America’s most steadfast couple have tested positive for the coronavirus.
“Hello, folks. Rita and I are down here in Australia. We felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches,” Tom Hanks says of himself and his wife, Rita Wilson, in a statement released to Deadline on Wednesday. “Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the Coronavirus, and were found to be positive.”
Hanks and Wilson are in Australia where Hanks was working on Baz Luhrmann’s untitled Elvis Presley film, in which the Academy Award winner is to play Presley’s longtime manager Colonel Tom Parker.
The news that Hanks and Wilson contracted the virus comes on the heels of cancellations and delays affecting the entertainment industry around the world, and Trump’s televised address to the nation announcing that all travel will be restricted from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days. (Though the U.K. is apparently still cool.)
“Well, now. What to do next?” Hanks’ statement continues. “The Medical Officials have protocols that must be followed. We Hanks’ will be tested, observed, and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires. Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no? We’ll keep the world posted and updated. Take care of yourselves!”
Hanks and Wilson’s son elder son, Chet, took to Instagram after speaking with his parents to share his thoughts: “They’re not trippin’” he says in the—for some reason shirtless—video. “I dont think it’s anything to be too worried about.”
If you’re not worried, Chet, we’re not worried.
161 Comments
Oddly, I just thought a few hours ago “it’s interesting that I don’t know of any famous person who’s gotten it.”
https://gizmodo.com/hey-steve-wozniak-what-the-fuck-1842035667
Look what you did!
I thought the same thing, but unlike the rest of you lazy bastards, I flew to Australia and did something about it….allegedly.
We said just give it to Chet!…allegedly
You infected the wrong Hanks!
Yeah man. What did Hank Williams jr do not to deserve this?
All he did was get ready for some football.
They may not all be advertising it.
“WHAT DID YOU DO, RAY?”You couldn’t have just thought of some rando marshmallow dude? Noooooo…
STOP HURTING TOM HANKS!
Can’t he just be our president now?
Yes, I would, Kent.
We’re going to lose our collective shit if this takes Hanks out…
He and Rita are around the age bracket where the virus can get really dangerous. Let’s hope they’ve maintained a healthy enough lifestyle to get through this.
Tom has diabetes.
I suspect they will be fine. They are in the low end of the age range and I don’t think either is a smoker or has any underlying lung issues.
Well if shit wasn’t real before, it sure just got real now. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson for chrissake! Between this and the NBA player and subsequent suspension of the NBA season, I think things are about to get more serious than many people thought.We need calm, cool heads, and to take action unlike what we are getting from The Donald, and the botching by the administration not responding to this quickly enough or in appropriate fashion.Take precautions everyone, and keep yourselves safe indeed.
120,000 cases worldwide: naw, this isn’t real
120,000 cases worldwide + Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson: OMG.. this is so real!!
I was sarcastically referring to those that were taking it too lightly or downplaying the danger. Unfortunately, it takes someone famous like this to get people to see reality.
I think pretty much everyone is going to get exposed (though not actually contract it) at some point, like the flu. The question will be how lethal it turns out to be.
Are Starbucks baristas wearing face masks already?
Full latex bodysuits and gas masks.
Absolutely! I’m sorry, what’s that about a virus?
Kinky.
I would if I worked at a Starbucks. Wait, what’s corona virus?
Do you mean Starbucks “baristas”?
They would love to have a frank conversation about infectious diseases and political messaging. #bucksfucks
So…Tom Hanks for president? Whenever he’s allowed back on the country.
I would be fine with that, but I doubt he wants that horrible job.
Can’t say I blame him
So you’re saying its not a hoax? But I was assured it was a hoax. /s
I wish it were my friend… I wish it were.
We need calm, cool heads, and to take action unlike what we are getting from The Donald, and the botching by the administration not responding to this quickly enough or in appropriate fashion.
Meanwhile, panicked Americans in France are spunking 20 grand on plane tickets because our president, who thinks glasses are for losers, couldn’t read a teleprompter right and ended up saying we were banning all travel from Europe.
So he’s in hospital just down the road from where I live. Understandably it’s big news here.
keep an eye on them for us, will you?
If you see him, tell him I loved “Bosom Buddies”!
He’s been frequently seen at the beach and at various gigs all over the place. the GC is the place to be.
Keep it to yourself, it’s my life.
Don’t you have his email, Mr. Scolari?
Well, he thinks he does, but it’s just a Hotmail that dumps directly into Hanks’ spam folder.
“No . . . *sob* . . .”
Foster’s, Australian for Hanks.
