Hanna Hall AKA Little Jenny from Forrest Gump appeared at the beginning of the film and
befriended Forrest, uttering one of the most iconic lines in movie history: "Run, Forrest,
run!" So, what ended up happening to her? Here is where she is now.
Hanna Hall, the actress behind little Jenny in Forrest Gump, grew up in Denver, Colorado.
She spoke to House of Horrors about her childhood in 2007, saying -
"My family moved up to the mountains when I was two, and it was wonderful."
She still holds a soft spot in her heart for the mountains of Colorado.
Hall explained that she lived there until she was 18, when she moved out of her family
home. She first moved to Hawaii for school, before moving to Los Angeles. As of 2007,
Hall was living in L.A.
Hanna Hall was just 10 years old when Forrest Gump was released. As the actress explained
to House of Horrors, the way she got the role was that Nina Axelrod , a manager from Los
Angeles, had moved to Colorado after getting tired of the city. When Hall was 7 years old,
Axelrod placed an open casting call in the local newspaper for the film. As Hall recalled
-
"My mother didn't want to take me. So I went with some friends and Nina ended up liking
me."
"You can sit here if you want."
"I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life."
In 2012, Hall spoke to HollywoodChicago.com about the dark side of her character, who
was suffering abuse at the hands of her father, saying -
"I was about 8 years old and I understood the full extent of the character's journey
and what she had been through."
However, Hall explained that, because she was so young, she found it pretty easy to
separate herself from the character.
Hall's next big role came a few years later in the iconic Sofia Coppola film The Virgin
Suicides in 1999. After playing the abused young Jenny in Forrest Gump, this was another
pretty dark role for the young actress. Hall played Cecilia Lisbon , the youngest Lisbon
girl who attempts to take her own life. However, despite the dark content, Hall felt that she'd
be a perfect fit for the film, explaining to House of Horrors -
"I read the script when I was 13, and I just knew that I had to be a part of that film."
She initially auditioned to play Kirsten Dunst's character, but she was deemed to be too young
and was given the part of Cecilia.
Working with Coppola would be a dream come true for any actor, and Hall enjoyed the experience
on set.
"Every once in a while you just have like a, a movie where there's like a community
and a camaraderie and, um, it's really special."
As Hall recalled to House of Horrors -
"Sofia was wonderful. She really listened to me and the rest of the cast when it came
to working on the characters."
She also told HollywoodChicago.com that Coppola's approach was pretty special, saying -
"As an actor, you don't always feel like the director cares about what your view of something
is."
After Hall graduated from high school, she eventually enrolled in film school in Vancouver
. She remembers her time in Canada fondly, and she told House of Horrors -
"Vancouver is a great city. I had a really great time there."
After working as a child actor on Hollywood blockbusters like Forrest Gump and The Virgin
Suicides, attending film school was a bit of a change of pace. Hall explained to HollywoodChicago.com
-
"It takes the ego out of being an actor when you realize that the overall product is not
solely about your performance."
Thanks to her experience at film school, Hall has a pretty thorough understanding of how
a film set works, noting that she'd performed nearly every kind of job on set.
While Hall remained interested in acting, she began to dabble with other behind-the-scenes
roles. As she confessed to HollywoodChicago.com in 2012 -
"I work on small stuff all the time."
She went on to explain that she was working on writing her own feature film at the time.
For Hall, being the writer or director of a project meant she had more control, saying
-
"When you're an actor, you're at the mercy of the director, for better or for worse."
She admitted that for her the production side of things was far more satisfying.
According to her IMDb page, Hall has worked as a production assistant, a camera assistant,
and an assistant director and she explained that having experience and practice behind
the camera actually made her a better actor. She said -
"The line of communication is open between us, and it makes the process a lot easier."
In 2007, Hall took on one of her most iconic roles to date in the cult-classic Halloween,
directed by Rob Zombie. But initially, Hall was unsure about doing the film, explaining
to House of Horrors -
"I wasn't really familiar with Rob's work."
Once she found out more about him, she was sold.
Her character, Judith Myers, was viciously killed ten minutes into the original film.
However, in 2007, Hall had a little more screen time. As she explained prior to the film's
release -
"I have more of a character and you kind of get to know her before she's brutally murdered."
Working on Halloween with Zombie was another great experience for Hall, as she gushed to
HollywoodChicago.com -
"Honestly, he's one of my favorite directors. He and his wife are the most intelligent,
classy people I've ever worked for."
Even though Hall became interested in filmmaking and directing, she continued to work pretty
consistently as an actor. In 2009, she played Georgia in American Cowslip and yet again,
this film was pretty dark! As Hall explained to HollywoodChicago.com -
"The story was about this heroin addict who was ruining his entire life but had the capability
to create something so beautiful even in that state, which was his garden."
