home? Okay, all right, man.
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All right, let's throw deep right off the bat.
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Because I was so many things lined up with me at my age. I was the third of four.
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Uh my parents were very preoccupied with all certain, you know, like the positives and miseries of their lives.
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I'd like to joke that they pioneered the marriage dissolution laws for the state of California, you know, back They got divorces when only like Zsa Zsa Gabor, you know, or you know, Nicky Hilton got divorces.
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My home environment was fluid in that we moved a lot and we were suddenly living with a whole different set of people cuz people you know my parents got remarried and whatnot.
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So that by the time I was seven, I had lived in eight different homes.
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By the time I was 10, I had lived in 10 different homes.
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And it's always been like that.
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So um I am not intimidated by it and I don't think I'm damaged by it at all.
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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.
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And I consider myself the lucky one.
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You know, just just by the nature of so much stuff that uh that I've seen and so much stuff that I've um been able to experience and be comfortable with.
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Now uh look, I you know, I I'm 68.
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So I went through I I witnessed everything.
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You know, whatever drug thing that you want to go.
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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
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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 the school figuring out all right, what's what's the easiest way to get comfortable here? Part of it is being
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Part of it is being open, you know, kind of like taking over, cracking a few jokes, not not getting in trouble.
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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 that the
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roll 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 would they were social beings long before I was. I
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I didn't become a social being until I was a like 7 years old or what not.
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And by that time I had lived in very many places.
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So you're long-winded conversation. I love it.
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Where Where are Where Where do I feel it Where do I feel at home? most.
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I'm going to say now at the age of 68 with some collection of my immediate family.
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Wherever we are, provided we are and I don't mean to be good at laughing.
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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?
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Can someone Can someone do that right now?
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So I uh uh now that's not necessarily a strength because along with that came dude, I travel light.
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And I can travel light emotionally. Like I'm done.
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There's stuff that I cannot control.
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I have left many uh uh wonderful atmosphere or a loving atmosphere or a friendly atmosphere and uh 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.
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Jay, I don't think I've ever thought that. Wow. Now, is that great? Is it facile?
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Or is it um so mercurial that maybe you maybe you shouldn't trust me.
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Is it Is it Does it feel like It feels like and sounds like a healthy detachment.
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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 uh you know so you can navigate and you know I I think my experience is about 90% of the people that you come across are pretty decent folks.
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5% are and I'll say 5% are sociopaths you know.
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And you cannot avoid that other 10% those two 5% and and my the ability to to detach from those circumstance without a doubt a good thing.
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But the habit then I think of uh choosing isolation from the other 90% cuz what can I rely on at the end of the day?
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I can only rely on what I can fit in either my emotional suitcase an actual suitcase or the back of my car.
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Uh and that and that lingers for a very long time.
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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.
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To not want anybody because that's just what I learned.
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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.
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But that can be a solitary life and a lot of times being solitary can be confused with being lonely.
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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.
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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.
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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 this beautiful relationship with your wife, you have long-term friendships with people in the industry, Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg.
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You have You have People I worked with, yeah. you worked with.
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So, how how does that dance work?
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Because I do think that the magic is in the dance, not in the choice.
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I'm going to say that I got very, very, very lucky uh being in the right place at the right time and recognizing something that was just for me.
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All right, let you go back to let's just go back to school, you know.
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The people say show business is like high school with money.
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Uh high school is like show business without money, you know. Truly it was.
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Um and when I was when I went 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.
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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."
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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.
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I didn't can't say I really loved going to school, but I certainly loved the hang of going to school.
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That's a different thing.
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Subject matters, that was all there.
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History was great sometimes, some reading was great, but I was no artist, I was no, you know, I was no mathematician, you know, I I kind of liked geography because you could visualize a map and know where like Sri Lanka was or, you know, the difference between Cambodia and Thailand.
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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 psych, uh theological, you know, brothers.
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But, uh other than that sign up for class, maybe do your homework on the bus on the way to school, and what? Run track? I don't know.
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What what are you supposed to do?
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But, uh the uh there was a theater teacher.
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There was a theater department at this high school.
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And actually, a this guy I'd known since uh 6th grade was playing Dracula in the in the in the high school play. And I said, "What? Really?"
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And so, you know, we went.
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We went up to school at night to see him.
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And I'd never been in my high school at night.
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Looks different at night, right?
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And then I sat there, and there was, you know, a bunch of people in the auditorium, and then they came out and did this this play.
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And I thought, "This is school?
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You can do this at school?
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School isn't this thing just to survive?
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This isn't this thing just to fill up your time?
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To leave as soon as you can and get there at the late I don't know. I never cut class.
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I didn't didn't do that because in some ways the hang of school was too much fun.
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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.
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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?
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That my I got to 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.
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The idea of auditioning for um the first like our great instructor our our teacher.
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He wanted to do real plays because he loved to do the scenic design for it.
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So we're we did Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams. How about that?
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16 year old 17 year old kids playing Night of the Iguana.
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Then we did Shakespeare and we did they did musicals as well.
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Those those were always popular.
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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.
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Some people can't get up and it was a bunt for me.
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I I did I did it without even thinking.
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That that gave that gave a purpose and a pursuit that was much much bigger than anything else that had been been in my life.
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Now I have a friend of mine from the same era. James is his name.
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I met him in fifth grade and he said to me he was going to be a draftsman.
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He was going to he was going to be an engineer.
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He was going to design buildings and he did.
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That's what he's been doing all this life.
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I knew I knew people that at the same age that said, "Well, I really love to cook."
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and they have written cookbooks and they've run their own catering companies.
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That is what that's the same sort of thing that I that I landed upon without really knowing it.
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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 or where my dad lived in in Oakland in the Bay Area.
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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 air trains going by farms and whatnot buildings and then the natural preponderance I had to sit there quietly and imagine what was going on.
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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 what's the word I'm looking for?
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And I'll just say it again, a pursuit that is let's put on a show, let's tell a story.
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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.
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Did you write on those journeys or was it mainly I wanted to write specifically, but I did not literally I did not have the I did not have the scholastic example.
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I did not learn the tools because I just wanted to fake it.
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You know, at at the last moment. Yeah.
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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.
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That actually was a form of writing that came came about and I was sort of like instructed on on how that come how that comes along.
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But without putting it down on paper, I had malleable cohesive narratives in my head for all of this stuff.
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And I just thought, well, isn't that what everybody does?
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That's that's the way you do this, right?
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Cuz it's not just showing up on time and you know, learning your words and and doing what you're told.
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It There is something beyond that and the beyond that was always 15 times greater than the actual physical showing up.
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I can't I can't discount enough the power of the hang.
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You want to hear a story?
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Here's Here's a short Okay, here's a short story. Please, please, please. Darlene Love.
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You know who Darlene Love is?
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Legendary singer, she you know, singer a fantastic fantastic um Motown artist among other things.
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We were I was on the Christmas show of uh the old David Letterman show.
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And every year he brought her along to sing "It's Christmas", this fabulous rendition with a big orchestra and male choruses.
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I saw her there and I said, "Oh oh my I'd seen her on the David Letterman show for like 6 or 7 years."
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And I said, I met her and I said, "I Ms.
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Love, I I cannot believe that I am on the show with you.
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You are uh you you have been belting out, you know, so so many moments of the soundtrack of my life that I've I'm just I'm just thrilled that you're here and I'm here glad that you're still doing it."
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And she looked at me and said, "Tom, I'm just here for the hang."
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And I got I completely I completely got that because the hang, the interaction with everybody.
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Dealing with the attractiveness of those 90% avoiding or learning how to negotiate around those other 5%, you know, the jerks and the uh and the evil people.
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Ain't that just living, you know?
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Ain't that ain't that better than being alone in a room when you don't have a thought in your head.
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You got to stick to the plan.
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You got to lay your head down. You got to fight for it. You got to compete.
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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."
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Just because something has happened doesn't mean it's going to.
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Just because you're in a place doesn't mean that's where you should be.
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My life used to be nothing but chopping wood and carrying water.
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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.
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I was wondering, you talked about luck a lot there.
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Can we all become a bit more lucky?"
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The fellow who ran the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival, Vincent Dowling, I I worked for him for 3 years and he's he's the the a number of people that loved that man and worked with that man.
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He he touched a great many people's lives.
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He said, um, it's the most unfair business in the world. That's one aspect of it.
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Because so much of it requires being in the right place at the right time by choice and by sacrifice, you know, and that's not easy to do.
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I feel that I was fortunate that from as we talked about from that up bringing I had no I had no qualms about hey, let's go.
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I got enough money for gas.
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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.
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And there are people that listen, they just can't do that, you know?
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There is a degree of security and fear and intimidation that that can go along with what?
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Putting yourself in the right place at the right time.
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And along with that will come all it's a look, it's a 50/50 you can Okay, it's a 50/50 Have you ever heard this great thing?
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I'm no mathematician, but when I heard this I thought that's actually a principle for living.
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Jay, if I had a quarter and I flipped it and it came up heads five times in a row.
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What are the odds that it's going to come up heads a seventh time a sixth time sixth time in a row? Is it still 50/50? It's absolute 50/50.
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Just because something has happened doesn't mean it's going to.
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Just because you're in a place doesn't mean that's where you should be.
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So along with luck shouldn't the shouldn't the other requirement be faith or some degree of disconnected to it to whatever the end result is going to be?