I’m sure Dr. Bruce and Nurse Sheila are doing everything on their power
I used to work at Tweed Heads Hospital (town Muriel’s Wedding’s location was partly based on). We used to send a lot of patients to Gold Coast Hospital (despite being in NSW, we were effectively part of Queensland’s Health Service).I remember the headlines of the local newspaper for sale in the foyer giving us regular updates about Elon Musk and Amber Heard’s whereabouts on the Gold Coast at the time and on my first day, I remember a front page article article titled “Neighbours band together to remove dead horse from living room.”2017, it was another time.
Yep. There was that fun period in the mid-2000s when the GCH was always in bypass mode and sending its patients to Tweed Heads. I remember Elon Musk’s visit very well. That was wild and not too long after the madness of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp’s visit.
My housemate is working on the movie. Got sent home, told someone on the film had tested positive. Was a bit surprised to find out who…
Make sure you stock up on paprika. Sounds like they’re going to be there for a while.
I wasn’t sure if this was an Onion article midway through. I still don’t know.
Did not expect the first Coronavirus celebrity to be…the most beloved movie star in the world…
Shah Rukh Khan has it, too?!
WHAT?! Not Wilford Brimley!!!
No, he still just has diabeetus.
I had to check to see if he was still alive. Fucker’s still kicking at the young old age of 94, still has diabeetus, and all his limbs!
No, that’s COVID-19, not Diabeetus.
UK Health Minister Nadine Dorries not famous enough for you? Sheesh.
Yeah, seriously, what are the odds of it starting with one of the world’s biggest stars ever? You’d think it would be someone more random like Cillian Murphy or whatever.
It ain’t fair man. James Woods was totally open and the virus went with Tom Hanks…
It would probably kill Woods, so better that it started with a seemingly healthy person.
Joe Don Baker has it?!?!
Wait, did something happen to Frank Stallone?
No. Nothing.
“A coronavirus is like a box of chocolates. You never know what strain you’re going to get.”
Hey! I never said it was my best……………..
Just what planet ARE you from?
Just you wait, they’ll be able to synthesize a vaccine from Hanks’ blood, thereby making him the savior of humanity.
Good ‘cause he REALLY needs to make another WWII movie. Oh what? He did?
I hear they’ve already secured ScarJo for the film. She’s totally going to rock that recovery montage.
In even better news Colin Hanks scored the role of the vaccine in the telemovie.
If we’re all infused with just a little Hanks blood, it’s possible we’ll be cured of all sorts of evil. It’s also possible we’ll become hopelessly obsessed with typewriters. Seems a fair trade.
Chet Haze is the living slapdown your comment deserves. Clearly its not genetically transmitted with 100% accuracy.
When Australia was on fire, our Prime Minister (scott morrison) told the world that Australia was “open for business.”Today Trump says anyone in the US can get tested for coronavirus when there aren’t enough tests, and “the tests are beautiful.”
So remember: Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Don’t listen to politicians, and we have a chance at getting through this.
I really despise Scott Morrison. If he got the virus then life would be slightly nicer. Why do the good people like Tom Hanks get it?
I’m sure he thinks his God will protect him. It would be nice to see him disabused of that notion – in much the same way as he’s rid this country of the idea that basic competence is a requirement to hold high office.
The tests ARE beautiful. The few that there are.
He also said “The tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”
Sorry, but his adjectives and comparisons can fuck right off.
If his adjectives and comparisons were the worst thing about him he’d be a much better commander in chief.
If his adjectives and comparisons were the worst thing about him he’d still be shit.
True, but his bizarre use of superlatives is still disorienting.
His use of superlatives is perfect, it’s beautiful.
Anyone know if Tom Hanks was at the Super Bowl?Curious to see if that ends up being the start of all this.Reported cases surged almost exactly 3 weeks after the Super Bowl.Just wondering if all these events are being cancelled and the big event that was the epicenter of spreading already happened.
I honestly think this thing is already everywhere. I was at a conference three weeks ago with around 2,000 people from every corner of the country. I bet a lot of people have already had it and didn’t even know it. The infection rate is going to be about impossible to calculate.
Won’t You Be My Neighbour? NO! *runs screaming*
Yeah, now I want to see him walk into the house, juggle his slippers and hang up his sweater and surgical mask.
Tom Hanks is so wholesome, he probably voluntarily absorbed the coronavirus from some homeless orphan.
The irony is the homeless orphan probably got a way bigger chance to survive!
Tom Hanks is playing Col Tom Parker, except he’s playing him as a really nice guy who genuinely cares about his client. He will single handedly cure Elvis of his drug addiction, his Oedipal complex, help him lose weight and will firmly but gently guide him into the 5th decade of his career as America’s most beloved entertainer.
