Watch Tom Hanks' 'Forrest Gump' Rehearsal Footage [UPDATE]

Tom Hanks' 'Forrest Gump' Rehearsal Footage Is Missing One Thing
UNSPECIFIED: Actor Tom Hanks in the movie 'Forrest Gump' by Robert Zemeckisin 1994. (Photo by MEGA/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
UNSPECIFIED: Actor Tom Hanks in the movie 'Forrest Gump' by Robert Zemeckisin 1994. (Photo by MEGA/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

Behold, here's Tom Hanks' "audition tape" for "Forrest Gump." Surfaced 20 years after the film's debut, this video shows Hanks reading opposite Robin Wright, who played Jenny. The tape also features the scene in which Jenny introduces Forrest to his son, Forrest Jr., played by a teeny tiny Haley Joel Osment. As Vanity Fair pointed out, Gump's trademark Southern accent is noticeably missing, but it's pretty easy to see why all these actors got the part.

UPDATE: Slate called shenanigans on this being Hanks' audition tape because of an interview with "Forrest Gump" producer Steve Starkey in which he says, "We sent the script to Tom Hanks because he was the only one who could play it. [...] About an hour and a half after he started reading it, Tom called and said, 'I'm in.' From that point on, we knew we could get the movie made." (Starkey's quote -- and Slate's rebuttal -- neglects to mention that actors such as John Travolta, Chevy Chase and Bill Murray all turned down the role of Forrest Gump before it came to Hanks.) As it turns out, the video below is actually just screen-test footage Hanks did with Wright and Osment.

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Kris Humphries

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