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You're going to have to be I was I I was talking to a friend of mine and he said he read somebody.
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I don't who it was, but someone someone wrote down uh you have to be all right with what's going to happen. And I just went Well. Okay. Yeah, thanks for that. Yeah, all right.
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Let's let's try to do that.
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So, you have to be all right with what's going to happen, right or wrong, disaster, disease, you know, whatever.
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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 it could possibly be.
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What what's helped you get closer to that? That sounds hard. It is.
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Sounds impossible almost. Yeah. Yeah.
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I'm going to say that age, in all honesty, experience, you know, that thing of what has it not destroyed me only makes me stronger.
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And look, let's not discount the power of getting your ass kicked.
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You know, and I'm not just you know, suddenly not professionally as well.
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All sorts of, you know, all sorts of personal things go along that give you a bloody nose and bust your teeth and you have to go through those metaphysically, perhaps physically.
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I made this movie where I wrote a I wrote a a scooter, a Vespa.
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And so, because of that, I rode a Vespa for about 2 years until I realized that I had been so close to killing myself on this thing, making a stupid thing, that I'm going to give up this Vespa.
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This was a smart This was a smart thing to do that only came about because I learned, you know, that, you know, sometimes a hair's breadth between, you know, cracking up or falling down or needing that crash helmet or not.
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So, it is a degree of that the that experience and also being, I think, open to some of the most basic, I don't want to say philosophical truths, but I have been to the Holy Land.
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I have seen the sites that are um precious, uh divine.
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I was I was actually working this a long time ago.
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This was before the great many of the great problems that were going there and I was driving back being driven to Jerusalem.
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I was with a guide and I said, "Hey, so uh so uh Moshe, tell me tell me tell me about where we are."
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And he says, "Okay, I will tell you.
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This is We are bound by a kibbutz.
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This is a very old kibbutz. You know kibbutz? Yes. This is a very old one.
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It's been there a very very long time.
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Very popular and now we are coming up by the moshav. You know what moshav is?
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Moshav is not like a kibbutz.
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It's different more more socialist less comfortable, but this is also much like that and people live there and they work and they farm.
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And this is where David killed Goliath and coming up here we're going I said, "Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa Back the car up.
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Just a little back this up.
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Did you just say this is where David killed Goliath? Yes. He says.
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There's a little sign there.
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It said in English and Hebrew and Arabic.
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He says, "Well, tell me about that."
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Okay, well, okay, there you see the valley? Yes, okay.
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And on one side was the the Philistines Philistine Philistine They were they were there, okay.
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And David and the Israelites were were here.
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And they sent down to the middle there the the the the giant the giant the giant Yes, yes, the Goliath, yes.
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And David goes and says, "I will fight this man."
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And he puts the stones and he kills the man and And I said, "This is the place. He said, "Yeah."
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So am not going to argue with that.
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Absolutely not going to argue with that.
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So moved along and I you know you visit great cathedrals and what not have been all over place around around the world and some of the great places.
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And we were in 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.
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And there was a big tree at one of them.
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Uh at one of the one of the temples the shrines and people would write down prayers on these on wooden wooden signs and they would hang them up like ornaments.
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So this this tree is just covered with a million prayers.
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Beautiful kind of like sensibility.
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And he wrote down something and he hung it up and I said you know oh what did you write?
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He says oh I I wrote here I'll show you and it was in Japanese you know the language and he says this this this means I will never know all I need to know.
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That's all we talked about you know at dinner later on.
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Did you did you know what he said?
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So the the the ongoing education we're never going to know what we need to know.
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More is always going to be revealed and this too shall pass.
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That governs absolutely everything.
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If you are having the greatest time in your this too shall pass.
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If you are successful being this too shall pass.
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If you are sick if you are experiencing great tragedy and great drama great difficulty this too shall pass.
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Now I don't know if I'm still answering the question you asked.
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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.
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You got to stick to the plan.
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You got to lay your head down. You got to fight for it. You got to compete.
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Yeah okay, there's times when, you know, you got to do that other kind of stuff.
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And other times you just kind of like got to roll over and say, I surrender, you know?
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Just I will never know all I need to know and I'll never be able to do all that I should do. Yeah. make sense? It does make sense. It does make sense.
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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 repeat He would always repeat to me, there's no substitute for maturity.
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And And it was No Yeah, no shortcut to it. Yeah.
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that maturity was just something that And yeah, didn't you know somebody when you were young who was the same age as you Yeah. Absolutely.
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Oh, I I came across all sorts of people like that.
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Yeah, and I just said, What First of all, what makes you so special?
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And what makes you so smart?
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What makes you so calm, you know? Uh What was it?
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Did you ever figure it out? the vaguest idea.
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You know, some combination I I would probably say of connection, you know, a connection to a family, uh connection to, you know, uh perhaps a heritage that goes along with that.
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That, you know, uh um uh some friend of mine, we were we went to their their uh son's bar mitzvah.
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And um I'm not Jewish, but I said, uh You got bar mitzvah?
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Oh, yeah, of course I got bar mitzvah.
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And he said And he said, Let me tell you something about the bar mitzvah.
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This is what's great about it because my 13-year-old son would He's getting bar mitzvah, and I told him, I said, After this, my son, your sins are your own. He's 13.
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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.
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that said, There is a time when you will and you alone are responsible for everything that that goes on goes on in your life. Yeah.
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Um uh I I have a I have a friend who is studying with a a Buddhist monk, you know, a guy who's name he's literally got his name venerable in his first name. How about that?
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When I was talking to the venerable, you know, whatever to and I said, "Look, I know squat about Buddhism outside of, you know, what I you know, see on TV shows. So, what's the deal?"
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And he said, "Well, 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.
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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.
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That's some high country.
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And I don't know if you hear that well I don't know if I if I had heard that at the age of 22, I would have had the slightest and idea of of what it but at the age of 68 Yeah.
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uh I you know, I think I can get a little bit closer to that uh Definitely. Yeah.
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I think there's two things you both remind for me.
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I think one of them's been when I've noticed some of the wiser people that I've met along the way or at a younger age as you were mentioning, it's always been people who are exposed to more generations.
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And so people who were in their 20s but new people who were 70 and spent quality time with them or people who were in their 50s and spent time with someone who was 18 or 21.
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kind of juxtaposition of being surrounded by people that weren't just all your age in the same space, there was a sense of you being able to learn and grow and and take and receive.
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and grow and and take and receive. I was spending time with a couple that my wife and I have become very close friends with and they're both 70 and my wife and I are in our in our mid 30s and we were we spent a weekend with them and it was brilliant because I got destroyed at pickleball by the
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70 year old a humbling experience is always a good 4 hours a day and 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
29:10
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.
29:16
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.
29:26
And church was a place you could look back on work and home and reconcile and reflect and think about how You can ponder why bad things happen to good people and vice versa, yeah.
29:35
It was a place spent literally meant for that.
29:40
This is why you come here. Exactly.
29:41
And now what's happened is let alone three spaces, we don't even we just have one.
29:45
So we work from home, we live at home and then our third space or the closest thing to it is a television, probably.
29:52
There is there isn't a separate space.
29:54
And so it's arguing the fact that there isn't that space almost to have those thoughts, conversations, ideas, insights that may arise.
30:02
The generational thing I think is wickedly important.
30:06
Whether or not, you know, like they they don't, you know, sometimes it's just the old person that's sitting in the corner, you know.
30:14
But other times it's like, you know, a big There's some aspect of the big family that is not for everybody, you know, cuz God knows not everybody wants to come to Thanksgiving sometimes cuz they don't want to have that same fight again.
30:25
I had a I had a friend who um he had his his grandmother was like in already had a nine, like she was 93 or something like that.
30:35
And she was always just there, you know, just there.
30:40
And at one point he was uh he was arguing with his parents about not wanting to do so.
30:45
I can't remember what it was. Didn't matter.
30:46
But everybody was saying, "Why are you doing that?
30:49
Why do you What's that about?
30:49
How can you do How can you do that that that that that blah blah blah?"
30:52
And my friend said, "Why are you Hey, man, because life's too short."
30:55
And this 90-year-old grandmother is just sitting there and she said, "No, life's not short. Life is long."
31:06
Which I interpreted as being life is long.
31:09
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.
31:20
And uh my my my kids are my uh my old my youngest kids um essentially were raised along by us as well as uh couple of people that have, you know, been uh employee-like families for uh members of family, but also their their grandparents, their yiayia and pappou, as they say in Greek.
31:40
People who were never not engaged with them when they were babysitting.
31:46
We never had to have babysitters.
31:47
We never had to have a nanny.
31:48
We didn't have anything like that.
31:49
What we had instead was two generations removed of people speaking Greek to them, asking them questions, "What are you doing?"
31:57
from the moment they are toddlers until they're 14 years old.
32:03
What they got from that is so different from from what I got from mine.
32:07
The There is a joke in my family about how bad I am with tools. Okay.
32:13
as soon as I pick up a screwdriver or a hammer, I start getting cold sweats because my dad had no patience with me about He never said, "Let me show you how to use a Let me show you how to scrape that off."
32:26
It It was always, "Oh, come on, you knothead.
32:28
Don't you know how to sand a board?