In 2010, she appeared in the film Happiness Runs, which told the story of the director's
experience living in hippie commune. Apparently, it was on this shoot that Hall developed the
strongest bond to one of her characters, as she explained -
"Living in California, I had met a lot of people who had been in situations like that."
This role may have taken the heaviest toll of all as Hall confessed -
"[I] felt very disturbed by the end of the process."
One of Hall's most significant roles to date was as Paige in Zack Parker's film Scalene
. Apparently as Hall explained to HollywoodChicago.com, it was the darkness of the role that attracted
her to the project.
"Hello? Hello? Yes Yes I, I need someone I need help."
It seems clear that Hall loves a challenge! As she put it -
"If you're not doing things that are challenging you, then you aren't going to be pushing forward
as an artist."
Over the course of the shoot, Hall found that the script forced her to re-evaluate her own
morals. Apparently working on the film made her consider a variety of perspectives, saying
-
"Nothing in the world is black and white and everyone has a different view of things."
After a career in film, Hall turned her sights to theater. According to International Business
Times, Hall worked on a play called Astral Dick at the Electric Lodge Theater in Venice,
California in 2012.
Hall also posted a Kickstarter for the play. In the final update on the page from Hall,
she wrote -
"The show was a resounding success."
Apparently, Hall had a sold-out run for 12 shows and had a lot of positive feedback from
the audience.
Hall spoke about the experience to HollywoodChicago.com and explained that the play had been written
by a friend. She was passionate about the project, so she financed everything herself.
According to IBT, Hall saw this move to directing indie theater as perhaps a bad move professionally,
as it was such a big departure from her more commercial film roles. It's clear that Hall
is passionate about projects because of their artistic merit rather than the paycheck attached.
Halloween ended up becoming quite the cult film. For Hanna Hall, it meant an interesting
opportunity — she was invited to take part in the convention circuit. Shortly after she
finished directing Astral Dick, Hall spoke at a Q&A at the 2012 Weekend of Horrors in
Germany. She explained how much she loved taking part in these conventions, even though
it wasn't something she'd ever considered before, saying -
"I like to jump on a plane and go somewhere new — being able to come out to Germany
has been really fun."
She also shared that the conventions gave her the chance to meet fans in person, explaining
-
"Actually going there and being able to talk to people face to face and how kind of gratifying
that was for them, and it became very satisfying for me in that way."
She went on to admit that since directing her play, she'd been working as a cocktail
waitress! Sounds like this convention was a welcome break from her life in Los Angeles
between jobs.
It's pretty clear that Hanna Hall has grown into a thoughtful, capable actress since her
first iconic role in Forrest Gump. In fact, as she explained at the Q&A at the Weekend
of Horrors, and evidenced by her filmography, she is always on the hunt for challenging
roles.
When asked what kind of characters she enjoys playing, Hall replied -
"Something that's challenging, something that you maybe don't understand at first, that's
a struggle to understand, something complex."
She added that sometimes the roles that scare her as an actor and the ones with the most
complexity are the most rewarding. It's safe to say at this point that Hall has been bringing
complexity and humanity to her work since the beginning!
Once Hanna Hall has been cast in a role, her approach seems to be pretty unique, as it
doesn't seem as though she follows any specific acting technique. As she explained at the
Weekend of Horrors Q&A in Germany, her process involves reading the script and then simply
thinking about the character. She usually starts by imagining the character's physicality,
explaining -
"If you look at people, everyone kind of holds [themselves] in a certain way."
So, for Hall, as she went on to say -
"It really helps to walk around and kind of feel a different posture."
Eventually, after getting to know her characters through the script and through their physicality,
things usually just click into place. As Hall put it,
"Every time it's something different that clicks me into a character."
In 2020, Hall spoke up in support of the Black Lives Matter movement on Twitter. In fact,
she tweeted about the movement several times. On June 1, 2020, she wrote,
"Not knowing what White Privilege is, IS White Privilege."
Three days later, she explained how she had been at a protest in New Orleans. By the sounds
of things, she was really in the thick of things — according to her tweet, she and
her fellow protesters were tear-gassed.
It's clear from her response that Hall is incredibly passionate about social equality
and justice.
After looking into Hanna Hall's fascinating entertainment career, it's safe to say she
has come a long way since her earliest roles. However, as far as public recognition goes,
young Jenny is still her best known character. As Hall told International Business Times,
she still gets recognized on the street but in a roundabout way, saying -
"Mostly it's like people think I look familiar, like, 'Oh did I go to high school with you?'"
Apparently, once people realize who she is, she invariably gets asked to do her famous
line, but she doesn't usually say yes, explaining -
"I don't even know the accent anymore."
Other times, Hall will hear strangers yelling her line to their friends without realizing
that the original Jenny is standing right next to them. Nevertheless, it's so cool to
see all of the other amazing things Hall has achieved so far.
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