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Tom Hanks explores his fascination with World War II in a new 20-part documentary History Channel series premiering on Memorial Day
Hanks says the war’s moral questions remain relevant today and reflect current societal challenges
His interest in the conflict began as a child after witnessing an emotional reunion between his father and a fellow veteran
Tom Hanks is opening up about why he keeps returning to World War II stories more than 25 years after co-creating the acclaimed HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the release of his new History Channel documentary series World War II with Tom Hanks, the Oscar winner said he’s been reflecting on his continued fascination with the conflict — and what it says about the current state of the world.
“I’ve been wrestling with this just recently,” Hanks, 69, shared. “I’ve been asking myself at nighttime, in those moments of the soul, ‘Why do I keep turning to it again and again for that combination of poetry and solace and enlightenment?’ ”
Tom Hanks in ‘Saving Private Ryan’
Credit: David James/Dreamworks/Amblin/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock
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The actor and producer — whose World War II résumé includes Saving Private Ryan, Greyhound, The Pacific and Masters of the Air — said the answer ultimately comes back to present day.
“And I divined that it has to be about today,” Hanks continued. “It has to be more about the palpable choices that we face here in 2026 as opposed to, look what those tough guys did back in the 1930s.”
For Hanks, the moral questions raised by the war remain painfully relevant.
“The kinds of personal choices that had to be made in World War II were as blatant and as obvious as the difference between freedom and slavery,” he said. “There were two forces out there that said we are racially superior to anybody else, or we are theologically superior to everybody else, because of what is inside our blood. Is that in existence anywhere today? Well, yeah.”
The 20-part documentary series, executive produced by Hanks and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham, premieres Memorial Day on the History Channel. The expansive project chronicles every major theater of the war from 1939 through 1945 and was created in collaboration with the National WWII Museum.
Elsewhere in the interview, Hanks reflected on how his fascination with the war first began as a child after witnessing an emotional reunion between his father and a fellow veteran in a grocery store.
“I just saw these two men — they’re gods to you when you’re 10 years old — and they had a conversation then that was in such deep code that was not unlike moments I’ve heard again and again from an awful lot of veterans, who say, “Well, here’s something you have to understand.” You try to get these guys to talk about their war years, and for a long time, they wouldn’t do it because, Hey, I was just a guy,” he recalled.
Even after decades of films, documentaries and television projects centered on the conflict, Hanks noted he still isn’t done exploring the subject.
Asked whether World War II With Tom Hanks might be his “final word” on the era, the actor laughed: “Oh, every time I read a book, I come up with something else I want to option in order to try to turn it into a movie or miniseries.”
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