32:29
Don't you know the difference between a standard ratchet socket wrench and a and a metric And And did because nobody said, "Let me show you how you do this." You got to learn it.
32:40
So, that you're talking about something there that is it's almost it's like water on a stone, you know, it just has an effect over time and you know, for in many cultures you have to look at that and say, "The more the more generations around that table with regularity, you know, not just for you know, three holiday days holidays a year.
33:07
Um the the richer the lesson is going to be, you know, the because you're going to pick up some stuff just by like an like an old story from you know, from the old country.
33:16
My my father-in-law dad he was he was Greek but grew up in Bulgaria and had escaped the communist and whatnot which is a fascinating story unto itself.
33:31
But but what when he told the 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 try to try to bite him.
33:49
He came back oh, I think of what it was is he he said, "Take the donkey up there."
33:54
And he didn't want to wrestle with the donkey.
33:57
He just wanted to go up there and get it back really fast.
33:58
And on the way there this dog, you know, nearly mauled him scared the living daylights out of him.
34:05
So, when he came back down his dad said, "I told you to take the donkey."
34:10
Cuz the donkey would scare off the dog, you know, like that.
34:13
So, you know, you don't that's the kind of stuff you going to pick up over time.
34:16
But did you did you have multiple multiple generations in the home as you were growing up?
34:22
I I felt that for me my my monk teachers became that for me cuz they were older and so I had I had a monk teacher who was in his probably 60s when I met him.
34:32
I had another who was in his 30s when I first met him and so they became that.
34:36
I wasn't so close to my grandparents and so I didn't really have that same interaction as you were mentioning your children did.
34:44
I didn't really have that with them.
34:46
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 breath of you know human experience that I nice if it worked across the board but sometimes you know grandpas are drunk and you know and and grandma does nothing but smoke cigarettes and you know and watch Wheel of Fortune.
35:06
So maybe it's not always great.
35:09
No maybe it's not always great but it can be sometimes. It can be. It can be.
35:13
I don't think there's a better example of a true sense of family and home and connection in moments that are not Thanksgiving or Christmas morning or a wedding or a good.
35:21
They are when you're just sitting around on a Thursday night, you know.
35:26
We don't have to live in chaos if we choose not to.
35:30
And if we're only looking at the past in order for some degree of oh it was so much easier back then.
35:34
No it's it's never been easier.
35:36
Sometimes life passes in the wink of an eye and it's like wow are we here already?
35:43
But there's other times in that same wink of an eye you comprehend it all.
35:48
You were talking about your experience with your father and and you know with the tools and it's a funny because my dad was the opposite.
35:53
He was he was useless at DIY and so I'm useless at DIY.
35:58
And so I have that experience. My dad was great.
35:59
My dad could fix everything.
36:01
So there was a there was a story I was talking to my older brother once with that he and my dad my dad was like why why in the world would I spend a lot of money for crying out loud we could get it we could get electronics kit and make our own amplifier.
36:13
We don't have to go off and pay all this much money.
36:14
We could hook it up to a turntable and a speaker there we have stereo system.
36:17
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 him so you know when that when you made the amplifier with Dad, I was really jealous because oh man, I wish I would have done anything to trade shape places with you.
36:32
My dad was so miserable as we're doing it always are you not head?
36:37
Don't you know, don't you know how to solder it that it's like oh.
36:38
Well, you know, it's a perspective of everything. Yeah, definitely.
36:42
Did you try to did you try to parent differently?
36:45
Like did you try to avoid you try to but I made every mistake, you know, you you scar the kids somehow in in in the same exact way and as they get older, you know, you come back around and said, "Hey, can I talk about what a knothead I was with you for all those years?"
37:00
And said, "Yeah, sure, Dad."
37:04
Yeah, I've been kind of waiting for this.
37:06
Why don't why don't you why don't you unload?
37:08
So I know that but I would say at the same time I think there was, you know, it does it come up to be 50/50 maybe?
37:14
The the attitude and the you know, the the life that we led the the laughs, you know, that stuff's worth its weight in you know, gem and crusted gold.
37:23
So What's something that they've taught you?
37:28
What's something that they've inspired you to they all are, you know, they are not the same type of human being ever.
37:37
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 he was younger.
37:50
He was like seven or eight.
37:51
I said, "Oh, you know, at at one point let's let's go down we were in New York.
37:56
So let's go down the park and we'll take our gloves and we'll throw it around. We'll bat the balls.
37:59
We'll just find a place of grass."
38:00
He said, "Okay, do that." And it got away from me. Didn't happen.
38:04
This called that something happened and I realized that oh, the sun's going down now and I said, "Oh my God.
38:09
Oh my God, hey, I'm sorry.
38:09
I said we were going to go down in the and throw the ball around. It got away from me. Forgive me."
38:17
And he said, "No, it's okay, Dad."
38:19
And he sounded disappointed. I said, "It's okay."
38:21
I said, "Well, you know, I I feel bad.
38:22
I just I just I don't I don't want you to be bored."
38:24
And he looked at me with a look on his face and said, "Dad, I'm never bored."
38:31
And that is uh that's curiosity.
38:31
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.
38:43
And I can I think I could say that maybe in varying degrees for for all the kids.
38:49
Their ability to um pursue their own interests without being prodded, um without being forced to.
39:00
Uh I I I I've learned from that because look, there was uh that isolation that I'm that I was talking about.
39:07
There was a time when I was so comfortable doing absolutely nothing or, you know, pursuing some brand of, you know, disconnection that wasn't good for me and uh I you know, they everybody has it in some some some degrees.
39:25
But you could be 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.
39:35
And they have never they have never said that they're bored.
39:37
They've they've always had some action thing that was going on, whether I understood their passion for it or not.
39:42
Uh what attracted to you that isolation and disconnection at that moment in time?
39:47
What was it that was so appealing about I think I just had to get used to it because I was number three.
39:53
There people ran out of time, you know, they didn't have the wherewithal, the interest.
39:56
Because I was so young when my parents split up and there were so many other factors that had to go into Man, there's logistics and legal thing and time and distance and stuff like that that I took care of myself and you know, was was satisfied.
40:12
I think it was a reprieve for them.
40:15
So, um I just got I just got used to occupying myself by being alone. Yeah. And that's really great.
40:22
And it's can be really detrimental.
40:25
Yeah, I can relate to so much of that as well.
40:27
I felt I was the oldest, just one of two.
40:31
And my parents uh you've used this word previously in in other interviews of having your parents had a fractured relationship and so did mine.
40:37
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.
40:48
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.
40:58
Not in a way that I felt I lost a childhood or I didn't have amazing experiences, but I'm really happy now when I look back that it gave me strength and courage much earlier on.
41:08
But as the older one, did they have some ex- expectations of responsibility put on you?
41:12
Did Like where you going and you have to be back by now?
41:14
Were there rules placed upon you? no rules for me.
41:17
More expectations educationally.
41:22
And what was strange, which is so much linked to what I do today, and I've I've drawn that line fairly often for myself, is I was emotionally depended on by both of them. Okay.
41:33
So, I became the therapist, mediator, the wow. That's That's a burden. I'm sorry. early on.
41:38
No wonder you went off for 3 years to sleep on the floor. Sleep on the ground. Yeah, yeah.
41:42
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 it gave me that ability to recognize how it takes two to tango and there's I think this I think this is a viable study about where you are in that pecking order.
41:59
Everyone agreed about it because because I was last and last by like 5 years, I had no rules.
42:02
I had no expe- They had They had spent so much time trying to establish that with the older, you know, my older siblings.
42:13
They didn't want to bother with it anymore.
42:14
So, if I was gone for, you know, like 2 weeks, I just didn't come home for 2 weeks in high school, they knew I was sleeping at somebody's house and doing my homework and getting to school on my own.
42:24
They were thrilled that they didn't have to, you know, they didn't have to discipline me or punish me.
42:29
They didn't have even have to think about me.
42:31
I just came and went by myself, so.
42:33
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.
42:43
Yeah, that was Yeah, and that was different for me, too.
42:44
I had I had expectations that you academically, which is normal in an Indian family, but there weren't any rules for me, as well.
42:52
So, if I was out and about and doing whatever it was, it didn't matter.
42:53
And so, So, I'm going to Is the stereotype of the Indian family Are they Are you all brilliant students?
43:00
Do you all work really hard and finish all your homework? to.
43:04
Yeah, you're You're forced to.
43:06
You're forced to prioritize homework.
43:07
Education is all that matters.
43:07
Your social skills, life, relationships don't matter.
43:12
I am It's all about how well you perform.
43:14
I'm glad I'm not an Indian and there's no way I could have been. Oh, lord.
43:18
Yeah, it's all about how well you perform academically.
43:19
Your whole life revolves around that.
43:22
Were your parents like high academic achievers?
43:25
Well, I think they did I I would say they did very well for what they had.
43:28
So, my dad became a chartered accountant.
43:29
He qualified in England, but he grew up He was raised in India.
43:31
And my mom never did any more than what you'd study up until age 16. Okay.
43:39
And then after that, also became an entrepreneur and became a financial advisor.
43:42
So, they'd both struggled and worked hard to I love it.
43:46
It was going It was going right where I thought it was until you said, "And then became an entrepreneur." Yeah, yeah, yeah.
43:51
Just Yeah, which I didn't realize growing up that she was an entrepreneur, but Well, that comes from somewhere of that structure of education and homework done. Exactly.
