Millions of film fans hold special places in their hearts for Forrest, Jenny, Lieutenant
Dan, and the rest of the unforgettable characters of Forrest Gump.
But what happened to the ensemble in the years since 1994?
We've taken a look back to find out what these stars have been up to.
Let's start with the obvious: Tom Hanks, already an Oscar-winning mega-star when he played
Forrest Gump, hasn't exactly vanished from view.
Hanks executive-produced the Emmy-winning HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, played two
American heroes in Captain Phillips and Sully, voiced a neurotic cowboy in Pixar's Toy Story
franchise, and also became the star of Saturday Night Live's most memorable, baffling Halloween
skit.
"Any questions?"
The award-winning actor also remains half of one of Hollywood's most long standing marriages
with wife Rita Wilson, with the two having been married since 1988.
He's gained a reputation as one of the loveliest people in Hollywood, and he has a hobby of
collecting vintage typewriters.
Robin Wright was hardly an unknown when she scored her role in Forrest Gump.
Her role on the daytime drama Santa Barbara had already earned her tons of fans, and she
also starred in cult fairytale favorite The Princess Bride.
But for whatever reason, Wright spent the next two decades flying way under the radar.
It's surprising that the role that made her a household name is one she landed at the
age of 46, the ambitious, brilliant, Claire Underwood on Netflix's House of Cards.
Offscreen, Wright has become an outspoken advocate and spokesperson for Pour Les Femmes,
a sleepwear company that educates and employs women in conflict regions around the world.
Most of the main folks in Forrest Gump have gone on to have long and storied acting careers,
but Michael Conner Humphreys is an exception.
After what could have been a breakout performance as young Forrest, Humphreys instead quit acting
entirely and took a different path, joining the Army.
He served four years as an infantry soldier, with his service including an 18-month tour
of duty in Iraq.
According to an interview with the Daily Mail, he tried to keep his brief stint in Hollywood
a secret, but it didn't take long for his fellow servicemembers to figure it out and
give him the nickname of "Gump."
Humphreys made a belated return to acting in the 2010s, playing a soldier in the 2011
indie film Pathfinders: In the Company of Strangers, and he also scored a role on the
2019 TV series Knight's End.
In a 2015 interview, he was said to be living back in his birthplace of Independence, Mississippi,
where he pursued a college degree in international relations.
"Run, Forrest!
Run!"
That's Hanna Hall's biggest contribution to the cultural zeitgeist.
At the age of nine, she became known for shouting what became Forrest Gump's most quotable line,
but she's also worked regularly ever since.
As a teen, she scored roles in Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides and the 2007 remake of
Halloween, and in more recent years she appeared in guest roles on Criminal Minds and Masters
of Sex.
Despite having grown up a lot since her Forrest Gump performance, Hall is still occasionally
recognized on the street by sharp-eyed fans who ask her to repeat her famous catchphrase.
But she's said she doesn't know how to do that Alabama accent anymore, so if you happen
to see her, just don't ask.
Sally Field was already a multiple Oscar winner and A-lister when she played the tenacious
matriarch of the Gump family.
Her legacy as an actor was rock solid no matter what she did after Forrest Gump.
But where is she now?
After spending several years as a Primetime Emmy-award-winning guest star on ER, she joined
the ABC drama Brothers and Sisters, for which she won another Emmy.
She also turned up in the role of Aunt May in the Amazing Spider-Man movies, opposite
Andrew Garfield.
In 2017, she earned critical acclaim for playing the challenging role of Amanda Wingfield in
a Broadway revival of The Glass Menagerie, while 2018 saw her take on a key supporting
role in the Netflix series Maniac.
Basically, she's keeping plenty busy as she rounds the corner on her seventh decade.
In Sally Field's storied career, Forrest Gump is just a footnote.
After his remarkable turn as Forrest Gump's BFF Bubba Blue, Mykelti Williamson has stayed
busy in Hollywood, consistently working smaller parts on the big and small screens.
Among his more prominent appearances are a regular role on Justified that spanned three
seasons, a role in the political thriller series 24, and more.
Williamson seems to specialize in playing police officers and military men, although
he did run afoul of the law when he played Baby-O in the cult favorite Con Air.
And don't think he's given up serious award-season fare: in 2016, he was part of the cast in
the Oscar-nominated Fences, directed by Denzel Washington.
Unlike some of his co stars, Williamson has fully embraced his legacy as a Forrest Gump
cast member.
On Instagram, he's even celebrated his character's signature seafood obsession with "Shrimp Saturday",
in which he posts shrimp-related selfies and solicits pictures of shrimp from fans around
the globe.
Gary Sinise has had no shortage of high-profile projects since Forrest Gump, including repeated
reunions with Tom Hanks.
The two appeared together in Apollo 13 in 1996 and again in The Green Mile in 1999.
On the small screen, Sinise has found a comfortable home in primetime procedural drama, playing
Detective Mac Taylor in the CSI franchise from 2004 through 2013, then taking over in
a lead role in the Criminal Minds franchise in 2016.
In a fitting turn, considering his military "experience" in Forrest Gump, Sinise has become
a prominent supporter of American servicemembers.
He's lended his talents as a narrator to various military documentaries, entertained troops
with the Lieutenant Dan Band, and created his own philanthropic organization, the Gary
Sinise Foundation, to support servicemembers once they're back home on U.S. soil.
