Thomas Jeffrey Hanks usually known as Tom Hanks (b. 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. On October 14, 2016, the actor, was quoted saying he has ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) during a chat with the U.K. television show Good Morning Britain to promote his new movie Inferno.
Good Morning Britain (2016)
“I like to think I have the same degree of curiosity but I have none of the scholastic aptitude and he does not suffer from attention deficit disorder like I do,” he said. “It would really be a burden to his profession but it’s one of the reasons… it’s proved to me to be a lucrative career.”
The New Daily (2014)
While playing Walt Disney in the upcoming comedy-drama Saving Mr. Banks, Tom Hanks discovered some surprising commonalities with the great innovator, synonymous with the magical world of Disney.
“Walt Disney was an artist and a filmmaker who loved storytelling, but Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) may also be something we have in common,” he says.
“It’s known that Walt Disney had Attention Deficit Disorder, and I don’t know if what I have is clinical ADD but I can tell you that I’ve turned it into a lucrative living – and I recommend it to anybody,” he laughs.
“I was never a problem child and didn’t cause trouble in school, but I was always waiting to be fascinated by and enthusiastic about something which usually came along about every ten minutes.”
NPR (2016)
HANKS: I just came and went on my own accord, and they never said boo. There was one time in high school, I had the flu and I spent two weeks at a friend’s house. And when I finally came home, my dad said, where have you been? I said, oh, I had the flu. I slept at Kirk’s (ph) house. He was like, oh, I figured you’d take care of yourself. So that brand of freedom is not – it wasn’t a cruel brand of disinterest, but they were just very busy doing other things.
GROSS: Oh, that’s hilarious (laughter).
HANKS: Yeah, it – that along with Attention Deficit Disorder made me what I am today.
GROSS: (Laughter) Did you have Attention Deficit Disorder?
HANKS: I think – don’t all American boys my age or all Americans have some degree of an Attention Deficit Disorder. Understand, I knew what time it was by what was on television. I don’t think I – there was a clock in our house, and I never had a watch. Because if “Love Of Life” was over, it was time to go to school. If the Hogan’s era – when the “Hogan’s Heroes” hour was halfway through, I knew that dinner was going to be ready upstairs. And because of that, about every 12 minutes, when the commercial came on, my attention went somewhere else, and I think I still have trouble – I have to be utterly hypnotized by something to truly concentrate on it for anything more than 20 minutes at a time.