44:01
Even no matter the gender. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Definitely.
44:02
But, I was thinking about As we talk about your life, I can't help but think about the movie here that I'm so grateful I got to watch a couple of days ago or a couple of weeks no, a week ago now.
44:13
And I really just felt that it was a work of art.
44:18
That's kind of what I took away from it.
44:20
It was a work of art because rarely has a film more recently had me so fixated on Mhm.
44:28
First of all, the way it's produced and created is is beautiful and the way it's a pretty deep throw.
44:35
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 Yeah.
44:42
to me, I can't help but project Oh dear.
44:44
Oh, but you you because because it was the four of us, you know, Bob Bob Zemeckis and Eric Roth and Robin and I and everybody everybody else in it, you know, Paul and every other actor did.
44:54
We the the scenes are very very specific of a moment in a family's life. Yes.
45:02
And everybody was armed for bear.
45:05
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.
45:17
And I had to when I people say, "What are you working on?"
45:22
Oh, I'm making a movie called here. I say, "Not h e a r. It's h e r e."
45:29
They said, "Well, what's it about?"
45:32
I said, "It is about how important things are when they happen here." You know? Yeah.
45:41
Because you cannot control them and they are if you the film I mean the all of the permutations with it goes, you know, we say, "Oh, the camera stands still in space, but it moves in in time, you know?"
45:55
Everybody every character in it is going through that profound thing that happens in a specific moment in their life.
46:01
And it Where does it happen? It happens right here.
46:05
So, we were always talking about presence, you know, some big aspect of it.
46:10
And also that we do not know that we're living in a moment of history.
46:16
We don't know they know they don't know that they they the the the first tribes, you know, the the Native Americans.
46:20
They don't know that they're Native Americans.
46:24
They're just living in in the moment.
46:26
They're not They don't know they're living, you know, 600 years ago.
46:29
Nor do the people that build the house that that that takes place at They don't know that they're living in 1911.
46:35
They're think they're They're just living in the in the right now of it.
46:36
Um and that's a type of thing that really is is so examinable examinable in a very specific type of cinema that 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.
46:58
And along with that comes together the four of us have a history that we can go back to.
47:03
I mean, uh Robin's worked with Bob a couple of times.
47:09
I've worked with Bob number times.
47:11
Eric is a good friend of mine.
47:11
We We've worked on stuff all the time.
47:12
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. Mhm.
47:27
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.
47:51
Well, I had to wrap my head around this thing that I had never experienced. We lived here.
47:59
I've never lived any place, you know, I I I you know, now now I now now I've had I've lived I've had in the same literally home as in three-dimensional structure in time and space.
48:10
I've had that now for a, you know, couple of decades here.
48:12
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.
48:32
Here's where mom and dad did this. Here's where I did that. I don't have that.
48:38
I I got it, you know, once we got married and we, you know, finally I did but I didn't get it until I was 35 years old. And my kids have it.
48:45
And sometimes I have to ask them about their perspectives.
48:50
I moved around so much as a kid. I looked forward to it.
48:53
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.
49:02
They were sort of undone by it.
49:05
And I didn't understand it.
49:08
I I I literally in the back of my head, if not verbally, said, "What's the big deal?"
49:15
You know, how's that per for for a perspective?
49:17
It is a huge deal if you're actually there.
49:20
And Richard, you know, Robin and I are our characters, you know.
49:25
I'm gro- I'm born in the house. I grow up in the house.
49:27
My kids are born in the house.
49:29
Our entire marriage and family is spent in that house. And is it a solace?
49:35
Or is it a boundary that you're never able to get get through of?
49:40
That experiencing that and examining that was Oh my lord.
49:43
I can't tell you how many how much conversation We This whole movie was just one big ass conversation about what it means.
49:50
And not so much about what the words are, how we move around.
49:54
That's the technical stuff that goes along.
49:56
But every moment that 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've all been through in our odd, you know, celebrated, goofy, stupid individual lives.
50:13
And what it meant to this the H E R E aspect of of of this story that we were trying to tell.
50:21
And Bob particularly, I mean Bob's and we all I think incorporated our own approach to our art form and and commercial life to it.
50:29
Bob as a filmmaker is not about to do a shot that anybody could do, you know?
50:37
And he's not about to tell a story cinematically in ways that have been done before.
50:41
He's just built that way.
50:42
He went, "Well, hell, anybody can do that."
50:44
You know, he says stuff like that.
50:47
And 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.
50:58
And Robin and I, you know, uh Paul, everybody everybody in the thing is like "I know the lines. Turn me loose. Let's go. Let's go.
51:04
What are you going to do?
51:05
Are you going to try that? Let's try that.
51:07
Where are you going to go? Just take it."
51:08
You know, this ongoing game of improvisational emotional football in which you're just and I mean football is the international sense. Yes.
51:18
Premiership, the Champions League.
51:20
It is a ball that is kind of it's a matter of inches.
51:22
It's a matter of a curve.
51:24
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.
51:29
Yeah, it was uh I know the film uses digital anti-aging technology and you get to see yourself uh many years younger.
51:40
What Was there any special feeling of that?
51:42
You played some of that in the film. It was kind of great.
51:45
I mean because it's a great tool because it's been, you know, people are aged and younged up in movies, you know, since the since Edison stole George Méliès' film process back in the early 1900s.
51:57
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, yeah.
52:07
Uh you know, we all had, you know, you always had hair and makeup.
52:10
We we went through extensive everything, you know, they did what they At one point, I'm sitting there and Jennifer, the fabulous makeup artist, she's just looking at me.
52:21
She just grabbed both of my ears.
52:24
And then lifted them up and shoved them to the into the top of my head.
52:27
And I said, "What are you doing?"
52:29
She said, "Oh, Tom, we're looking on you being 17.
52:35
And as you age, your ears grow and lower on your head.
52:39
And so, I'm trying to see if I'll be able to glue them up." Oh, that's right.
52:45
I said, "Have at it, girl."
52:47
Uh so, the that all of the tool aspect of it is standard.
52:53
What was new is that we could see it in real time.
52:56
We didn't have to send it off and wait for a long post-production thing because that was the deepfake technology that uses some form of AI just to make it much, much faster Yeah. and immediate.
53:10
And listen, what what it One of the things that it shows is just how old I am.
53:16
Uh because, you know, you got to have posture and energy.
53:18
Uh and if you're if everything else about you looks like you're 22 years old, you're going to have to embody a 22-year-old.
53:25
I'm going to tell you right now, it's very hard to leap off a couch and enthusiasm uh as a as a as a 67-year-old guy at the time that we did it. even think of that.
53:37
Now that you mention it, yeah. what?
53:39
Had a a of tea, had a lot of protein bars, you know, got a lot of rest, got a lot of stretching, you know, in order to in order to make that happen.
53:47
Yeah, you mentioned presence there and that was a theme that definitely struck me.
53:50
What do you find helps you be the most present today as you're living?
53:55
There were times that you I think you have to be oblivious.
53:56
You have to sort of like enforce it.
53:58
You have to not think of things.
54:03
It's crazy, but one of the most basic things I think that I learned probably in junior college when I actually first Chabot Community College when this 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.
54:25
And that is a degree of being oblivious to the specifics of what you're doing.
54:30
Because if you're trying to get through it, that means self-consciousness.
54:33
That means you are not you are not getting out of yourself and self-consciousness is the death of performance.
54:42
Ask any actor this thing is that if if you have a scene where you have to go to a deep emotional place and the only way to do it is to go there.
54:51
Chances are you have had the most wonderful day of your life prior to that.
54:58
Or the it is so much fun to come to work that day.
55:00
All right, so that's one thing that you have to do.
55:02
And the other side of it is if you have to be charming and convivial and funny on paper on stage a day, chances are you're going through some personal hell, you know, off you know, off camera that you just have to be oblivious to somehow.
55:16
And along with that there's I I can't discount enough the joy of the hang.
55:22
I think what I do for a living do joy does does it promotes it.
55:29
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 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.
55:48
Everybody says, "Well, what do you mean by What do you mean What do you mean by learning the lines?"
55:50
I mean, learning the lines like you know the the the lyrics to the best song you ever heard in your life.
55:58
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.
56:00
Now, I need a place that's here to stay. Oh, I believe in you.
56:04
You got to be able to rattle it off that fast, that easily.
56:08
It's got to be so much a part of you that you don't have to think about it at all.
56:11
If I actually sang the right word words to yesterday.
56:15
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
56:15
And I feel there's this It's amazing to see your enthusiasm, excitement, joy, you know, continuing your career when you're even what you just said now of working with people who can get even more out of me.
56:29
And that belief that there's more in you always.
56:31
You've talked about imposter syndrome in the past. Yeah.
56:35
Which obviously, I'm sure everyone when they look at you find it hard to believe.
56:40
But, I I recognize when you've shared or I've heard you talk about it before. It's very real.
56:44
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?
56:57
Somebody wanted me to do a movie. All right. And it was great.
56:59
And I should have done it.
57:01
It was going to be a for a lot of money.
57:03
You would pay in the go somewhere cool.
57:05
You get a good per diem, you know, all that kind of stuff.
57:10
There was no reason not to do the movie.
57:15
Except, there was something that I just said, "This is not the match for me."
