Tom Hanks, international treasure, sent a message early Sunday from Australia where he and his wife, actress and singer Rita Wilson, are in isolation after contracting the coronavirus.
The message was simple. “Thanks to the Helpers. Let’s take care of ourselves and each other,” the beloved actor and typewriter-enthusiast tweeted before using his typical sign-off, “Hanx.”
The accompanying image, however, earned him some Dad-joke points: the “helpers” proved to be a stuffed kangaroo holding an Australian flag and a mini koala clinging to a tube of vegemite. A glass of water and two pieces of toast smeared with the down-under delectable fill out the frame.
Vegemite, an acquired taste, is an Australian concoction made of brewers’ yeast extract and spices. If you are an 80s kid, you know it from this song. Hanks’s reference to “helpers,” meanwhile, is probably a reference to a classic Fred Rogers quote that seems to recirculate every time a national or international crisis erupts: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” Hanks was nominated for an Oscar this year for playing Rogers in the 2019 movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
Hanks is in Australia because he was filming Baz Luhrmann’s forthcoming Elvis Presley biopic when he was diagnosed with Covid-19. Hanks is playing Col. Tom Parker; Austin Butler is playing Tupleo, Mississippi’s favorite son, though the project, like so many Hollywood productions, is currently on hold.
Hanks and Wilson announced on Wednesday that they’d tested positive after having “chills and aches” beginning Tuesday. Though the specifics of Hanks and Wilson’s prognoses is unclear (and maybe not our business, even if our sentiments toward them are sincere), their son Chet Hanks weighed in on Friday, saying that while he is in frequent contact with his parents, “they’re not even that sick” and “they’re not trippin’.”
While Hanks may be spending his isolation time playing with stuffed animals, Wilson is jamming out to her own playlist of “quarantunes,” which includes titles like Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself” and MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This,” as well as a few tracks she recorded herself.
More Great Stories From Vanity Fair
— Cover story: How Knives Out star Ana de Armas is conquering Hollywood
— Harvey Weinstein is ordered to jail in handcuffs
— Love Is Blind is the grimly fascinating dating show we need right now
— There’s no other war movie as horrifying, or vital, as Come and See
— Hillary Clinton on her surreal life and new Hulu documentary
— The royal family’s weirdest real-life scandals get even weirder on The Windsors
— From the Archive: A look inside Tom Cruise’s relationships governed by Scientology and how Katie Holmes planned her escape
Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hollywood newsletter and never miss a story.