WATCH: Tom Hanks On The Battle Against COVID-19: ‘We’re All In This Together’

Academy award winning actor Tom Hanks took another opportunity to encourage people to wear masks in order to combat the coronavirus. As a COVID-19 survivor himself, Hanks says, “we’re all in this together.”

In an interview with Today about his new movie Greyhound, he discussed the current pandemic. “The idea of doing one’s part, though, should be so simple — wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands,” he said. “That alone means you are contributing to the betterment of your house, your work, your town, your society as a whole, and it’s such a small thing. It’s a mystery to me how somehow that has been wiped out of what should be ingrained in the behavior of us all.”

Hanks compare the current pandemic to World War II, which is what his movie Greyhound is about. “What has lingered here is this societal question really of doing our part,” he said. “Not everything I say has to be tied to somehow the war effort back during World War II, but there was a sensibility that permeated all of society, which was do your part, we’re all in this together.”

Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson tested positive for the coronavirus in March while they were in Australia. He commented on what it was like  with the virus, “We were not (afraid) because we were feeling extremely punky. I don’t want to dismiss our symptoms. We were feeling rotten. I had body aches, crippling, cracking body aches, but what we were mostly concerned [with] at the time, what is next.”

Once Hanks and his wife were recovered from the virus and returned to California, he donated his convalescent plasma in order to help others who are suffering from COVID-19.

He ended the interview by asking that others make an effort in to wear a mask. He said, “I think a huge majority of Americans get it,” he said. “There’s no law against ignorance, it’s not illegal to have opinions that are wrong. There is a darkness on the edge of town here, folks. Let’s not confuse the fact, it’s killing people. I don’t know how common sense has somehow been put in question in regards to this. Those things are so simple, so easy, if anybody cannot find it in themselves to practice those three very basic things — I just think shame on you.”

Hanks wrote the screenplay for the upcoming movie and will also be playing the character Ernest Krause who is a World War II United States Navy commander and is given the task of defending a merchant ship convoy that is under attack by submarines. 

Greyhound was originally set to be released in theaters, but due to the coronavirus shutdown, the film will now be streamed on Apple TV+ which was acquired from Sony Pictures. It will be available for streaming on July 10.