The pleasure of working with somebody who's an actor is they don't waste time with stuff that doesn't matter.
Tom HanksI did a 'Love Boat!' And based on my trip on the 'Love Boat,' I said, 'I'd just as soon not do 'Fantasy Island.''
Tom HanksIt was incredibly cheesy set with torches [TV's Survivor] - it looked like the lobby of the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. And here as some guy pulling names out of a coconut, and I said, 'This is the thing that has made American mass media stop in their tracks?
Tom HanksAll that most parents hope is that their children are happy, funny, well adjusted, and have a passion for something in their lives. What would negate everything is if the next generation that we're responsible for has a passionless existence. And that's cause for occasional sleepless nights.
Tom HanksMy doctor said, 'If you can weigh what you weighed in high school, you'll essentially be healthy and not have Type 2 diabetes.' Well, I'm gonna have Type 2 diabetes, because there is no way I can weigh as much as I did in high school.
Tom HanksThe nature of the movies is different than it was five years ago, and they're all driven by the possibilities of CGI, which means you can make anything happen on screen that you can possibly desire.
Tom HanksMost people want to be able to go off and deal with their day - stop in here, run errands there - and when you can't do that, going out becomes a chore.
Tom HanksI would like to think I've reflected the audience's lives somehow, though it's in this big, false, glamorous arena of movies. I hope people see themselves somehow up on the screen.
Tom HanksSome people are cowards... I think by and large a third of people are villains, a third are cowards, and a third are heroes. Now, a villain and a coward can choose to be a hero, but they've got to make that choice.
Tom HanksEating everything you want is not that much fun. When you live a life with no boundaries, there's less joy. If you can eat anything you want to, what's the fun in eating anything you want to?
Tom HanksIf you're funny, if there's something that makes you laugh, then every day's going to be okay.
Tom HanksAll directors should have to act and all actors should have to direct, so that they can understand all these key things that come into play with whether you can meet your day.
Tom HanksOne thing that was amazing about World War II was that everybody signed up for the duration plus six months. Fliers got to leave combat after 25 missions, or 35 missions, but other than that, you were in it. You were part of the great effort, until, oh boy, six months after it was over.
Tom HanksNo journalist has ever been in my house and no photographs have ever been taken of where I live. I don't parade my family out for display, which is the way it will stay.
Tom HanksDirecting is a constant test of your communicative powers. You're constantly trying to explain people your vision of what you want and steer these tiny little details into a cohesive thing.
Tom HanksE-mail is far more convenient than the telephone, as far as I'm concerned. I would throw my phone away if I could get away with it.
Tom HanksA story has the opportunity to enlighten us, because as we connect the extraordinary moments on film with the ordinary moments of our lives, we ask ourselves, "What am I going to do the next time I'm scared? What would it be like to say goodbye to my family for the last time?"
Tom HanksThere is something basic about protecting land by taking it off the market. People should be able to enjoy where they live while at the same time protect the plants and animals around them.
Tom HanksI love my family and I love my kids, but when the moments come, it's not as though you can just substitute your own life with what you're doing on film. You have to go to some other place where it's bigger than your own life.
Tom HanksWhen I was growing up, everybody in charge, my parents and teachers, had all survived the war, and they talked about the war like it was the Kraken - you know, this huge beast that roamed the earth during their formative years.
Tom HanksIf I was to direct Ron Howard, I guarantee you, I would put him through a living hell every day. I would demand so much of him. We wouldn't quit until he leaves the set crying. Weeping! Spent!
Tom HanksNow, learning how to make a movie is something you can figure out in about an afternoon. The physics of it, the marks, the lights, etc. What's hard to do is to suspend your own feelings of self consciousness. The natural actors can do that; they can become part of a characterization and learn how to maintain it.
Tom HanksWe are still in the position of waking up and having a choice. Do I make the world better today somehow, or do I not bother?
Tom HanksAnd I'm not apolitical - I'm very specific in my politics. But a lot of the time it's nobody's business unless you're over at my house having dinner.
Tom HanksAs a boy Id often spend my days biking on riverbeds and arroyos and come home exhausted. I realize now how much I took for granted having the natural world so close at hand. It wasnt until I moved away, first to New York and then to Los Angeles, that I realized how much I missed the outdoors.
Tom HanksEveryone says, "You have to work at relationships." Sometimes you've got to work, but if you're working 60 percent of the time and only enjoying it 40 percent...
Tom HanksHelp and you will abolish apathy-the void that is so quickly filled by ignorance and evil.
Tom HanksIf you can feel like a good man in your 40s, you can feel like a better man in your 50s, a Superman in your 60s, and maybe a Spider-Man in your 70s.
Tom HanksMotion pictures are just beginning to live up to their true potential of being immersive experience - going from beyond black and white flickering images to fully immersive 3D color high-definition. You don't even know where the real world starts and the fake world begins. And yet, none of that's going to matter unless the story and the emotions that they allow us to become invested in are something that we can recognize. Pixar is able to do this in ways that almost defies speculation.
Tom HanksEverybody has something that chews them up and, for me, that thing was always loneliness. The cinema has the power to make you not feel lonely, even when you are.
Tom HanksMy TV show had been cancelled; nothing else had gone anywhere; some alliances I had made petered out and nothing came of them and I was looking at a long, long year ahead of me in which there was no work on the horizon, the phone wasn't ringing. I had two kids, one of them a brand-new baby, and I didn't know if I would be able to keep my house.
Tom HanksIf I have no connection with the character, then it's all fake - it's just blah, blah, blah.
Tom HanksWhen I was 21 years old, I had a job playing Santa Claus in a shopping centre in Sacramento. I was rail thin, so it's not like I was a traditional Santa Claus even then. I had a square stomach; that was the shape of the sofa cushion that I had stuffed into my pants.
Tom HanksI know the Pope is opposed to the use of condoms. All I can say is, I am a spiritual man and I've been happily married for 21 years. I don't even know what a condom is anymore.
Tom HanksThe desert, when the sun comes up...I couldn't tell where heaven stopped and the Earth began.
Tom HanksI think 80 percent of the population are really great, caring people who will help you and tell you the truth. That's just the way it is. And I think 20 percent of the population are crooks and liars. It's just a fact.
Tom Hanks