I am Tom Hanks, and my last meal would be challah bread French toast with Cary’s sugar-free syrup, an In-N-Out Double-Double with a Diet Coke, Greek salad with avocado, calamari, and a side of pita with taramasalata. The taste of history platter from El Cholo with a diet Dr. Pepper and a white chocolate coconut Bundt cake. Everybody has exactly two things in common, we all gotta eat and we’re all gonna die. Tom Hanks. Wow. Welcome to the show. Man, oh man. And you told me not to go dark, but you know, it’s true. We will do both those things. Yeah. So have you thought about your last meal before? I have. Prior to being coached in order to appear on this, you probably have the same thing. There’s a number of restaurants. I don’t know what I would order at them, but there’s a couple of places in the world where I think if I only had one day left, where would I eat dinner the night before? So you would rather go to a restaurant and you’d like put your own life, your last experience into the chef’s hands and just say like, kill me. Bring it on. Have you contemplated your own death a lot? And this is a weird question because I’ve contemplated your death. Oh, great. A lot. I had a dream last night. How did it go? Terribly, actually, because you had Covid in March of 2020. I’m not sure if you know that. I think there was a resounding experience between millions of people that was, if this can get Tom Hanks, it can get us. What was it like getting, I’m sure you got thousands of messages saying, Tom Hanks, please don’t die. Shouldn’t have told the kids first. That was a big thing. We kind of like went public without letting our four children know. A simple text from Australia would a, they let us know that, “Hey, you idiot parents, you could have done that a little bit better.” Most of the time it, it’s the parent that wants the kid to text them. But you weren’t texting your kids? Well, no, we weren’t, we weren’t. Number one, we felt horrible. And number two, we were met by like a team in hazmat suits that carted us, put us in a plastic sealed automobile, and got us to a hospital. And while we were there felt pretty rotten. And I kept saying, “What are you looking for?” And well, “We’re looking for signs of Covid 19.” I said, well, and what would those be? You’re patient zero in my mind. Well, okay. And they were saying, we’re looking to see if your lungs fill. So we got a lot of x-rays and our temperatures, if they were gonna spike or not. You know it’s centigrade down there. And so I said, “Well, what’s my temperature?” And they said, “Well, it’s right, you’re at 37.” Oh no. And I said, “I have no idea what that means.” I’m at 37. What is that in gallons? I have no idea. And they said, “It’s all right, it’s all right.” And three days later said, okay, you can go home, but you can’t go anywhere. So we left there and we were locked down for like another two weeks and felt lousy. Did you ever think that was it, that like, this is the moment, this is how I go out. Was that ever on the table? No. Once they let us out of the hospital, I think we’ll be okay. All right, Tom, for the first course in your final meal, we have challah bread French toast. Now this is a kosher challah from a kosher bakery in Los Angeles. We put a dash of vanilla extract in there, some cinnamon, eggs, and milk. Cinnamon? Interesting, okay. Little bit of cinnamon. And then we have toasted it in butter, griddled it, and then topped it with Cary’s sugar-free syrup. Tell me about your last meal. Nothing affects you after this. Nothing affects you. No, I didn’t think of that. You went sugar free, you don’t want one last ride? I have developed a taste for this stuff. There’s this really great book, I think it’s called the Sweet and Low. Anyway, it’s about the history of Sweet’n Low. But because I have type two diabetes, I need to, I don’t, but I should avoid sugar. But I have developed a taste for sugar free maple. How much? What is this? This is. I don’t think they can leave you- This is low calorie syrup, okay. But see you got right here. It literally has only two grams of a sugar in it. Which is, that’s- Let’s see, can I read this? That’s super low. Yeah. Yeah so it says aspa. Oh, also please, please eat. Do you want me to syrup up your- No, no, no. You’re okay. I’m not gonna eat this whole plate, please, come on. If you would like to syrup mine. What did they ask of me to do here. If you would syrup mine to please the natural course, I need to get the ultimate experience. Just do a little bit like that and put some on the side so you can dip it in. Love it, love it. Hitch, you can have, I’ll save the last one. I won’t touch it, I promise. I