57:20
Because, number one, I don't have any curiosity about the subject.
57:27
Now, that's not the only reason to do it.
57:31
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.
57:42
But, the other part of it, too, I was searching I was I was having a one-on-one uh talk with the uh director.
57:47
And I was just I said, "Look, I said I don't I don't have the I don't have the um I don't have the countenance."
57:56
And the director said, "Countenance?
57:59
The hell does that mean?"
57:59
I said, "There is a thing that we all carry with us.
58:00
We have a countenance that comes from everything we've said.
58:08
All the work that we've done.
58:08
All the All the times that we've either succeeded or failed, cuz they both go together.
58:13
You You Failure teaches you a lot more than success does.
58:16
I'm talking about commercial success.
58:18
But, that idea that you walk away from a job and you think that we went to a new place in order to in order to examine this theme that only we could have done unless we all got together and challenged each other and made it happen.
58:34
And without that type of stretching of one's countenance that you come into uh that's That to me is the That's That to me is the the big megillah.
58:45
I still find myself uh completely at the mercy of that instinctive moment of sudden Oh my god!
58:54
That's what I That's what I think, you know?
58:56
And the next thing you know, you want to do it and you're talking talking about it continuously.
58:59
And there's nothing that anybody says that detracts from that initial Yes. uh initial experience.
59:10
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.
59:17
I mean, I When my my uh my beginnings uh the first time I was a professional actor, we were in repertory theater uh at uh with my Vincent Dowling at a place called the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Cleveland, Ohio.
59:31
And because we were in rep, we did everything.
59:33
We did We did Hamlet and King John and Othello at the same time we were doing fabulous rip-roaring comedies that everybody everybody dug.
59:44
The countenance then ex- is exchanged bet- between them between the two.
59:51
And that's something that I I It's not a burden at all, but it is a uh it it is a prism through which a decision has to be made.
1:00:01
Going back again to this idea of this, I believe that Mike my countenance Look it up.
1:00:09
Staff, look up countenance for me.
1:00:12
My countenance is not going to aid the examination of this theme.
1:00:18
And movies work when the theme is worthy of being examined by that movie.
1:00:23
And so in that case, you just have to say uh no.
1:00:27
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.
1:00:38
Yeah, it sounds like you've never compromised that.
1:00:39
Oh, I've compromised plenty of times.
1:00:41
But you know, making mistakes, you know, there was a period of time Look I Look at my IMDb.
1:00:45
It might be up in triple digits by now.
1:00:47
You know, and it was a time where I just said they are asking me to be in a movie.
1:00:51
You don't say no to that. And you That's young.
1:00:55
That's the stuff that you do in your 20s and in your 30s.
1:00:56
And then sometime in there you start thinking about No, no, no, no, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
1:01:01
The greatest decision By the way, I don't think I've ever said no yet except by schedule.
1:01:07
But now it turns out to be that's where you start shaping um what?
1:01:13
Your your art and the body of work.
1:01:15
You have to start The power is saying no.
1:01:18
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.
1:01:25
But I I've compr- I I didn't know I was compromising cuz I didn't know any better, but there's a moment, I guess, when you say like, ah, you know, I don't I don't want to I don't want to I think I'd be compromising somewhere here.
1:01:40
And so, the the first time I said no to something, um it was a very it was it was on one hand liberating and of course I might have thought I made the biggest mistake of my life.
1:01:51
Uh you know, I if you take any great take any great magnifi- take let's just pull from the take Faye Dunaway and Laurence Olivier.
1:02:01
They have very specific countenances.
1:02:04
There is a thing that you will say, "Oh my god, the countenance of Laurence Olivier really really Ossie Davis."
1:02:08
Well, you know, any great that wow, that countenance matches. Yes.
1:02:13
And that's I guess that's what I'm that's what I'm talking about.
1:02:17
There was a there was like a you know, some sort of cosmic weight that they carry along with them that makes sense for what they're doing. Yeah, for sure.
1:02:25
There's a listening to you speak about I mean, it's so relieving to hear that you've compromised sometimes like because No.
1:02:34
it it's a relief I think I've Come by my house for a night of compromise, you know? How about that? You want to do that?
1:02:40
We'll bring the we'll We'll bring the DVDs and say, "This is the DVD of compromise." I'm in. That'd be amazing.
1:02:44
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.
1:02:58
And so, it's a relief hearing that because your values of how you pick a project, of how you work on a project seem so so strong and defined now, and that's obviously come with time.
1:03:07
As as you were making here, was there a particular scene that reminded you of a time in your life that you want to revisit, relive, rethink.
1:03:20
Eugene O'Neill wrote Ah, Wilderness.
1:03:22
He wrote that play as the life he would have he wanted to have. He wished he had had.
1:03:29
The family that he had wished he had.
1:03:34
And I always read that uh Eugene O'Neill is a big reason why I became an actor cuz I saw a great productions of his stuff uh back in 1975, 76.
1:03:43
And when I finally saw Ah, Wilderness, I was knocked out because it was as delightful a play as it was.
1:03:48
And I'd always heard that he wrote that as you know, the family that he wished he had.
1:03:56
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.
1:04:11
And I went right back to you know, I don't know it was a Dean Martin show or you know, an episode or something.
1:04:17
Even down to some of the commercials that we wanted to.
1:04:20
And um those moments were transporting for me but not in a home the way we were picturing it.
1:04:32
I remember seeing those in an apartment that we lived in for 2 and 1/2 years when I was walking to school by myself.
1:04:38
Or the first years, you know, somebody was married to a step spouse that was not the most benevolent human being in the in the planet Earth, right?
1:04:49
Sometimes I I remembered sometimes just that that gathering around um like-mindedly getting the same thing out of a TV show.
1:04:59
Like an electric fireplace, but it was solace.
1:05:02
It was a togetherness uh that belied what was really going on in the in the house.
1:05:08
And there's a couple of those, was when uh um the kids are little and Robin and I were in the early early years of our marriages that were sublime.
1:05:18
Right then and there because we're sit we're laughing. It's there.
1:05:25
The kids are being goofy.
1:05:25
There's a moment that that there's a moment that comes along.
1:05:29
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 or Christmas morning or a wedding or They are when you're just sitting around on a Thursday night.
1:05:41
You know, content and and and happy and nothing is happening except you the sense of presence that's there. Yeah.
1:05:51
There's a couple of them.
1:05:51
That's funny that that you should ask that because I realized 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?
1:06:03
What we had done just before?
1:06:06
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.
1:06:15
It every every scene, every conversation, every event feels so real.
1:06:21
One of the things that we learned because it's shot in this very specific, you know, aspect ratio, you know, Yeah.
1:06:28
camera position is that everything works. Everything.
1:06:31
If you're in the scene, even if you're not talking, you are registering in a way that warrants attention.
1:06:39
The the stuff that is on the walls, I can't say enough about the TV. Here's something goofy.
1:06:45
I walked onto the set one day and it was from a period from, you know, early 1960s or something like that.
1:06:51
And the TV was an old General Electric TV that was the same model we had No.
1:07:00
when Apollo 8 flew around the moon.
1:07:04
We had This was the TV we had.
1:07:04
It was old black and white thing with General Electric.
1:07:08
It had this big channel changing knob on the side. It was like that.
1:07:11
And it was the same maple cabinet. It wasn't big.
1:07:14
It was just not much, you know, it was on legs and it had the cloth speakers and General Electric and things like that.
1:07:20
And I immediately took a picture of it and I sent it to my siblings.
1:07:24
And I said, "You recognize this?"
1:07:26
And they all said, "Hey, that's a TV from the Johnson house."
1:07:29
You know, it was like that.
1:07:29
So, it had these kind of like talismans that came along with it.
1:07:34
Uh that odd oddly enough, they were they were both great to see and bittersweet to remember. Does that make sense? Yeah, for sure. For sure.
1:07:42
Do you I know you're fascinated by space.
1:07:44
Do you have any desire to go to the moon?
1:07:45
Oh, you know, if if they were going to do a thing where, you know, regular blokes could just go up and go around it. I mean, I I'd take that. That's a good one.
1:07:56
Oh, yeah, just just to do it.
1:07:56
But oh, yeah, I think it would I'm sure Elon Musk would love to take Oh, I'm not going with him.
1:08:00
But he's not going there anyway.
1:08:02
You know, they're just going Come on, man.
1:08:04
But I've I've met I've talked to the I've talked to the crews that are in line to make the next uh orbit around the moon.
1:08:13
It could happen as early as 25, 26. Mhm.
1:08:17
And uh man, oh man, I just say, "Hey, if you need someone just to clean up and crack jokes, you got room in there. Give me give me a call."
1:08:23
I'll get down to whatever weight requirements are necessary because I wouldn't pass it up.
1:08:30
Uh but I said uh but only if all of the windows are are clear cuz 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.
1:08:45
Was that fascination only from movies?
1:08:46
Is that where it came from?
1:08:48
No, no, that came from uh I was right smack dab in I was that I was that educatable generation for which it was space travel was the embodiment of every discipline that we were studying.
1:09:01
Current events, politics, physics, art, um engineering, math.
1:09:05
It was all all wrapped up all into one.
1:09:08
It was on TV TV regularly.
1:09:11
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 is kind of it was kind of mirroring my life when I was like 7 8 9 10 11 years old. Wow. Yeah.
