Tom Hanks’ Dual Role in Forrest Gump: A Forgotten Hollywood Gem Revealed

Many forget that Tom Hanks took on dual roles in Forrest Gump. The second character, Nathan Bedford Forrest, starkly contrasts the film’s hero. To recall, Forrest Gump is adapted from Winston Groom’s 1986 novel. However, the film, which transports viewers through the 1960s and 1970s amidst major historical events, diverges significantly from the book.

Despite initial skepticism surrounding Robert Zemeckis’ project before its production, the film is now regarded as one of the greatest of all time, having beaten Pulp Fiction for the Best Picture Oscar in 1995. Much of its success can be attributed to the phenomenal performance of Tom Hanks, who also portrayed Nathan Bedford Forrest in this iconic movie. With its inclusion of various real-life figures, the film highlights an extensive narrative surrounding Hanks’ secondary character, the real-life Forrest who served as a general during the American Civil War…

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Nathan Bedford Forrest appears relatively early in the film during a flashback where the audience learns how Forrest got his name. Indeed, Nathan Bedford Forrest is said to be one of his ancestors. “[His mother] said we were related to him in some way,” explains Forrest Gump. The fact that the character asserts a connection between the two men is precisely why it makes sense for Hanks to play a dual role. However, the flashback reveals that Nathan Bedford Forrest was a white supremacist, the complete antithesis of the lovable and endearing Forrest himself.

Specifically, he was a Confederate lieutenant general during the Civil War and a slave trader who later became the first “Grand Wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan, a title he held for a year before becoming disillusioned with the group and those advocating white supremacy at the time. He publicly distanced himself from the Klan and ultimately tried, unsuccessfully, to dissolve it, before publicly supporting the cause of Black Americans.

According to the book Nathan Bedford Forrest: In Search of the Enigma by Eddy W. Davidson, the real Forrest “volunteered to help exterminate the men responsible for ongoing violence” at the hands of the Klan in 1874. It’s clear that General Nathan Bedford Forrest is one of the most complex and controversial figures in history, and this is probably why Forrest Gump does not delve deeper into his life, aside from that brief 40-second scene in the film.

The short sequence presents Tom Hanks in a Ku Klux Klan outfit, wearing a hood and superimposed over scenes from the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation by D.W. Griffith. The last line of the flashback, “Mom said the Forrest part is to remind me that sometimes we all do things that are very good, but make no sense,” simplifies the issue somewhat, but the association remains uncomfortable.

The novel devotes several pages to discussing this ancestor of Forrest and goes into more detail regarding the Civil War general. However, it’s understandable that the film condensed this part of the story. According to Robert Zemeckis, featuring all of this would have diverted too much attention from the rest of the film. Nevertheless, Tom Hanks indeed plays two roles in the movie, portraying two vastly different Forrests.

Forrest Gump is available for rewatching on VOD.