have been known to come downstairs at night when I need a sweet tooth and get a spoon and get some of the Cary syrup and just put a little bit in there and. Oh, Tom, you dirty dog. Tastes like candy to me. So aspartame the sweetener, I should ask you about your life, but I want to nerd out about artificial sweeteners really quickly because aspartame was originally developed to be, you know the adhesive that’s on two plate car glass so your head doesn’t go through and it shatters. Okay, all right. I do now. The reason that car windows don’t shatter, they were trying to make the adhesive to make that, and then somehow aspartame ended up being byproduct and they tasted it and they’re like, wow, this is sweet. We can make Diet Coke out of it. I have asked occasional doctors that says, is there any long-term, not bad, right? Right. Is there any long-term thing about artificial sweeteners? You shouldn’t eat tons of any one individual food. And that would include this stuff, so. Tom, you’ve said that all great stories are about loneliness. I gotta get the show on the road, I gotta get the show on the road or I’m gonna keep talking about this. That’s good, that’s good. I wanna talk about the theme of loneliness though, because your new film, “A Man Called Otto”, that is a huge theme that’s running throughout that. You’ve said that all great stories are ultimately about loneliness. And you’ve also said that loneliness was a huge driver of your decision making when you were young. I think we have this worldwide epidemic of loneliness right now. It’s on the rise. Japan appointed a minister of loneliness. What do you think is behind that? And what do we do to stop it? Hmm. Yeah, let’s figure this out, you and I- Let’s do it. Okay, first of all, everybody should sit down and you know what, your world should be like, The Carnegie Deli in New York City, in which essentially you sit down with strangers. It’s like no individual booths, no individual tables. You just kinda like sat down and chances are, if you were alone or there were two of you, a third person will be in there that had nothing to do with you and so you get together. One of the sayings that came out of when we were making “A Man Called Otto”, that came from the Swedish team that made “A Man Called Ove” which was the novel and the original movies. And no one is a stranger once you know their story. Something happens to us somewhere between the ages of zero and seven. Let’s assume, all right, look, everybody has their personality, right? But everybody has exposure to something beyond our personality, greater than ourselves. And there is some aspect of being able to feel comfortable when one is just listening. That might not be in the comfort zone for an awful lot of people. I think there’s an epidemic of loneliness, particularly now within the last 20 years or so, in which it would seem as though all these technological tools are at our disposal to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Yeah. ‘Cause that’s a huge debate, especially we make a lot of videos on YouTube and social media, and on the one hand it is connecting people who have similar interests from around the world and we’ve eliminated that sense of physical place, the need for proximity. But do you think that people are like overestimating the amount that a digital connection is a quote unquote real connection? I think for some people they are. Yeah, without a doubt. Because it’s so great. I mean, it’s kind of a blast. There’s nothing more life altering than some form of a knock on the door. All right, Tom, for the second course, we have a classic Greek salad with avocado, calamari, pita, and taramasalata. Ta, ra, ma, sa, la, ta. That’s how you remember it. Ta, ra, ma, sa, la, ta. A lot of Greeks just call it tarama. Tarama. What is a tarama. You going some Tarama, have some tarama. It’s Greek caviar. This is the Greek caviar, you know that’s what they called it. And then also we have the In-N-Out Double-Double, some marinated feta, and then a diet Coke. Absolutely. As we call it, better living through American chemicals. I’m just gonna have a little bit because and periodically I go on like three or four day all water fast just to get away from some of the stuff that comes- Do you feel any different? Yeah, you do actually. Yeah. In a good way or a bad way? No, no. Look, in a good way. Again, I’m not against it. But every now and again, just do a little flush out. Just like having eatin’ vegan twice a week. It’s smart. At the most, at the most. Please dig into the very non-vegan spread. Okay, I’m gonna, let’s get right to the, we’ll put this off to the side. Now understand, any