1:09:25
I mean, it's uh I don't know if you saw that movie Fly Me to the Moon recently.
1:09:29
I did not, but it's you know, it's streaming in the new movie economy, so I know it'll be there for a thousand years.
1:09:35
So, I'll catch up with it.
1:09:37
It's a little bit of a the uh conspiracy theory really didn't happen yet.
1:09:41
Normally, I hate that kind of stuff, but uh this good quality people, so I'll try to check it out.
1:09:46
No, it was I'd love to get your thoughts on it when you see it. Yeah.
1:09:47
And your other fascination is World Wars.
1:09:49
Well, this is another thing that goes back to um the study of it.
1:09:55
Let me put it Let me put it to you this way. Um I was born in 1956.
1:10:02
That's 11 years after the war is done.
1:10:05
So, essentially, everybody who is an adult in my life had memories of those years, whether they went to war or not.
1:10:13
They had memories of the what I like to call the emotional stasis of the early 1940s. In which go back again.
1:10:25
They did not know the war was going to end.
1:10:29
In 1943, they had no idea how long the war was who was going to live, who was going to die, who was going to win, who was going to not who was not.
1:10:36
Who was going to come back.
1:10:38
1943, if you're alive, they're not saying, "Hey, don't worry about it.
1:10:42
The war is going to be over in just another 18 months." They don't know that.
1:10:46
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 uh of my pals.
1:11:04
They would talk about those years, their youth, in three distinctive parts, three acts of their lives, and you know, which might have been picking up on because, you know, some sort of story sense.
1:11:15
When they were kids, it was before the war.
1:11:20
When they When my dad was in high school, it was before the war.
1:11:21
When he was working on a farm, listening to the radio, and I and worried about, you know, not being able to afford the dentist, it was before the war.
1:11:33
Then, there was well, that was during the war.
1:11:36
It's a whole different storytelling process, the whole different guidelines of the narrative.
1:11:41
Well, you have to understand, that was during the war.
1:11:43
That was '42, it was during the war.
1:11:45
And their daily life was completely different than what it had been.
1:11:50
There was less of things.
1:11:50
There was this fear of this unseen enemy possible to attack. There were blackouts.
1:11:56
They couldn't get cling peaches.
1:11:58
They didn't have birthday cakes as much.
1:12:01
They They didn't have that It was during the war.
1:12:03
And also, I said, "Well, where were you?"
1:12:06
"Oh, well, that was during the war." "Well, where were you?"
1:12:10
"Well, I was in a battalion, you know, I was I was, you know, I was My dad was in the South Pacific. He was a machinist.
1:12:15
And he would never have been in the South Pacific as a machinist were it not for the war."
1:12:20
Then the rest of their lives, when we show up, you know, and with this next generation shows up, or their kids show up, all this stuff happened, and again, the narrative has completely changed.
1:12:27
We have to understand, that was after the war.
1:12:31
So, on one hand, there was something to celebrate, but on the other hand, there was, guess what?
1:12:37
Life became one damn thing after another, in a different way that it had been before the war during the And, you know, it the people that you the people who did it well, you know, the these storytellers, the teachers, or even the friends of my dad's when we're sitting around and everybody's relaxed on a Thursday night and they're drinking beers, you know, and they're talking about when they're getting to know each other.
1:13:02
These The stories from any one of those acts I thought were were fascinating, were uh were ponderable because as a 7-year-old I'm hearing my dad and my mom and other people talk about when they were 7 years old.
1:13:20
With the magnifying glass and the division of well, that was before the war.
1:13:25
We did not know what was coming down the pipe.
1:13:28
Then everything else that goes along with it.
1:13:30
I still can't quite get past the fact that uh in 19 1964 the Beatles are on the Ed Sullivan Show. Mhm.
1:13:40
And my dad is of the generation of just 20 years prior.
1:13:45
The war was not yet over and they had no idea when they were ever going to come home.
1:13:48
And now these four kids are up on there saying and yeah, yeah, yeah and playing guitars and stuff like that and everybody's everybody's making a big deal about it.
1:13:56
Part of it is never saw this coming, never would have would 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.
1:14:13
I mean I until the you know, you could talk about Elvis Presley all you want and rightly so.
1:14:17
He was a He was a massive generational force, changed the world a lot of ways.
1:14:22
But still vis-à-vis a World War II generation Mhm.
1:14:25
the Beatles come along at 1964 and it's almost as though the last vestige of that generation carries import, you know, has has weight that we can pay attention to.
1:14:37
Even though I've you know, I've I've never stopped studying it because at the end of the day it's just great storytelling.
1:14:43
You want to talk about great protagonists, antagonists, you want to talk about the irony.
1:14:47
You want to talk about the the the the schizophrenia of what can happen in good and bad.
1:14:54
World War II is about as good as you're going to get.
1:14:58
And also, here's this other thing that's ridiculously satisfying about it. It ended.
1:15:08
There was a time when it was all done.
1:15:10
And wars now go on for generations.
1:15:10
And they go on for decades.
1:15:15
And there are no there are no moments when, you know, the swords are pounded into plowshares.
1:15:23
Not that that happened in, you know, 100% in 1945.
1:15:24
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.
1:15:39
you could you could probably look at it there was a moment certainly the AIDS crisis came along and the pandemic of the of AIDS.
1:15:44
That certainly altered all of society in the same way.
1:15:47
You could talk about it you could talk to an awful lot of guys who will say, "Well, you understand, that was before AIDS, you know."
1:15:52
And that that means a lot.
1:15:52
And I yeah, you would say the same thing about the certainly the the the COVID pandemic.
1:15:58
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.
1:16:06
And so they didn't go to school or they didn't see their friends.
1:16:10
They were trying to do things online. It was really different.
1:16:13
And now COVID is let go and guess what?
1:16:15
Now they're just getting on with the rest of the tasks of growing up with their lives.
1:16:19
So they too you know, might be a little young to remember, you know, before COVID, but they do. So yeah.
1:16:26
So, what's going to be next do you think? Yeah.
1:16:30
What's going to be that next three-act structure to our uh to our collective history?
1:16:34
Well, as you keep saying more will be revealed as well.
1:16:37
There's uh This yes, this too shall pass and more shall be revealed and we will never all know of everything that we need to know.
1:16:43
Yeah, and uh you've been seen as the um or even in a poll voted the most trusted man in America.
1:16:51
That's something there's an anomaly in the vote-taking process there.
1:16:52
How does After all the times I've lied to everybody, "Oh no, this is a great movie.
1:16:59
Yeah, by all means come see this movie."
1:17:01
That that was a lie sometimes.
1:17:04
How does How do you How do you deal with that kind of a Oh, you know, I don't know.
1:17:08
There's there's a um Yeah, yeah, okay, you know, I get it. That's good.
1:17:13
I I guess that comes around to perhaps the thing that I was talking about uh countenance-wise, you know?
1:17:18
If you were going to take somebody who is who is an artist and say, "Uh who's the scariest person alive?"
1:17:30
You know, uh the you'll you'll come off with, you know, I don't know, you know, Vincent Price, you know, what whatever.
1:17:36
I'm an artist, I'm a storyteller and I think I'll take that as as um a testament to I guess the veracity that I brought to my craft, my my choice.
1:17:46
I'd like to think that, you know, you go all in on on a story, on and say, "Hey, sit down.
1:17:54
I I want You might be interested in hearing this."
1:17:56
Is that your your this an honest exchange Mhm.
1:17:58
uh between myself and the audience.
1:18:02
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.
1:18:09
And and it's it's quite magical actually.
1:18:11
I mean, trust in that way of course, you know, Hollywood success.
1:18:16
You've spoken about it so many times, which is why we haven't dived into it.
1:18:19
And then, you know, a happy healthy marriage.
1:18:21
And how did you know Rita was the one?
1:18:23
Like that's you know, how how how did you know?
1:18:28
Uh divine providence, you know, uh Maybe it's kind of like the same thing that happened when I was in school, uh and in high school.
1:18:37
And I said, "This can be school?"
1:18:41
Um there was a thing with uh with uh with Rita where I just thought, "Wait, it could be like this?
1:18:48
It could be like just sitting around?
1:18:50
That's how It could be like a a carefree union? I didn't know that. How about that?
1:18:55
I had Honestly, I had not truly experienced that somehow.
1:19:00
And when it's there, you just kind of go, "Oh."
1:19:03
I I you know, I I I you know, I'd like to say and then you know, and then we met and I said, "And you know, and then that was that."
1:19:11
Okay, yeah, that's pretty much it.
1:19:13
Then then you get on with it.
1:19:15
And uh you know, years later, um no small amount of no small amount amount of me saying things like, "Oh, let me get this straight."
1:19:25
You know, there's a lot of plenty of plenty of examples of that going on, you know.
1:19:28
With so much so that oh, here goes Dad.
1:19:30
Oh, here goes Dad with a let me get this straight.
1:19:33
Why would it work for me argument?
1:19:35
I pull it out I pull it out all the time.
1:19:37
And you know, we we we do she does too. And that's the exchange. Yes.
1:19:44
Uh and it's it remains glorious.
1:19:44
And and ear and you you can't create it anywhere else. Can't fake that.
1:19:50
Yeah, there's that beautiful uh acceptance speech that you have in 2020 when you talk about how a man is blessed with this beautiful family that he has in front of him where you were in tears and That you know, you can't I'm for Number one, I am a sap.
