How Tom Hanks Forced Changes To Forrest Gump & Saving Private Ryan
According Tom Hanks, his characters in Saving Private Ryanand Forrest Gumpwould have been very different had he not intervened. It wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to say that Hanks is one of the most iconic American actors of all time, having played a number of characters that have become Hollywood classics. Hanks has shown off his talents both in front of and behind the camera, while also displaying his ability as a television producer on the Band of Brothers miniseries, considered a small-screen gem.
Two of Hanks’ most memorable characters came from working with two of his most important collaborators. In 1995, Hanks portrayed the title character in Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump, the decade-spanning story of a mentally handicapped man who witnesses the most important moments of 2oth century American history. Forrest Gump won Best Picture at the Oscars, while Hanks scored his second Best Actor win just one year after he had won his first. Hanks then closed out the '90s with Saving Private Ryan, a war film from Steven Spielberg in which the actor played the caring and enigmatic Captain John Miller.
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However, those roles would have been very different had Hanks not pushed back against both Zemeckis and Spielberg. In an interview with the New York Times, Hanks describes how both directors wanted his characters to be more pacifistic and play into his clean public image, but the actor couldn’t see how it would be possible, particularly because both Miller and Gump are military men. He says he wasn’t going to let Spielberg drag him all the way out to the Saving Private Ryan set and make the U.S. Army captain not fire his gun because “you don’t want Tom Hanks to kill soldiers.”
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