Greek restaurant and actually any Greek homemaker, anybody who says, I like to cook Greek is going to be judged by the quality of their taramasalata. Oof. And I can’t tell you what is good taramasalata other than just tasting it and telling ya. Maybe the taramasalata is the friends we made along the way. Uh oh. I’m just gonna, first of all, good olive oil. Nothing wrong with it. It’s Greek. This is very Greek. And sometimes they come up and it’s just kind of like, tastes like salty mayonnaise. But this is good tarama. All right. All right. Now who can get in a jar. You can get an incredibly fresh This is good tarama. All right. That means a lot. That means a lot. Okay. This is kind of like, calamari is served every possible way in a Greek restaurant. What you will do is you’ll take a little bit of the tarama and put it, and you do the same thing with tzatziki. Just dip it in and. What a world of flavor. Man, oh man, that’s good. And the great thing about, Greek salad is just about the only way I truly love to eat vegetables. I agree. This is incredibly delicious. And I’m really curious about your relationship to Greece, because you’re an honorary Greek citizen. Your wife Rita is Greek and you converted to Greek orthodoxy when you got married. I didn’t have to actually. You didn’t have to? No, because I was baptized in a Catholic church. Christ the king. So I was baptized there and there is enough of a connection to the original orthodoxy. It’s a very easy traipse over from Catholicism to Orthodoxy. Yeah, more or less. Yeah. They’ll take anybody as long as you’re sincere. So if I’m just going for the tarama, they probably- Oh, they love you. Oh great. I’m in then. Oh no, they love you. Mazel tov, I’m Greek Orthodox. I’m more beloved by a particularly Greek moms because I married a Greek, I’m even better than they’re lazy sons. No lie. The Mediterranean diet, which you can eat anywhere from Lisbon and Portugal to Morocco, straight across, that diet based on incredibly fresh vegetables, fish, a lot of protein. You might just live forever. I’m gonna actually try to test this. My theory is all the diet Cokes- And based on that, I’ll have another sip of my American chemicals. All the preservatives I think are gonna preserve your insides and I think they’re just never gonna fail because of that. Now, where do you stand on caffeine? Oh, I consume way too much of it. and my doctor told me I have to stop. I try and keep it- Change doctors ’cause it’s- Thank you! You’re my doctor! I am not. Understand. There’s a reason it’s a legal addictive stimulant because it’s fantastic. And we need it. I would rather give up like cling peaches than, I’ll give up anything. But if some doctor says to me, you can’t have a cup of coffee in the morning. I say, thank you very much, I’m getting a different doctor ’cause I hate you. I wanna talk about God. You mentioned- Okay. We’re trying this new thing where it’s just- Is he or she coming to join us now at- That’s a hell of a question. No, I’m really curious about your relationship to Greek orthodoxy because you have said that you do believe in God. Ah. Yeah, this is looping all the way back around. All right, bring it around, bring it around. You said that you do believe in God, but also that you love to ponder the mystery, the why. That’s it, yeah. In church, whereas a lot of people I think, look to religion and God for certainty, you seem to be looking at the mystery. I seek no certainty. I don’t seek for answers. I must say, I do. I’m more interested in the questions than any answers would be. A guy who was a reverend, believe it or not, said something that when he said it, I said, oh, that’s my thing. He said, miracles are a dime a dozen. They happen every day. They happen every time somebody gets off a plane that flew across the country. He says, ah, but the mysteries are the things that we can ponder for eternity and I believe it. Why do good things happen to bad people? Why do bad things happen to good people? So somewhere between, well, how do you wanna spell God? G-O-D. What words can you come up with that fill that out? Grace, order, direction. How about that? Grace, try to love each other, give everybody a fair shot. Order, meaning there’s a sense of right and wrong here, folks. We all sort of what know it. And direction is like when you wake up in the morning and said, all right, what am I going to, what wrong decision am I gonna make today? And what right decision can I force myself into? Somewhere in there you will have the great mystery of life. And that’s enough for me. So if life is long, hopefully you’re gonna make 51 good decisions against the 49 bad