While nevertheless forcing him to make a long string of shitty movies, and Live A Little, Love A Little.
He also learned how to be a really good husband to his child bride and a really good father to his daughter who did NOT marry Michael Jackson.
I love how eveything like Jailhouse Rocks is on the shitty side and Live a Little is its own category.
Is that the one where he plays a crooning stock car driver?
It’s the one where he plays a crooning actuary.
But he also teaches him how to decorate Graceland in a tasteful manner, leaving me on the fence about him.
…and the platinum toilet seat on which he did NOT die!
Nah, alt-Elvis’ alt-toilet seat is made out of recyclable fibers which he invented in the 1970s due to the heightened sense of intelligence that he acquired from not doing all those drugs that Colonel Tom kept him far away from.I like this game.
This is fun
I don’t like this game, good sir. Not if it means we get a Nicolas Cage that ends up pursuing his dreams and ends up tops in the field of Financial Accounting :/
But imagine getting to work with Nicholas Cage as a financial accountant (are there any other kinds of accounting?). That would be pretty rad. The meetings alone would be epic.
The meetings would be wonderful, no argument there, but the WORLD would be deprived.
Eh, the world sucks anyway.
Cost accounting.I’d love to read an auditor’s opinion letter authored by Cage. “While we agree that the statements presented within this report fairly represent the financial performance and condition of the company, I have a bunch of other shit I need to get off my chest. A-hole.”
It’s clearly a case of bad karma from the role.
Headstand mean? He’s not playing Boy George. Is he?
Isn’t the plague the first part of the apocalypse? What comes next? Famine? Pestilence? Man we are so screwed
It’s much worse than that.
“Hell is only a word . . . the reality is MUCH worse!”
Noooooooooooo!
Hey Tom, Rita … Hi. Hope the kids are okay. Say, in the off chance you get bored (it’s pretty much a guarantee that you’ll get bored) and you decide to surf the AV Club, I just want to say I hope the both of you get better. Binge some shows. “Legends of Tomorrow season 3″ is near perfect. Have you made a Western? Read some Elmore Leonard maybe. “Lore” the podcast is really good. Hang in there, bud. Be well.
Hey Bob! We’re doing just fine, thanks for asking. The staff here is doing their damndest to keep us sane. I’ve seen about 14 million YouTube vids and a girl down the hall has introduced me to TikTok! (We made a spoof of The Terminal, haha.) There’s a little courtyard where some of the lockdown patients play bocce when we’re not too tired. Finished the last Game of Thrones book… hope we’re not still here when the next one comes out. I know responding like this risks giving away my true identity, but life’s short (knock wood!) and you have to connect with folks while you can. Rita says mwah!
Tell your asshole kid to put a damn shirt on.
That picture makes me want to touch my face. YOU’RE NOT HELPING, CHET!
Chico,Now that this thread has gone by the wayside a bit, I have a question. If you can’t answer, I totally understand. But, whatever happened to that Winston Groom-Vicksburg project? I recall it was rumored to be a limited series for HBO, then … nada. I suppose the end of GoT happened, but, as a fan of John Adams, BoB, The Pacific etc. I thought a Civil War series would be a slam dunk. I got irrationally interested in the subject three/four years ago and even took my son to the battlefield for a visit. Saw the Cairo. Really cool stuff. Thanks.
Are you sure you don’t mean the HBO show about dog Grooming? Just kidding! But I did enjoy that one a lot. Maybe there’s a story there? Never say never about the Vicksburg project. Folks have a lot to say about the Confederacy these days (yeesh), so it’s not a guaranteed slam dunk. Keeping our fingers crossed. Some days I feel like I could play the Cairo by myself, tho. :))))Take care! Stay healthy!
Let’s see, let’s see … dog grooming. Got it! Check this out: A pair of stoner animal-rights-activists disrupt the Westminster Dog Show, kidnapping ten of the top dogs, replacing them with shelter mutts. They drive the posh dogs back to New York, and put them up for adoption anonymously. One dog belonged to the Turkish ambassador. In order to prevent an international incident, the showrunner decides to paint the ten rescue shelter mutts green and produce the whole program in CGI. (claps hands together) “Pixelfur.” “Posh Dogs!” uh uh … “Matrix Puppies” – no that’s a bad one.Sorry, I’ll stop cutting up.Anyway … so the Confederacy-Statue controversy put Vicksburg on ice? Sheesh. I guess … if the Union comes off as pricks and the Confederacy comes off as martyrs … I suppose that’s (shit). Bears in trees, though! (smh) Bears in trees. Oh well. Yeah, be well. Hope the worst is behind y’all.
