Hello,
I'm Lauren Laverne and this is Desert Island Discs postcards where we share a selection of some of our favourite moments from some of our most memorable castaways.
This postcard comes from the actor Tom Hanks who spoke to Kirstie Young.
Tom had already prepared for life on a desert island when he starred in the film Castaway.
He told Kirstie about his complicated childhood,
his parents' divorce and his overwhelming feelings of loneliness.
Then I started asking myself a whole different set of questions.
Those questions were, how do I find the vocabulary for what's rattling around inside my head?
Not long after this,
I started going to the American Conservatory Theatre by myself to see plays that I had no idea even existed.
And you say what was rattling around inside your head.
Are you able to articulate those feelings?
Having had the childhood you'd had by 13, 14, 15, what was rattling around inside you?
What have you done to me?
I can only apologize.
No, that's all right, because I put far too much thought into this list.
What it was, it was the vocabulary of the loneliness.
That comes up.
all of the time in every movie I watch you in,
it always seems to come down to a man's struggle with loneliness.