ones so you’ll you’ll stay ahead of the game. That’s good enough for me. That’s like the meaning of life. That’s the Tom Hank’s official meaning of life is just a 51-49 split- Well, I’m not gonna copyright it. Can we copyright? And I’m not asking for money in order to build a tabernacle- What does his release say? We own that phrase now. Okay, all right. I’m fascinated about that idea of generational trauma being passed down and it’s something that, I mean, I know your dad witnessed some traumas. Yeah, my dad saw his dad get killed in a fight in the depression by a hired hand. And justice was not wrought in his life. And that’s a type of trauma that one way or another it gets past it. And I have no idea what his grandfather went through. Sure. Because that was a whole other period of history and generational strife. But now yourself, I mean, having children and grandchildren, how do you stop that cycle? I apologize to them every single day. I’m sorry for the scars that you have born because of me. But you don’t have kids? No, not yet. All right. How old are you? 30. My son was born when I was 21. And by the time I got to when I was 35 or in my late 30s I realized, oh, I know what the scoop is with my parents. I know, they were just doing the best they could. They didn’t have a clue. That’s everybody, man. They had so many problems going on, they had so much stuff that they had to deal with, including not really liking each other that much. That’s a hard thing to get over as well. Yeah. I did do one thing. Okay, this was, I’m gonna give myself credit- Please. Because my youngest pointed it out to me when he was graduating, Truman, who was in the movie, not to take anything away but. And one day he came home with his grandmother, my mother-in-law. And she said, “Ooh, Truman, is afraid of you. He says you yell all the time.” And I thought about it and I said, oh man, I have been on a patience free tear here for a while. So I sat him down and I said, okay, I have to apologize. I’m gonna sound like a great guy now. I’m not. I didn’t notice it myself, not. Tom piece of crap Hanks, that’s what it says on his taker. I had to be told, I had no self-awareness. I did not know what I was doing. I only knew that this little kid had done absolutely nothing wrong. So what I did was, I drew, first off, I came up with a contract, two copies of a contract that we both signed. I, dad, hereby declare that I am not going to yell at Truman and if I do, he can say, dad, you’re yelling at me and I will have to stop. And that holds up? Yeah, it does. And when he would say, “Dad, you’re yelling.” I said, op, sorry, sorry, sorry. Hold on. So that’s it, that’s the only hint I have of how to be a decent parent, come up with that contract. Actors only understand contracts. That’s exactly right. We will take direction so- Oh my God, we didn’t eat the burger. Oh, we didn’t eat the burger. We didn’t even eat the burger. Now, I read this thing that it might not be true, but I’m gonna say it’s true. Please. The busiest restaurant in the world I’ve read, is the LAX In-N-Out burger because people all over the world get off their plane in LA and go right to the In-n-Out burg. And I will tell you, 24 hours a day, that drive-through line is a quarter mile. It’s ridiculous. And there’s a reason for this because, maybe inarguably, this is the best mass produced Double-Double with everything. No doubt in my mind about that. And you can have it wrapped in lettuce. Mhm. That’s protein style. No bun. Evidently I’ve heard from your crack staff that you can also have it tomato style, is that what it’s called? Tomato wrapped. Tomato wrapped. Two big slices of tomato on either side instead of a bun. I just want two cans of Diet Coke holding the burger, that’s the natural evolution of this. Mm, I heard about that. Yeah, come on. It’s incredible. We did not have these where I grew up in Northern California. When I first moved to LA in the eighties, they had In-N-Out, the radio commercial, that’s what a hamburger’s all about. And I’m never had one and then I did. And Los Angeles made all the sense in the world. Check this out. Check this out Tom. All right, I don’t know if you could see it on these plates. Kudos to the staff. You not only went to El Cholo to get a taste of history, you’ve got the platter that says a taste of history right here. This is the holy grail right here. Tom, you can present the dish and all of its finery. Oh, I am so thrilled. The taste of his. Okay, the El Cholo experience is second to none. It is a hundred year old family, probably started just in a taco stand somewhere downtown. The original El Choco for me was on Western. I