The actor Tom Hanks said on Wednesday that he and his wife, Rita Wilson, have the coronavirus.
Hanks and Wilson, both 63, are in Australia, where he was set to film a movie about the life of Elvis Presley. “We felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches,” the Academy Award-winning actor said in a statement. “Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers, too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the coronavirus, and were found to be positive.”
He added that he and Wilson “will be tested, observed and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires.”
“Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no?” Hanks said in his statement, which he also posted on Instagram accompanied by a photograph of a lone medical glove in a hazardous waste container. “We’ll keep the world posted and updated.”
The pair are said by their son Chet to be doing well but their 14-day quarantine period has forced production to shut down for at least a fortnight on Warner Bros unnamed Elvis biopic, in which Hanks was due to play Presley’s manager Colonel Tom Parker.
Hanks is by far the most prominent entertainment figure to say he has the virus and, by going public with the information, instantly becomes the face of an outbreak that has cascaded around the globe.