Sinise has also been one of the few openly Republican celebrities in Hollywood, founding
a group for conservative actors known as the "Friends of Abe" in 2004 and supporting John
McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.
However, he disassociated himself from the organization prior to the 2016 election, and
his online presence makes it clear that apart from acting, his real priority is supporting
the troops.
The sleazy principal who admitted Forrest to the public school system in exchange for
a roll in the hay with Mrs. Gump will be forever remembered for his awkward, well… this.
But when it comes to this actor, you're more likely to recognize him from the TV roles
that followed.
From 2005 through 2010, Anderson was a series regular on Lost in the role of the kind-hearted
crash survivor Bernard, and if you didn't catch him in that, you might know him as the
cold-hearted Lee Paxton on Justified.
But as ubiquitous as he is onscreen, the actor keeps a low profile off camera.
He's been married to the same woman since 1985, is the father of twins, and in his spare
time, he likes to write mysteries.
In short, Anderson has gone on from Forrest Gump to become what seems like the lifestyle
of an average retired dad… except that he's also one of the hardest-working character
actors of his generation.
If you've seen Forrest Gump, you'll recognize Afemo Omilami as the frothing drill sergeant
who complimented Forrest's intelligence, sort of.
"You must have a g--damn IQ of 160.
You are g--damn gifted, Private Gump."
The drill sergeant role was only a bit part for Omilami, who was already a Hollywood veteran
when Forrest Gump was made.
Omilami has appeared in multiple projects every year dating all the way back to 1990.
Most recently, he held a major role in True Detective and appeared as the Mayor of District
11 in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
And despite his busy work schedule, Omilami also helps to run Hosea Feed the Hungry, an
Atlanta-based charitable organization designed to combat homelessness and food scarcity.
It's practically the end of the movie before he appears on screen, but he's there.
Before he saw dead people, Haley Joel Osment made his big-screen debut in the tiny role
of Forrest Junior.
Needless to say, it was a good jumping-off point for Osment's career; he went on to become
a Hollywood icon at the age of nine thanks to his breakout performance in The Sixth Sense.
He took a break to attend college, and while his celebrity status has receded, he's not
hurting for work.
He recently reprised his role as Sora in the third Kingdom Hearts game, and continues to
appear in smaller parts in movies, TV, and other weird projects.
Character actor Geoffrey Blake portrayed the loathsome Wesley, Jenny's abusive, bad-news
boyfriend.
He'd already appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows before Forrest Gump, and he went
right back to that hustle after filming his part.
You may have seen him in one of his many short stints on shows like Renegade, NYPD Blue,
multiple CSI series, Criminal Minds, and Grimm.
And while they played enemies on screen, Blake and Hanks must have gotten along just fine
in real life; Blake went on to film small parts for Hanks' Apollo 13 and Cast Away.
When Siobhan Fallon Hogan appeared as the hard-nut-to-crack bus driver in Forrest Gump,
she'd just finished some small but memorable work in two comedy institutions.
She'd been a cast member on Saturday Night Live for its seventeenth season in 1991 and
'92, and had a recurring role on Seinfeld as Tina, Elaine's weird roommate.
Fallon Hogan has played many small parts since, but she's also a frequent muse of provocative
filmmaker Lars von Trier.
But while she still works as an actor, she left Hollywood behind long ago, choosing instead
to live in suburban New Jersey with her family.
When a nearly grown Forrest gets chased by a bunch of bullies in a pickup truck, he's
so fast he manages to outrun them, earning the attention of legendary University of Alabama
football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant.
Forrest secures a sports scholarship and becomes a reliable All-American playmaker who's eventually
given the chance to meet President John F. Kennedy.
JFK may appear in the movie thanks to special effects, but Bear Bryant is played by a flesh
and blood actor named of Sonny Shroyer.
It's nowhere near Shroyer's most famous work, though.
Prior to his Forrest Gump part, he played Deputy Sheriff Enos on the popular TV series
The Dukes of Hazzard.
Shroyer was so likable in the role that he got his own spinoff series, simply called
Enos, in 1980.
Shroyer was nearly 60 years old when Forrest Gump was filmed, and his career has understandably
slowed down a bit in the years since.
He tended toward movies with ties to the American South, including Ray, A Love Song for Bobby
Long, and multiple adaptations of John Grisham novels.
When Forrest heads to New York City to check on his old friend Lieutenant Dan, he finds
that his former commanding officer isn't doing well.
He's found living in squalor, spending most of his time drinking and cavorting with two
women of questionable repute: "Long Limbs Lenore" and "Cunning Carla."
"Loser!
Ya freak!"
Marla Sucharetza, the actress who played Lenore, is presumably a lot nicer than she comes across
onscreen.
Forrest Gump marked her first role in a major movie, and in its wake, she's had a long career
as a character actor.
She's popped up in TV shows like Seinfeld, Damages, and The Good Wife, and made multiple
appearances on different Law & Order series.
She also appeared in movies such as The Station Agent and the crude comedy Road Trip, in which
she was credited as playing a "Sperm Bank Nurse."
Hey, acting isn't always glorious.
Sometimes you're in a gross-out movie, and sometimes you're in the cast of a beloved
Best Picture.
"Life is a box of chocolates, Forrest… ya never know what you're gonna get."
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