believe it’s seats, 6,000 people. It’s just room after room after room after room of families eatin’. Those hot frying pans. The sizzling fajitas? The sizzling fajitas. Added to the menu in 1984. There you go. I love it that every time they sit down, literally a spitting sizzling, hot frying pan in front of you, they always say, “Be careful, that’s hot.” I couldn’t tell. I think I understand saying that I’m getting my skin is being charbroiled right here. So this is the chile relleno right here. We have the rolled taco, officially on the menu, some would call it flauta. We have the tamale and then we have a classic cheese enchilada. Right. On the side with the guac served in the little tostada cup, which is the little extras. When they call it a taste of history. This is historically a sample of everything that El Cholo made famous. What do you start with first? I’m looking to you for the cue. Well, I’ll go to the the tamele. If you go to spin the Wilshire Santa Monica El Cholo and search the walls because you’ll see a photograph of essentially our entire office crew ’cause we before Covid, years ago, we would just, someone would announce it’s Wednesday, can we go to El Cholo today? Boom. Walking distance. We’d walk to El Cholo, take up a big table. So they started taking pictures of us when we were there. I was at El Cholo two days ago. Two nights ago. And I was searching the walls because I was like, knowing how Tom feels about this- We were there. He’s gotta be there. And I didn’t see the picture because I got hung up reading a Bon Appetite Restaurant review from 1994. Thanks. And what did it say? Oh, it was just, they called it a taste of history. No, absolutely right. You cannot go wrong. Now also, if you’re going for solely the white Los Angelino version of Mexican food, big basket of chips, of course, margaritas till the cows come home. There was a time where this whole thing would go in my stomach. You can’t stop. No. And then you’re eating 15 tortillas worth of chips dipped in salsa. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that 1:00 PM pitcher of Margarita either. I’ll tell you, I ordered a single margarita just off the menu and I swear there was at least four shots of tequila. They aim to please. I think if you just said, “Hey, can I have a light margarita.” it would still just come out and literally be like PTA barbecue power. Yeah. It will just absolutely knock it out. You guaranteed me we’re not paid content for our products here. We are not paid content. But I will say Dr. Pepper Diet has exactly zero calories, but all the great taste of Dr. Pepper. And in the greater Keurig Dr. Pepper Company, we swear that Keurig did not actually start a national environmental crisis. That’s propaganda. Oh. Anybody remember that? The Keurig thing. The landfills? Yeah. I’m just here to ponder why things happen to good people and bad things happen to- Tom, what happens when you die? Where do you go? The lights go out and it’s just nothing you tell me. I’m gonna let you know. Please. I’ll try to come back. I happen to know people that have given up everything as far as commercial, American beverage snack food, that when you say sometimes I have a diet doc. Ooh, ooh, diet Dr. Peppers good. It almost tastes like the real thing. It does It does. I’m not being paid but- It is, by the way you pointed out, it’s the third beverage, right? Mhm. Coca-Cola, Pepsi Cola, Dr. Pepper. And did you say that the government says it cannot be bought by one of the cola companies? Yeah. It would violate antitrust monopoly acts to purchase Dr. Pepper. So it’s always been just held up as a third pillar. I have conspiracy about this though, that Dr. Pepper’s just a mix of cola and root beer. ‘Cause they say 23 flavors. That’s too many flavors for a single soda. So it tastes like the real thing ’cause your body’s so confounded- I don’t care. It tastes so good! I didn’t say it was bad. It’s great. Tastes so good. Sometimes I’ll also mix it like when you go to, you’re on the road and you stop off to get sunflower seeds, some beef jerky, some apple slices. And then you now go and you don’t have to buy a bottle of anything. You can go to one of those machines where you have all the buttons and you can press what you want. How many times? Oh God. Let me get some cokes. Ooh, no, let me add some Diet Dr. Pepper to that. Let me go, what else? I’ll go back to the, put some Pepsi Max on here and see what that, and you just end up having this volatile concoction of every delicious soda thing and no calories. It’s all sugar free. I love it. I always put a dash of the horchata in there. Whoa! And that gets you a little