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Later in life, he had a \"lightning bolt\" moment, where he discovered all the great plays were about loneliness.

\"That's why I'm here,\" he said he realized.

Hanks also credited a young marriage at just 21, with two kids, to quelling the loneliness.

\"Yeah, I think so,\" he said. \"I had kids very young, my son Colin was born when I was 21 and my daughter Elizabeth was born four and a half years later. By then I thought I was rolling along with the natural order of things.\"

He said being a young father was a struggle and the family survived \"piecemeal.\"

Hanks and his first wife Samantha Lewes divorced in 1987 and he married Rita Wilson the next year. He said by the time he was 27, 28, he had \"experienced enough bitter compromise that I overcame.\"

\"There was stuff that should have destroyed me and it did not,\" he said.

But Hanks said having a kid so young was a blessing.

\"I didn’t smoke pot. I didn’t go into drugs, I was not a party boy. I didn't drink too much,\" he said. \"I went to bed at 10 minutes after 10 p.m. ... The rules were in place and I'm not a cheater. I like to play by the rules. But later on, you're 27, 28, you've learned what to say 'yes' to ... and you end up meeting that other person, man, woman ... that 'Oh, she gets it!'\"

With Wilson, he said he told himself back then, \"I don't think I'm ever going to be lonely anymore.\"

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