Tom Hanks appeared on The Today Show Tuesday in his first live interview since he and wife Rita Wilson were diagnosed with COVID-19 in March. He appeared frustrated at the resistance to “simple” guidelines like wearing masks.
Hanks said: “The idea of doing one's part should be so simple. Wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands. That alone means you are contributing to the betterment of your house, your work, your town, society as a whole and it’s such a small thing and I don’t it’s a mystery to me how somehow that has been wiped out of what should be ingrained in the behavior of us all.”
He added: “Let’s not confuse the fact, it’s killing people. You can argue what the numbers are … it’s killing people.”
Hanks said his World War II movie Greyhound, which drops Friday on Apple+, speaks to the moment we’re in.
“There was a sensibility (during that time” that permeated all of society which was: do your part, we’re all in this together,” Hanks said. “What that meant — doing your part — was there was a tiny bit of stuff that you could do in order to aid the ongoing status of an effort that had no sign of its conclusion.”