creaminess. Oh. Mhm. Hot damn. Thank you. I’m a visionary. I’m sounding like I’m 13 years old, aren’t I? That’s the beauty of food, man. That’s the beauty of food, you know. The great love of my dad’s life was Francis Wong. They were married for a thousand years and she was Chinese and from San Francisco and as a very young man, I would be, next thing I know I’m in a car and we’re driving over to a Chinese restaurant that literally has no Caucasian people and only the Chinese people know it’s fantastic food. I have no idea what it is. There was that lazy Susan of so many things. And all I had to do was just be a tiny bit brave. What do you think stops people from going outta their comfort zone like that? That’s a good question. Like, what are they afraid of if they put something in their mouth that they don’t like. It might be something that you learn as a kid. You’re the one that has kids. I don’t have kids. What do your kids eat? Like did you like expose them to a lot of foods around? There’s a period of time where they just will not eat anything other than their what is in their comfort zone. And you trick ’em after a while. You do, you fake ’em out. Trying to get them to try calamari when we were young. And it would be the breaded kind of deep fried calamari. And we said it’s essentially chicken, like chicken nuggets ’cause they ate chicken nuggets by the frigging bucket full. Yeah. It’s like chicken nuggets. Is it really? Yeah, we lied. I said, well it’s not like chicken nuggets but it’s not bad either, so ha ha, we got ’em. Got ’em. Tom, we have reached the dessert portion, the terminus of your last meal. Please tell me about this cake. Look at it. Would you look at it. So beautiful, man I’m going to cry, man. Isn’t it gorgeous? It really is. All right. This cake is so great, you can really only have it once a year, which works out perfectly because I don’t order it, it arrives as a gift at Christmas. Now I’m gonna drop a name now and I don’t want you to go berserk. Uh oh. But this is a big name. Not everybody gets this white chocolate coconut Bundt cake. This is a Christmas gift that we get every year from Tom Cruise. I know, I know. Get the heck out! Oh my God, I’m so sorry. That was incredibly dangerous. I thought it was gonna go that way and then. I get it, I get it. Now what’s interesting is the folks down at the office, the Playtone World Headquarters, starting about Thanksgiving, they start eyeing what mail has come in today. Is the big box coming in? Are we getting what has essentially been called the Tom Cruise cake. Mhm. Because this is just off the scale fantastic. Now what happens at the office is first couple of days people take that size of slice. But as time goes by, we realize the days are numbered on the survival of this cake. So everybody starts slicing thinner and thinner slices, and it’s a mathematical proof that you would just keep cutting everything in half. You will never run out of Tom Cruise cake. ‘Cause if you eat the last piece of Tom Cruise cake at Playtone you’re gonna pay the piper. You’re gonna get a horrible work assignment or a pink notice. Who knows what’s going on ’cause. Then the other thing that goes on is at the house, the whole family will say, “Hey, where’s the, where’s the cake?” This is what we actually called it at the house. Are you ready for this? Please. We’ll have it, be like, oh man. Oh God. This Tom Coo Kay. The best. This is the best Tom Coo Kay I’ve ever had. So it’s become that people come down for breakfast and say with a full mouth, they say, Hey, who are the last of the Tom Coo Kay? And I’m gonna say, Tom, if you’re watching Mr. Cruise, you’re a legend. He does watch the show. And thank you for your Tom Coo Kay. But man, oh man. Tom, what better to go along with cake than some lovely Hello. Truly caffeine. This is a savior right now. This is a long, big meal. Coffee, cake, right? Cake and coffee, matches along. Now a fine cup of coffee if you like that kind of thing. I’ve added some hot milk to it. If you’ve been paying attention to the internet, I’ve worked with some folks in the coffee business. Mhm. And there’s a product now called Hanks, H-A-N-X, for our troops. You can direct a consumer on the web and every cent of profit goes to help veterans organizations. It’s damn good coffee! I believe you. We have three different- You don’t have to yell at me, I believe you. We have three different flavors. Ones like for a holiday brin. One is just straight morning Joe, literally a fistful of caffeine right in the face right after that. Punch me in the face Tom. One other one’s a little bit of a morning blend that has a little bit of malt in it. That’s