Hey Bob! Rita here. Just gave Tom a handy! Anyway thanks!
Hydrate!
Hey Rita, how come you went with ‘dad’ as your username? Seems weirdly Freudian, what with the handys and all.
Kept you off the scent all these years, didn’t it?
Mom! Dad’s fantasizing he’s Rita Wilson again.
Has anyone been in touch with Alex P. Keaton??
Mom, Dad, he was drinking vanilla extract!
Vanilla extract is a hell of a drug.
Man, I hate to think what’ll happen to Australian/American relations if we let Tom Hanks die in our country.
The most bootable offense of all time.
War will obviously be declared.
Well Mel Gibson died in theirs, so fair’s fair.
The Gold Coast, two months from now…
Wait, Tom Hanks’ wife’s name is Wilson? Dammit! I really missed the joke train on this one. No one is going to get an outdated pop culture reference, here on the AV Club.
Don’t worry, Reddit’s been all over it today.
Missed cameo opportunity on Home Improvement?
Gah! I just updated this page to find a shirtless, tattooed guy with a beard wearing a cap backwards.
I went to cover my eyes with my hands, but that’s what the coronavirus wants!
And this is why you should always sneeze into your Hankskerchief.
Every so often, I’m reminded of the existence of Chet Hanks and it’s momentarily disorienting.
Chet Hanks is actually Tom Hanks’ doppelganger from a reality where Ross Perot won the 92 election.
CHET MOTHAFUCKIN HAZE!!!!
Thanks for that insight Tom, I think we all feel the same.
Has anyone checked on Jeff Goldblum lately? Can someone send Chet Hanks over to his place?
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Why couldn’t it have been Chet?
Yeah, he’d have taken care of this!
I heard this and the travel ban within minutes of each other and decided it was time to get some whiskey.
…the store (Trader Joe’s in Hollywood) was a madhouse. All sorts of stuff sold out, lines 10 deep at the cashiers…people stocking up to ride out the apocalypse.
It was…unnerving…so I bought some frozen food, and filled up the gas tank in my car.
Then I got home and saw Trump’s wooden, barely human holy-fuck-is-that-a-robot address…
…followed by a quick check of key moments with FDR, JFK, etc, to remind myself of what it looks like when America has a capable leader in a time of crisis.
…and yeah. We are rudderless. Any goddamned fool thing can happen with this tool at the top.
At least I got whiskey.
Did you see the clip from him yesterday where CNN asked him about his early dismissal of the virus threat and he just said “CNN, Fake News” and ignored them. Like WTF asshole. Pointing out that as late as Friday last week you were tweeting that there was nothing to worry about and saying how the common flu is far more dangerous isn’t fake news. Trump didn’t give a fuck until it started hurting the stock market. And know instead of spending money at home to get us safe he is putting up travel bans because framing this as a foreign disease just plays into his xenophobic base.
And his idiot address last night sent futures crashing, and as of this typing, the S&P 500 is down nearly eight goddamn percent.
This is what scared me (the most) when he got elected: how is this choade going to deal with a crisis?
IRL, he’d just call bankrupt and restart.
People in my area are stocking up on bottled water. Non-perishables? Fine, if you’re worried you can’t get to the grocery store for a while then that makes perfect sense. But they’re going to cut off the water??
My girlfriend bought something like 4 cases of water yesterday specifically for this. Just water. I don’t even know what makes sense any longer.
It’s so weird and selective. In Hollywood, all of the regular waters were gone, but they were still well stocked with smart water. All of the $.19 bananas were gone, but they still had plenty of the $.25 organic bananas. Peanut butter and almond butter were all sold, except on type of peanut butter (wanna say smooth organic).
BUT WHO WILL SAVE US FROM WORLD WAR 2 AND FIX SPACE NOW?!?!
Meanwhile, James Woods is perfectly fine.
Usually I am like fuck Hollywood and their SJW liberal elites, but Hanks and Wilson seem like genuinely good people, so here is wishing them a quick recovery.
Sure i’m not the first on here to note that Tom Hanks is once again in isolation with Wilson
Chet is a great example of nature over nurture. If your dad is Tom Hanks, and you’re an asshole, then you were likely born an asshole.
This is just research for Hanks. He’s already signed on to play the virus in the dramatization of this.
Huh. I honestly thought Chet Hanks was a joke character. Like Larry Hemsworth on The Good Place.
Che Thanks!