Where this was said
Tom Hanks's Lifelong Fascination With World War II
At 15:22 · chapter starts 12:24
With Jason gently prodding Sean to actually host, Sean asks the question he's wanted to ask for years: why is Tom Hanks so obsessed with war? Tom's answer is precise and personal. Every caregiver and adult figure in his childhood spoke about 'the war' in three phases — before, during, and after — as though it were a Black Plague walking among them. They had no certainty about the future and lived inside a historical moment of total existential uncertainty. The second driver is moral: the bad guys lost. Tom invokes Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell's Power of Myth to describe the rarity of a world quest that defeated people who were 'undeniably evil.' He contrasts it with the present day, where 'there is no shame left anymore' and truth has become malleable. It's the episode's most thoughtful stretch, with Hanks moving fluidly between personal memory and cultural analysis.
Every adult in Hanks's childhood spoke about World War II as the great dividing line of their lives — before, during, and after, like a Black Plague walking among them. Add the moral clarity that the bad guys lost, and you have a storytelling well he keeps returning to.
The Omaha Beach sequence in Saving Private Ryan was filmed at County Wexford, Ireland, using 500 actual members of the Irish Army as extras.
The Omaha Beach sequence was filmed in County Wexford, Ireland, with 500 actual Irish Army soldiers. Special effects crews planted hidden air mortars under tiny flags on the sand — then removed the flags. Hanks describes wandering blind, wet, cold, while stuntmen caught fire and flew 40 feet into the air.
