Tom Hanks reveals that he initially didn't think the now-iconic park bench scenes in big-hearted Forrest Gump, a man with an IQ of 75 who experiences the signature events of the 1960s and 1970s — including everything from the Vietnam War to the Watergate scandal — all while trying to reunite with his childhood sweetheart. The film was a hit with audiences and critics and went on to earn over $678 million at the box office.
Forrest Gump takes place across two main timelines, with the timeline in the present seeing Hanks' titular character sitting on a park bench and telling his eventful life story to anyone who will listen. Gump holds a box of chocolates in his lap for the park bench scenes, eventually uttering the now-famous line, "My Mama always said, 'life is like a box of chocolates, you never which one you're gonna get'." In addition to Hanks, Forrest Gump features a standout ing cast, including the likes of Sally Field, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, and Mykelti Williamson.
In a new interview with CinemaBlend, Hanks reveals that he initially wasn't on board with Forrest Gump's park bench scenes. The actor explains that he didn't think audiences would be interested in scenes with Gump simply sitting on a bench talking to strangers. Hanks said that, at the time, it wasn't clear how the sequence would fit into the story in a meaningful way. Check out his full comment below:
"I will tell you, in Forrest Gump, all the stuff that we shot on the park bench in Savannah, Georgia, we were just shooting fodder for a possible narrative piece of it. And I said to Bob [Zemeckis], 'Is anyone going to care about this nut sitting on a [bench]? What is this? No one knows what's in this [box] I mean...' And we ended up shooting, it was probably like, you know, 13 pages of dialogue that we had to shoot in a day and a half. And so it was written on cue cards. [And] I didn't need the cue cards after a while because you get into it. But Bob says, 'I don't know, it's a minefield, Tom, it's a minefield. You never know what people are gonna take away from it!' And it ends up being, you know, that thing."
Evidently, Zemeckis was right about the park bench scenes, because these are often the first scenes that come to mind for many when thinking about Forrest Gump. The park bench scenes also feature heavily in the film's marketing, with the Forrest Gump poster seeing Hanks' character sitting on the bench in front of a white background. From Hanks' description, however, it seems that Zemeckis hadn't officially decided how these now beloved park bench scenes would fit into the overall story, so Hanks' hesitation at the time is understandable.
Although many now believe that Pulp Fiction or The Shawshank Redemption were more deserving of winning Best Picture at the Oscars that year, Forrest Gump remains a timeless classic film for countless viewers. It's hard to imagine the film without the park bench scenes, given Gump's narration ultimately elevates the whole story and helps audiences see important historical events through the central character's eyes. Hanks may not have thought that the park bench scenes were necessary at first glance, but Forrest Gump is all the better for Zemeckis stepping in to ensure the scenes had a place in the final cut.
Source: CinemaBlend