1:20:06
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.
1:20:11
So you think, "Oh, and I'm going to get it.
1:20:13
I'll be some straight shooting.
1:20:13
I'll see some great stuff."
1:20:15
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.
1:20:21
Sometimes four, five, you know, they're all just there. And what do you see?
1:20:25
I see little babies, you know.
1:20:29
Um and I you You I you know, I see uh I I see this uh this woman that uh has put up with so much stuff.
1:20:35
And you just life flashes before your eyes a little bit.
1:20:39
And there's that there's that moment of surrealism where it's like, "Can somebody explain to me how this happened?
1:20:45
I'm not I'm not quite sure."
1:20:49
And here does the same thing, the movie. Here, h e r e. Yeah.
1:20:53
There's a sense of you're watching your life flash back.
1:20:55
It What I really loved Okay, this I guess we have to be careful about spoiler alerts cuz yeah, so we we we don't we don't we don't want to go there.
1:21:05
But I think that it ends up examining this truth that sometimes life passes in the wink of an eye.
1:21:17
And it's like, "Wow, are we here already?"
1:21:20
But there's other times in that same week of an eye, you comprehend it all.
1:21:25
And I think that's what the that's what the the movie works towards, if I can be so bold.
1:21:30
And in many ways, that was the theme that we were all working towards.
1:21:37
And even in the the the perfectness of just the word, it happened here.
1:21:41
This is where that happened.
1:21:44
Have you been Have you ever like been in like a really super historic place? Yes, a few times, yeah.
1:21:50
Where something went down.
1:21:50
Now, maybe it's something from thousands of years ago, or maybe it's something that you witnessed on TV yourself.
1:21:55
You go to Like you go to like Washington D. C. Mhm.
1:22:01
And uh stood on the you know, Look, I made a movie in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
1:22:07
I couldn't believe that was happening.
1:22:09
And then years later, I'm going back And there is there is a plaque at the top of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which is where Martin Luther King stood. Mhm.
1:22:16
And I have since gone back and read about that extraordinary day that did not happen by accident.
1:22:20
In fact, it was originally going to be a protest.
1:22:23
It was going to be a sit-in.
1:22:26
And the powers that be all got together and said, "Rather than make it a protest of a sit-in, make it a march."
1:22:35
And suddenly also things happen like there were plenty of bathrooms lined up.
1:22:41
There were sandwiches that was made for people.
1:22:43
There were social services. There were cops.
1:22:45
There were army men standing by ready in case it was going to be a riot.
1:22:51
At a 1964 or '63, a riot was definitely a a possibility.
1:22:59
Would have been a massive amount of civil unrest.
1:23:00
And instead, it was all of these speakers.
1:23:04
Marlon Brando was there for Charlton Heston was there along with everybody else.
1:23:09
And um Martin Luther King was Everybody could only speak for 7 minutes cuz they did not want it to run over and become unruly.
1:23:16
So every Everybody who spoke spoke for 7 minutes.
1:23:18
And that includes the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.
1:23:22
And there's a reason that plaque is that that plaque is there in order to in order to place it.
1:23:27
And to be there and say to then just envision everything. It's powerful place.
1:23:33
Powerful powerful spiritual. Yeah.
1:23:35
Are there other places you've been to like that or revisited multiple times to decode and discover and Uh oh yeah.
1:23:42
Um I'll tell you I'll tell you one.
1:23:44
Uh who cares what I said on other podcasts?
1:23:48
Um when we when we were doing um believe it or not when we were in Philadelphia cuz I was making Philadelphia.
1:23:54
Kids were you know I uh our only had three kids there and some of them were with us and we were We did It was a freezing cold day. We had a day off.
1:24:02
So we went and saw the sights.
1:24:04
Including um Independence Hall. You know Liberty Bell. You know whole bit.
1:24:07
What are you going to do in Philadelphia?
1:24:08
You're going to go do that.
1:24:09
You're going to see the Liberty Bell.
1:24:11
You're going to go like that.
1:24:13
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.
1:24:20
Maybe a lot of everything it might have been you know, recreated but nonetheless there it is.
1:24:25
And we were up in the Senate building and um the Senate room, you know, cuz it had Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Senate right there.
1:24:33
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.
1:24:43
I said, "Wow, it looked the same."
1:24:45
It looked like a chair to me.
1:24:47
So, he said, "That chair, that's an original chair."
1:24:51
And it looked exactly like the same.
1:24:51
He said all this other stuff had been recreated to to the best of its authenticity.
1:24:56
And that's a riser there.
1:24:58
And he said, "That spot in front of in front of the that uh the dais John Adams was sworn in as the second president of the United States taking the place of George Washington.
1:25:13
It 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.
1:25:26
He said something like that.
1:25:26
And the head my I said we are in holy ground. Nobody died.
1:25:34
The king is dead, long live the king.
1:25:34
No one was murdered, butchered.
1:25:35
The hordes didn't come in and take away.
1:25:38
No one was passing it on to his son in order to go on.
1:25:43
There was no relation between John Adams and George Washington.
1:25:45
The only thing that happened was this modicum of a thing they call democracy, which wasn't really democracy.
1:25:51
I mean, women couldn't vote.
1:25:53
If you were a slave, you were only 3/5 of a human being.
1:25:55
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.
1:26:04
But look what look what look what happened there.
1:26:07
I mean, I I you know, I I've been you know, plenty of cool joints in there, but there there the this idea, not unlike the the place where Martin Luther King stood.
1:26:16
The idea that was communicated right there was tantamount to being in, you know, some version of the holiest of holies, of, you know, a precious shrine, a place of great faith and hope. Mhm.
1:26:28
I mean, speaking to that impact, you received a honorary Greek citizenship. Oh, yeah.
1:26:34
Uh for for your for your amazing work there. Well, yeah.
1:26:38
Yeah, look, we just love you know, we love Greece and you know, it is the home country to to my wife's family and it Well, you can do a This is something that that we do and that I do in Greece.
1:26:53
You know, you go off to some other island, you're swimming somewhere, you're on a boat.
1:27:00
And you can kind of like pivot and all you see is land, sea, and sky.
1:27:09
There's no sign of humanity.
1:27:12
And you go like, "This is exactly what what it's looked like for 110,000 years.
1:27:18
You know, this is exactly what this island was here in this exact same form."
1:27:22
And by the way, there's a port right there, which was, you know, a place of antiquity or that.
1:27:28
But to be able to look at something that is unscathed exactly as it was is like looking at primordial force.
1:27:32
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.
1:27:43
I I've done that, you know, any number of places, you know, great historical places like that.
1:27:48
And it ends up It makes you feel really, really teeny tiny sometimes. It's like, "Who are we?"
1:27:53
But, you know, specs in the course of all of this.
1:27:56
It's like standing under, you know, a big massive sky and finally seeing on a really super dark night the, you know, our galaxy or the Milky Way, our solar system and you go like, "Wow, I I been out of town for a while.
1:28:11
I forgot how big that sky is and uh that that's a part of this.
1:28:14
Is there It's important to go through that sometimes. So important.
1:28:19
Have you ever seen a solar eclipse?
1:28:21
I I'm sure I've kind of but not I not yeah.
1:28:25
Not the last one but the one prior to it.
1:28:27
We made sure that we were in the path of totality and we saw it. And oh my god. It You I cannot talk.
1:28:38
No special effect in any movie has ever had the same impact or effect on anybody who takes a look at what that is.
1:28:48
You feel as though you are witnessing God the you know the clockworks of God and it's they can predict it.
1:28:55
They know what it's going to be and every step of it is you cannot fathom what you are seeing.
1:29:02
And I it made me feel on one hand it made us feel all feel on one hand really super tiny but at the other hand magnificent because we're a race that knew when it was coming and could predict it could make sure we're there watching. It was really marvelous. Where was that?
1:29:16
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 to in order to take a look at it. Wow.
1:29:25
People were just parking their cars you willy-nilly everywhere in order to be.
1:29:29
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.
1:29:35
It is it is a totally immersive experience.
1:29:41
Don't miss it if you can. Okay next one.
1:29:44
Tom it is been such a joy spending time with you today.
1:29:48
I feel so grateful to have been able to hear stories be taken on adventures and learn life's lessons through been it's just been a delightful conversation.
1:29:57
I've I've I've learned loved hearing about your history you know how you got there.
1:30:03
For for the oldest boy of the what is it A a fractured marriage between Indian yeah. Indian mom and dad?
1:30:09
You've uh uh I think you've done well in your in your pursuit. Uh thank you. I'm very grateful.
1:30:15
We end every On Purpose episode with a final five.
1:30:18
These have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.
1:30:22
One word to one sentence maximum. Okay.
1:30:25
I will probably I will probably break the rules, so don't worry if you do. Okay.
1:30:29
but uh Tom Hanks, these are your final five.
1:30:31
The first question is, what is the best advice you ever had or received? Throw deep, baby. And why?
1:30:41
If you're going to do it, do it.
1:30:44
If you have the chance, do it. Don't pause.
1:30:49
There there Instinct, man.
1:30:49
If you got an instinct, go at it. Throw deep. I love that.
1:30:55
Uh second question, what is the worst life advice you ever had or received? Um uh do Fantasy Island.
