To cheer him up, I ask if he has any words of wisdom for other people out there struggling right now. “Wisdom from a guy like me? I wouldn’t give that on a bet. Because I’m the answer on Jeopardy I have some wisdom somewhere?” he asks.
Come on, Tom, I say, I know you can do it.
He shifts a tiny amount in his seat and – I swear to God – I see him switch it on. “It’s funny how this stuff blends into the art you hope to create. When we put together Castaway, we knew there was a card missing from that deck of 52, and the consternation over what was missing from that movie drove us insane. It was that elusive kind of beat, and it was what we’re talking about right now: how do you go on? In Greyhound, Krause has a little card that says: ‘Yesterday, today and forever.’ That’s all we have as human beings and that’s all we have in the midst of the 19 different crises that we’re facing right now, between Covid-19, worldwide economic disaster, what happened to George Floyd – the great reckoning that we’re all going through. What do we have that we can have faith in? Well, we can have an understanding of yesterday, we can have a plan for today and we can have hope for forever, and that’s it. That’s my wisdom. It ain’t much, Hadley, but is there anything else?”
We’re both quiet for a beat.
Damn, Tom, I say, and he laughs.
Is he for real? Does it matter? Someone give this man his third Oscar.
