My guess is that a majority of the audience at the Harris Theater came not to hear about Hanks’ book, Uncommon Type, which includes, often very minimally, mention of a typewriter in each short story, but rather because Hanks is their type of guy.

He didn’t disappoint. When asked by interviewer Peter Sagal about all the real life people he’s played, many of them heroes, Hanks told of how, when meeting Chesley Sullenberger, James Lovell, and Richard Phillips, he said to each of them in regard to his portrayal: “I’m going to say things you didn’t say, go places you’ve never been, and do things you’ve never done – live with it.”

In particular, he recounted Sullenberger telling him that his instrument panel went dead before landing his plane on the Hudson River and Hanks replying that a blank panel wasn’t dramatic enough, so in the movie it would instead act “like this”, which Hanks then demonstrated by flailing his hands to simulate the needles out of control. Sagal suggested that using those hand gestures in the movie would have been a crowd pleaser, as it was to this audience.

After Hanks mentioned a new movie coming out, Greyhound, where he plays the captain of a ship in World War II, Sagal noted that Sullenberger, Lovell, Phillips and John Miller in Saving Private Ryan all were captains, and suggested that Hanks couldn’t seem to get a promotion. Hanks added that Greyhound would forever be known as the movie where he doesn’t play Mr. Rogers (given the great anticipation of the release of that movie).

Hanks then responded to several questions submitted by the audience prior to the program, the final one of which inexplicably asked Hanks what his favorite sandwich is. Hanks went into a long, amusing explanation of his dietary restrictions, though clearly the perfect answer to close the program would have been “a hero.”