what I happen to drink. So check it out and you’ll get your legal addictive stimulant that we both love. Need it. And your money will go to a cause to help the those who served. Everybody tells you that you’re like the best guy, right? I’ll tell you that you’re a piece of crap. No, I was gonna say that. I mean, it seems like every single thing you do, even going back to the Covid thing, you were the first person that I heard give the message of like, do your part, you live your life like somebody who needs to get into heaven. This is my- I mean, honestly, for real, for real. It’s like every single thing you do, if you are not sure about heaven, if you’re not sure about what happens when you die, like what actually drives you? Not to get too philosophical about it. But here’s the thing. Do it man. This is the place. When I was growing up, when I was moving, we moved around a lot. By the time I was in fifth grade, I lived in like 10 houses, 10 different places and went to four or five different schools. And I always kind of was excited by being in a new place or going to a new school. My siblings, not so much so, they were little shyer or not quite so outgoing, but seemed to me there was always some sort of interesting circus that was somewhere nearby where we were living. I was born in 56, so I was a socially conscious human being by 1961, 1962 and if you think about it, that was only 20 years after World War II. And they talked about, not just about, everybody made references to the war, but they talked about the common purpose of what went on there. That there was a common sacrifice. There were sayings like, “Hey buddy, don’t you know there’s a war on.” And I think that infiltrated me because all of my teachers, all of my dad’s friends, any adult had had this thing happen to them essentially when they were teenagers and they left Willows, California were in somewhere in the south seas like my dad was. And I don’t know, I think that just got around to the social and what is it? The social studies aspects of going to school is, is that it’s relatively easy to follow the rules and if you follow the rules you know life’s a little bit better. Now you’re also talking to a white kid in a white neighborhood. Sure, sure, sure. You know, even a city like Oakland, I was going to a school where there’s an awful lot of things about American history that were not taught, that we did not know about. I grew up in an incredibly, incredibly, very, very, very, very vibrant time. And I was so young that I didn’t, I could not get drafted to go to the war in Vietnam. Do you think any of that is like survivor’s guilt for people who didn’t have the level of success that you did? Or maybe didn’t come out because you don’t seem to be giving yourself a ton of credit on that. You know when you’re young, it’s like, you’re growing up in some combination of a William Saroyan novel and “A Catcher in the Rye.” You’re in in a mix of stuff and what’s your main place of solace? It’s gonna be some form of your family. And I gotta tell you, my siblings were hilarious. Yeah. My dad was distant, but oblivious to all the things he needed to be oblivious to. Yeah. Talk to me the about that importance of family ’cause “A Man Called Otto”, the movie, which this is the last stop on his press story and everyone, come on. No, give it up. Those things are long. Let’s talk about “A Man Called Otto” in the same- Excuse me, I’m gonna beam here, just for a little bit longer, knowing that this is my stop. This is the end of it. I wanna talk about the theme of family because you’ve talked about how this is the family business, it’s storytelling. If you owned a plumbing supply company, what’s the difference? And in this movie, I mean Truman played your younger self. Rita did the song. She was a producer actually. She was a producer, yeah. She was a producer on set and she recorded the closing. And even one of my favorite moments, Mike Birbiglia drives up in the car and out for his white boy Summer by shed, which was an incredible, I shot up in my seat when I heard that. You know, when I was in the high school play, my dad who was in the restaurant business and also taught hotel and restaurant food preparation, he had no concept how any childhood his could get up and do something like that ’cause he was really super closed off guy, not super closed off, he was just shy, retiring, and oblivious to an awful lot of it. He was the type of guy who would sit there and laugh at us all. He would just laugh at what we’re doing and saying and carrying on. My four kids are all creative one way or another. My daughter’s a writer. Colin is an actor, Chet is a