Tom Hanks says he has coronavirus

Tom Hanks said Wednesday that he and his wife, Rita Wilson, learned they had the coronavirus. The 63-year-old Academy Award-winning actor is in Australia, where he was set to film a movie about the life of Elvis Presley.

>>Nicole SperlingThe New York Times
Published : 12 March 2020, 02:18 AM
Updated : 12 March 2020, 03:47 AM

“Hello, folks. Rita and I are down here in Australia,” Hanks said in a statement. “We felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches. 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? We’ll keep the world posted and updated,” he said.

Hanks is playing the role of Colonel Tom Parker, Presley’s eccentric manager who groomed the famous singer to stardom in the 1950s. Production on the film, which is being directed by Baz Luhrmann, is set to begin filming Monday.

“The health and safety of our company members is always our top priority, and we are taking precautions to protect everyone who works on our productions around the world,” Warner Bros., the studio behind the film, said in a statement.

Australia has had more than 120 cases confirmed cases of coronavirus as of Wednesday.

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