Tom Hanks | Wayfarer

Mr. Shimoni's table — Image by Dennis Wong via Flickr

If you could have an elegant dinner along with anyone presently alive, whether you know them or not, who would you want it to be?

Of course, Wendy is on the top of my list for elegant dinners along with my close circle of family and friends, but what interests me about this question is the thought of those I don’t know with whom I would like to dine. The question also says “anyone” so I’m going to take liberty to name a few people with whom I would love to share an elegant dinner:

Queen Elizabeth – I think she’d be a fascinating conversation, and she’s the Queen
Pope Benedict – Would love the conversations of faith and life, seems a fascinating man
Sir Anthony Hopkins – great actor, would love the stories he could tell
Dame Judi Dench – ditto
Bono – love his rock star/world citizen/believer mystique
Leonardo diCaprio – great actor and I imagine an interesting person with heart
Tom Hanks – ditto
Simon Schama – Love his take on art and history, would love to pick his brain
Craig Ferguson – Would like to meet the man behind the curtain of jokes
Bill Hybels – Would love to ask him about his journey
Paul Johnson – My favorite historian, breadth of conversation would be amazing

Okay, so it’s a long list. But, there are a lot of people I would love to know and to learn from and to share a long, elegant dinner conversation.

How about you? Who is on your list? Feel free to share it in a comment to this post!

It happened again at the opera last Friday night. During the intermission, the nice people sitting behind us struck up a conversation (she wanted to let us know how nice we looked!). We chatted about where we were from and what prompted us to come to the opera. Suddenly, the woman looked at me and the conversation switched gears:

Lady: Oh! I’ve got it! I’ve been trying to think of who you remind me of, and now I know…

Me: [Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Please, don’t say it.]

Lady: Tom Hanks! You remind me of a young Tom Hanks.

[Wendy laughs and shakes her head; The woman sees this, then sees the look of incredulity on my face.]

Lady: I’m sorry. Is that bad? Did I say something wrong?

No, lady. You didn’t say anything wrong. It’s just that, for more than the past 20 years, I have lived with the “you remind me of Tom Hanks” on a continuous basis. It happens at every play in which I perform. It happens when I speak at a conference. For goodness sake, it happens randomly after talking to a strange woman at the opera for less than five minutes.

For the record, I love Tom Hanks’ work. He is an amazing actor, he seems like a nice person, and I take it as oddly complimentary that I remind people of him (It’s better than living with: “You remind me of Rob Schneider”). I think Tom Hanks and I would get along well and would enjoy one another’s company. However, with all due respect, I have never tried to look like Tom Hanks, talk like Tom Hanks, act like Tom Hanks, or emulate Tom Hanks in any way.

I am perplexed (and, at times, really annoyed) by the Tom Hanks phenomenon.