There’s something about a good commencement speech that just fuels the fire in people.

Even though a lot of graduations are being cancelled the 2020 class at Ohio’s Wright State University Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Picture got some words of wisdom from the famous Tom Hanks.

The Academy Award-winning actor gave the speech virtually and called them “the chosen ones.”

He said, “I am calling you ‘chosen ones’ because you have been chosen in many ways.

First, by the temperament and discipline, you’ve lived by. By the creative fires that are inside of you. And the instinctive lunges of your desires.”

He added, “You succeeded because of the aid and the love of others that are in your lives, without a doubt. But you have succeeded mostly because you and you alone chose to do so. You are the chosen ones.”

Hanks joked that the seniors started college back in the “olden times” aka a time before the coronavirus pandemic.
“You will talk about your lives just that way: ‘Well, that was back before the COVID-19. That was before the great pandemic,” Hanks suggested.”

“Part of your lives will forever be identified as ‘before’ in the same way other generations tell time like, ‘Well, that was before the war,’ or ‘That was before the Internet,’ or ‘That was before Beyoncé.’ The word ‘before’ is going to carry great weight with you,” he continued.

Hanks reassured the class that there will also be an “after” and although the nation is uncertain of its future now, we must persevere.

“You will have made it through a time of great sacrifice and great need and no one will be more fresh to the task of restarting our measure of normalcy than you, you chosen ones,” he said.

“The future is always uncertain, but we who celebrate what you have done, who celebrate all of your achievements, we are certain of one thing on this day: You will not let us down,” he said.