Tom Hanks reveals how his parents’ divorce inspired him to become an artist

Tom Hanks found solace in his isolation after his parents’ divorce, but it wasn’t always easy.

In a recently released, extensive interview for the On purpose with Jay Shetty podcast, the 68-year-old Here actor reflected on spending a lot of time alone and on the road after his mother and father separated when he was very young.

“Because my parents were divorced, I spent a lot of time traveling to and from where my mother lived in this small town, or where my father lived, in Oakland, in the Bay Area,” Hanks said. “And those hours on a Greyhound bus, which started when I was 7 or 8 years old. Five hours just daydreaming. Five hours looking out the window. Five hours watching people passing cars. Sky, trains passing, farms and whatever, buildings in it.”

“The natural predilection that I had there to sit quietly and imagine what was going on. That made me realize that there is actually… an aspiration that is, ‘Let’s put on a show. Let’s tell the story.’ That came along, and that was it,” he explained how the experience inspired him to become a storyteller. “And I tell you, it’s exactly the same now as it was then.”

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Hanks, the third child born, said he had to “get used to” being isolated and disconnected at times.

“Because I was so young when my parents separated and there were so many other factors that had to be involved – it was logistics and legal things and time and distance and things like that – I took care of myself and, you I think it was a reprieve for them,” he said of his parents.

“So I just got used to keeping myself occupied by being alone. And that’s really great. And it can be really harmful,” says the Academy Award winner added.

Hanks also admitted that he “had no rules” since he was his parents’ last-born child for “about five years” and his mother and father had “spent so much time trying to establish that with my older brothers and sisters’ that ‘They didn’t want to deal with it anymore.”

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“So if I was gone for two weeks, I just didn’t come home for two weeks in high school. They knew I was sleeping at someone’s house, doing my homework and going to school alone,” Forrest Gump actor continued. “They were very happy that they didn’t have to discipline or punish me. They didn’t even have to think about me; I just came and went by myself.”

“But I wasn’t the oldest – I didn’t have someone who set the rules and the structure of the family,” Hanks said.

He also discussed the balance between good and bad when it’s okay to be alone, explaining that he isn’t “intimidated” or “damaged” by walking around a lot as a child.

“The healthy aspect of it has been a great help to me, as has the tendency to want to be isolated“Don’t need anyone, don’t want anyone, because that’s just what I learned,” Hanks said. “Life is easier when you don’t need anyone, and it can be a lot easier when you want nothing more than what’s in the world. back of the car.”

“But that can be a lonely life, and being lonely can often be confused with being lonely, and being lonely can lead to anger and resentment and things that you have to work through,” he added. “And okay, at 68, I’ve spent many of those years dealing with the latter while enjoying the former.”