1:31:06
I didn't take it, but uh there was no reason to do Fantasy Island. That's great.
1:31:10
Uh question number three, how would you define your current purpose? Uh to be present. Mhm.
1:31:19
Wherever one is, whoever is one around, be present. Be right there. Show up. Be present. Why?
1:31:29
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.
1:31:42
If you can't do that, your life is going to be a wasted opportunity. If that makes sense. Uh question number four. Mhm.
1:31:52
Are you making these up as you go along or is it No. No. No. No. These are all No. No. No. These are all No. No. No. Yeah.
1:31:58
Every single question I've asked you today.
1:31:59
Um what's something you believe you're learning and evolving into right now?
1:32:03
Or something that you're tinkering with right now personally?
1:32:07
There is an addictive quality to examining the past that can be counterproductive.
1:32:19
If you're only doing it in order to wallow in a nostalgia of how easy things were back then.
1:32:27
I fancy myself a lay historian.
1:32:27
I Vanity of vanity all is vanity, there's nothing new under the sun.
1:32:32
Okay, so this stuff has been going on forever.
1:32:37
If you are not looking if well if I am not looking for examples of the frailties of the human condition, if I am only looking at the past in a version of there was an antagonist and there was a protagonist and the protagonist won.
1:32:51
Missing the point of how uh miraculous the human condition is.
1:32:59
Um if you're going to I went to Egypt.
1:33:06
And I saw all the stuff that tourists see when they see Egypt, right?
1:33:09
And if you're going to Egypt in order to come up with some Oh, this is the home of great spirituality and there is a cosmic power here and this is where the Okay, fine. Go ahead.
1:33:18
I'm not going to tell you that's not what's going on.
1:33:20
But if you're not also seeing this ongoing freaking mystery of what humankind has figured out on its own.
1:33:30
You're missing out, you know?
1:33:32
There's There is Yes, they call them the great pyramids.
1:33:35
They weren't necessarily built for great reasons.
1:33:39
Sometimes they're just built in order to maintain the status quo of of the haves and the have-nots. Yeah.
1:33:45
And when I heard a guy say the Sphinx, you know, the Great Sphinx? Mhm.
1:33:52
You could have been alive 2,000 years after the Great Sphinx was built and you're still in Pharaonic Egypt.
1:34:03
It's still before the common era began and guess what?
1:34:06
You and nobody else has any idea who built the Sphinx.
1:34:13
That's how old it is and that it's built as well as it and if you don't take that and understand like, man, there's mystery there. Who did it? How they did it?
1:34:22
That stuff's always interesting. The why they did it? That's interesting, too.
1:34:27
But also that incredible impact of that the Sphinx will never be explained.
1:34:36
If you're just there for the nostalgia and you know, you want to, you know, ride the camel and get your picture.
1:34:38
You can do all that stuff and and that's a blast.
1:34:41
But there's some there's something to the past that if you allow yourself just to be soothed by it.
1:34:50
Um you're missing out on a great life lesson.
1:34:53
Something that is important as physics or poetry. So powerful.
1:34:56
Why why do you think we do that?
1:34:58
I I think because we're looking for um a Well, we we want to feel good about going to sleep at night, you know?
1:35:07
We want to feel as though that there is this uh that there is this this uh purpose that outside uh I think um outside of the cosmic understanding that hey, you know what?
1:35:18
You know, the universe is uh indifferent.
1:35:22
But the human condition is not.
1:35:24
That's what separates us from, you know, um you know, the chaos theory.
1:35:29
We don't have to live in chaos if we choose not to.
1:35:34
And if we're only looking at the past in order for some degree of oh, it was so much easier back then.
1:35:39
No, it's it's never been easier.
1:35:40
As I said before, you know, no one no one knows that they're living they're living in the 1400s.
1:35:44
They were just alive back then.
1:35:48
And uh it it might be highfalutin, but what it says is Well, I'll tell you this.
1:35:51
What it says is our best days are yet to come.
1:35:58
We are going to progress from here.
1:35:58
And if you're just looking at the past and saying, "Man, that was when it was great.
1:36:03
I wish we could go back."
1:36:03
No, you never want to go back.
1:36:06
You always have to understand that our best days are still ahead of us.
1:36:12
Otherwise, what's that say of us if we don't move forward?
1:36:14
It says we gave up or got lazy.
1:36:18
Or ended up putting too much too much power in in maintaining a status quo that ends up being a division between the haves and the have-nots. Absolutely. Well said.
1:36:30
Fifth and final question, we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show.
1:36:36
If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?
1:36:41
Man, you spring this on me? You Really?
1:36:43
I'm looking at a wall of shame of people that you Polaroids of people that have been They all came up with something for that? They did.
1:36:53
One law that everybody had to follow.
1:36:58
A law meaning you could be punished if you don't obey this law? Sure.
1:37:05
Well, it can't be like a philosophical thing like be kind, you know?
1:37:11
Being kind is in the eye of the both the kinder and the kindee.
1:37:13
I would pass a law that says no one is allowed to infringe upon the right in regards to what somebody else reads.
1:37:36
That is, no matter how disagreement, whatever that disagreement is, to be free is to think.
1:37:43
And the the physical manifestation of thought is in the choose choosing of what you read. Mhm.
1:37:50
So, I would say that no one is allowed to infringe upon the right to determine infringe or figure out what the legal No one is allowed to infringe upon the right of an individual to read what they choose to read. Mhm.
1:38:09
That would be my That would be the law.
1:38:12
Now, take a look at all the societies. Yeah.
1:38:15
I'm fascinated by I'm fascinated by communism, man, cuz those those guys were idiots, you know, they truly were.
1:38:21
And then the idea that in East Berlin you cannot read Mhm.
1:38:27
You can You cannot read um To Kill a Mockingbird or or, you know, any any or Doctor Zhivago, for crying out loud.
1:38:35
The idea that you can maintain order in society by preventing somebody from reading what they want to read. This is madness. Mhm.
1:38:43
This is tyranny in its This is This is This is draconian What's the word I'm looking at?
1:38:48
That's That's despotism at its absolute height Mhm.
1:38:52
that you you can do that.
1:38:52
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.
1:39:01
That should be the default position of the human condition.
1:39:06
And isn't it amazing that it's not?
1:39:07
So, that would be the law I would pass.
1:39:09
Powerful, unique, and completely original answer, sir. Worth waiting for.
1:39:13
Well, as an author, you know, as a guy who writes I'll I'll I'll bow to that.
1:39:20
Well, Tom, thank you so much again. was magnificent. Thank you so much. No, oh, it's great.
1:39:23
Such a pleasure, and I can't wait for everyone to go and watch here on November 1st.
1:39:28
All right, yeah, we'll pay that. Oh, yes, go ahead.
1:39:29
Now, by the way, you can only see it in a theater.
1:39:31
We Okay, here's the thing.
1:39:33
This is why This is why I crack staff is so petrified.
1:39:35
There is no streaming deal for this movie.
1:39:37
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 and all that.
1:39:47
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.
1:39:54
It's all almost unheard of.
1:39:56
And of course, everybody is petrified that that's going to be the requirements of seeing a movie.
1:40:00
But that's the way it's going to be. Yeah, I love it.
1:40:02
Theaters are still one of my favorite experiences. Oh, yeah.
1:40:05
It's the You know, uh not to continue along with that, but this this is thing that we talk about all the time right now.
1:40:10
And I actually believe that podcasts is can be an example of it.
1:40:12
It is the experiential economy.
1:40:18
Meaning that it is one thing Look, everything is a one-on-one.
1:40:22
You listen to a record, you see a band.
1:40:23
But the experience of being with others as opposed to being in your house or being on your headphones or being like that.
1:40:30
Being with others has a value to it that in some cases is worth money. Okay, that's commerce.
1:40:39
But in other cases is to be sought after.
1:40:42
My wife and I went to see a play in New York.
1:40:44
It was a revival of Into the Woods. Mhm.
1:40:49
And it was more or less right after the pandemic.
1:40:53
Theaters were back open again.
1:40:53
People were People were essentially living their lives again.
1:40:57
They they'd been enough, you know, uh everybody gotten enough vaccines and what have you.
1:41:00
And uh COVID wasn't killing as many people as it had.
1:41:06
And so we went to the theater cuz uh we had we knew some people in it.
1:41:08
And uh it was Here's this thing happened.
1:41:13
You know, it's a theater.
1:41:13
Uh mumble everybody's blah blah blah. Sold out. Big hit.
1:41:18
And mumble mumble mumble.
1:41:18
And when the house lights went to half for the first act, there was a standing ovation.
1:41:29
People stood up before a word before a note had been sung.
1:41:32
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.
1:41:42
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.
1:41:54
The only people that will participate in this is the folks that are here right now.
1:41:59
And movies often times can have that same experience cuz I can remember going to see 2001 or Jaws or Close Encounters of the Aliens or you know, or Full Metal Jacket.
1:42:12
I can remember the specifics of all the things and it's the same experiential 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. Great great time. It was amazing. enjoyed it.
1:42:31
If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with Will Smith on owning your truth and unlocking the power of manifestation.
1:42:37
Anybody who hasn't spoken to their parents or their brother, call them right now.
1:42:43
Don't think you're going to have a chance to call them tomorrow or next week.
1:42:48
That opportunity with my father changed every relationship in my life.