Forrest Gump (1994) Trivia
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Forrest Gump (1994) Trivia When Forrest gets up to talk at the Vietnam rally in Washington, the microphone plug is pulled and you cannot hear him. According to Tom Hanks, he says, "Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don't go home at all. That's a bad thing. That's all I have to say about that." With every transition of Forrest's age, one thing remains the same- in the first scene of each transition he wears a blue plaid shirt. Tom Hanks wasn't paid for the film. Instead he took percentage points which ultimately netted him in the region of $40 million. Tom Hanks' younger brother Jim Hanks doubled for him in many of his numerous running sequences. The line, "My name is Forrest Gump. People call me Forrest Gump," was ad libbed byTom Hanks while filming the scene and director Robert Zemeckis liked it so much that he decided to keep it in. When Forrest first learns to play ping-pong in the infirmary, he is told the trick is to "keep his eye on the ball" by another soldier. After that moment, whenever he is shown playing ping-pong, he never blinks. Tom Hanks signed onto the film after an hour and a half of reading the script but agreed to take the role only on the condition that the film was historically accurate. He initially wanted to ease Forrest's pronounced Southern accent, but was eventually persuaded by director Robert Zemeckis to portray the heavy accent stressed in the novel and patterned his accent after Michael Conner Humphreys (young Forrest) who actually talked that way. Forrest and Dan's Shrimp Emporium "Bubba Gump", is now a themed restaurant in 33 locations around the world in the U.S., Japan, China, Mexico, Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia. There is one in Orlando, Florida, at the entrance to the Universal theme parks there. The actor who plays the reporter on the scene when Tom Hanks visits Washington DC after his tour in Vietnam was, himself, an actual tourist from Atlanta, Georgia. He happened to be on Capitol Hill that day with his wife, and was asked to read. Gary Sinise's lower legs were wrapped in a special blue fabric that allowed them to be digitally removed later. Bill Murray, John Travolta and Chevy Chase turned down the role of Forrest Gump. Travolta later admitted that passing on the role was a mistake. During the ping-pong matches, there was no ball; it was entirely CGI, animated to meet the actors' paddles. The park bench that Tom Hanks sat on for much of the movie was located in historic Savannah, Georgia, at Chippewa Square. The fiberglass bench he sat on, since then, has been removed and placed into a museum to avoid being destroyed by bad weather, or possibly stolen. The church where the feather first falls was about 100 yards just down the street from the bench. To this day, the bench is held in the Savannah History Museum, Savannah, Georgia. Many of the extras in the hippie scene were actors from the Maryland Renaissance Festival, since the casting director Ellen Lewis realized that would be a good source of performers with long hair. The running scene was inspired by an actual event. In 1982, Louis Michael Figueroa, aged 16, ran from New Jersey to San Francisco for the American Cancer Society, unknowingly inspiring a line for Forrest Gump's famous run on the silver screen. "I just put one foot in front of the other," it goes. "When I get tired I sleep. When I get hungry I eat. When I have to go to the bathroom, I go." The necklace worn by Lt. Dan is a rosary with a Saint Christopher medal, inscribed "Protect Us In Combat". It was worn in Vietnam by Gary Sinise's brother-in-law, Jack Treese, in 1967-68. Gump's Medal of Honor ceremony uses the footage of the actual ceremony for Sammy L. Davis, who was awarded the Medal of Honor on 19 November 1968 by PresidentLyndon Johnson for his actions in Vietnam a year earlier. Tom Hanks' head was superimposed on Davis' body. Every still picture of Forrest during this film shows Tom Hanks with his eyes closed. The movie's line "Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." was voted as the #40 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100). The shrimp boat used in the film now resides in the moat surrounding the Planet Hollywood restaurant in Downtown Disney, at the Disneyworld Resort in Florida. Also, one of the ping-pong paddles used in the film is signed by Tom Hanks and hung up on one of the walls inside the restaurant. Selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry in December 2011 as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." David Alan Grier, Ice Cube and Dave Chappelle turned down the role of Bubba. Chappelle thought the movie would bomb, and has since admitted to deeply regretting not taking the role. Demi Moore and Nicole Kidman turned down the role of Jenny Curran. Kurt Russell has said that he did the voice of Elvis Presley (uncredited) in the film, reprising his role from Elvis (1979). Robin Wright was sick with a cold while shooting the nightclub scene. In spite of this, she was still able to perform her own singing during a non-stop twenty-four hour shoot in which she was nearly nude except for her guitar. Warner Bros. gave up the rights to the film in 1988, in exchange for the rights toExecutive Decision (1996), because the studio felt that the project had lost its commercial promise in the wake of Rain Man (1988). When this film became wildly successful, talk of a sequel naturally arose. However, at the time, Tom Hanks adamantly refused to work in any sequel (and making the sequel with another actor was not a consideration). Although Hanks has since reconsidered his stance on sequels/prequels (Toy Story 2 (1999), Toy Story 3 (2010), Angels & Demons(2009)), a sequel remained in "development hell" for years. As of 2010, Gump & Co. is in development. Inspired by Lieutenant Dan Taylor, the military veteran character he played in this movie, Gary Sinise co-founded a rock and roll cover band during the mid-2000s called "The Lt. Dan Band." The band often goes on USO tours to play for US military personnel stationed around the world, and also plays various benefits for veteran- related causes. Robert Zemeckis decided to leave out several planned effects shots. One shot in particular involved Forrest running into Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his supporters. Forrest distracts several dogs trying to attack King and his supporters by playing fetch with them and rendering them harmless to King and himself as well as his supporters. Sally Field is only ten years older than Tom Hanks. All of the boat scenes, including the hurricane scene, were shot on location in the waters off the coast of South Carolina. A jet engine was used to generate the hurricane winds. The still/news reel shots of the trawlers on land are news shots of the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina 1989. The movie is set to be re-released in IMAX in September 2014 in honor of its 20th anniversary. Greenbow, Alabama (Forrest's hometown) is fictional. Bayou LaBatre, Alabama (Bubba's hometown), however, is real. The fastest grossing Paramount film to pass the $100 million, $150 million and $200 million marks (as of February 2008). According to writer Winston Groom, John Goodman was the perfect Forrest Gump in his mind. When Forrest is pushing Lt. Dan in his wheelchair across the street in New York, the song playing in the background is "Everybody's Talking" by Harry Nilsson, and Lt. Dan exclaims to a cab driver, "I'm Walking here, I'm walking here!" This is an obvious homage to a scene in Midnight Cowboy (1969) with the same line and music. Despite earning over $350 million at the box office, Paramount claimed that they were still $62 million out of profit due to the costs of promotion, distribution and interest. When Jenny is throwing stones at the house where she grew up, she suddenly collapses onto the ground in front of the house. The image of Jenny on the ground is almost identical to that captured in the famous Andrew Wyeth painting, Christina's World. Almost all of John Lennon's dialogue is from his song "Imagine" ("No possessions", "No religion too", "It's easy if you try..."). On the day that Tom Hanks shot the football running scenes he had been suffering from influenza. When Lt. Dan Taylor first meets Forrest and Bubba in Viet Nam, he says, "You must be my FNGs". Generally speaking, this stands for "Fuckin' New Guys". The disco and strip scenes were shot in the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California, as was the 1968 archive footage of Robert F. Kennedy, after he won the California Primary. RFK was gunned down by Sirhan Sirhan in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel just minutes later. Gary Sinise's character tells Tom Hanks's character that the day Forrest works on a shrimp boat is the day he'd be an astronaut. This is a reference to the book, where Forrest actually becomes an astronaut, and the following year, Sinise and Hanks appeared together as astronauts in Apollo 13 (1995).