Tom Hanks Forced Changes To Forrest Gump & Saving Private Ryan

Tom Hanks recalls how he refused to let Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump play into his "nice guy" persona. Tom Hanks, his characters in Saving Private Ryan and Forrest Gump would 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. 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.”

Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg said, “I don’t think I want to see John Miller fire his gun and kill Germans.” I told him: “I’m sorry, Steven. You’re not going to get me all the way over here and turn me into some other guy just because you don’t want Tom Hanks to kill soldiers.” We had this same moment in Forrest Gump. There’s the scene with the ambush in Vietnam, and Bob Zemeckis originally wanted Forrest to be confused and run away. I said, “Bob, why am I playing a soldier who is really good at his basic training without then showing me slapping in my clip and firing a set of rounds?”

Zemeckis and Spielberg wanted Hanks’ characters to shy away from violence. Even at that point in his career, the actor had built himself a reputation as not only a great performer, but also somewhat of a family-friendly figure. This has continued in one form or another to this day, and while it comes in handy for believable performances in movies like A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, it is far from the only persona Hanks can inhabit. Another aspect of what makes him so popular is the edge he displayed in roles like Gump and Miller, which helped cement his status as Hollywood royalty. Without his performance, Forrest Gump would have been a worse film, and his emotional arc as Saving Private Ryan's Captain Miller is crucial to the movie's current acclaim. A key element of these characters is their fallibility, meaning that had they been squeaky clean, they would have made less of an impact. It is therefore to the benefit of all moviegoers that the star spoke up when he did, and gave two of his best characters.