renaissance man. He does a little bit of everything. And sitting around by family at a dinner table is the best conversation I could possibly have anywhere ’cause everybody is opinionated, everybody is funny, everybody fights just the right amount of time. Almost every meal ends up with just the right amount of- I have one last question, Tom, you’ve created your own slice of paradise on Earth. I mean, to me it seems like, I mean it’s easy to say from the outside looking in, but you can have your Tom Coo Kay. You got this beautiful family, incredible career, won all the awards including a Shakespearean award from Cleveland back in- My god Lord. Yeah, yeah. 1978 1978 I think. But point is, I mean, you shouldn’t want for anything. I’m sure you do. Does that give you any solace about death? Like when it’s actually time to kick the bucket, pay the piper, whatever, is there any difference between somebody who has lived a fulfilled life and a unfulfilled life? I think that’s an waste of time. And I’ve just never gone there. I know people had sit around and have long philosophical discussions about it and I say, “Guys, we’re on the back nine here. Why waste any time trying to ponder what this is? We’ll find out, you know.” Yeah. We’ll get to the bottom of it. The one thing that has absolutely no ecumenical, nom empirical science to back it up is what happens when we shuffle off to the next one. And I don’t waste a minute thinking about what that is or fearing what it’s going to be. I won’t waste any more of your minutes, but I will tell you, I mean “A Man Called Otto”, it deals with a lot of themes of death. That meant a lot to me. It was this close to crying, Tom. The tears will up. Everybody around me was crying. I wasn’t crying. It’s okay for people to cry, but I wasn’t doing it. But I got really close. One of the things we’ve said about the movie is that, because Otto does not want to, he wants to join his wife. He does not want to continue on. But one of the things somebody said, yeah, but God said no. That’s what you got from this. That’s right. So God says no, you know? God says no sometimes. What are you gonna do? So “A Man Called Otto” is part of the “Passion Of The Christ” cinematic universe. I think this is the third installment. It’s like the “Hobbs and Shaw” to “Fast and the Furious.” It’s what it is, It’s about a good heart to heart talk at the cemetery with somebody that you love. Tom, are you ready for the lightning rounds? Bring it on. After long last, all right. Other than me. Honestly, other than Rita too ’cause that’s an easy answer. Who’s the one person you’d wanna share your actual last meal with? John Lennon. Who? John Lennon. Never heard of him. Of the, oof. Oh, the Soviet Soviet leader. Yeah. No, no, no. Of the Beatles though. Who’s your dream eulogizer at the funeral? Oh man, what’s wrong with Oprah? How about that? What’s wrong with Oprah? Nothing. You cannot go wrong with Oprah. I’d take Oprah. Who plays you in the biopic? Not a one ’cause I don’t think anybody can hold a candle to the man himself. That’s what’s up. There you go. That’s what’s up. That’s called confidence. What is the one role you least want to be remembered for? I loved Cloud Atlas. It’s such a cheap shot. I love Cloud Atlas. You had to understand. I’m gonna school you. Every one of these movies are made in the greatest faith imaginable. They’re all a blast to do. I believe you. Everybody is working really hard. So to slag on any of them is to insult the communal effort that we all put in. I didn’t even write these, I didn’t even write these. I’ll give you this one, I’ll give you this one. Throw up the circular from me on “The Love Boat.” My head in the circle, I did a love boat in June of 1980. You can have that one. I’ll take it, I’ll take it. I’ll give you that one. I don’t even remember the guy’s name. Do you have any regrets in life? Not a one. Hell yeah. Are you happy? Oh, I’m content. How about that? I think that’s as good as you can hope for. Happiness, man, that comes and goes. This too shall pass, happiness, contentment can actually linger for while. That’s beautiful. Tom, I cannot thank you enough. That’s the lightning round? That’s the lightning round. Did you expect more? It’s only like eight. What is the square mileage of Madagascar? What’s the square mileage of Madagascar? How far is it from Winnipeg to Montreal? Tom, if you will please deliver your last words right to that camera. We’ll be right back. So anyway, what’s interesting about this- Yeah. Stop, drop, and roll on over to Mythical.com for the new Floors is Lava travel mug. Perfect for all your favorite liquids and hot lava temperatures.