What Happened To Forrest Gump’s Young Forrest Actor After The Movie

Summary

• Michael Conner Humphreys continued acting after Forrest Gump, then enlisted in the Army, and is now a teacher in Oregon.
• Humphreys avoided child stardom, prioritized a normal childhood, and pursued a degree in international relations after the film.
• While Tom Hanks was the main star of Forrest Gump, Humphreys’ performance as young Forrest set the tone for the iconic movie.

Though Michael Conner Humphreys is best known for playing young Forrest in Robert Zemeckis’s 1994 film Forrest Gump, he went on to have an interesting career after the production. While Tom Hanks is the film’s main star, portraying the adult Forrest Gump as he meets real-life figures and innocently encounters American history in real-time, Humphreys’s performance sets the tone at the beginning of the film. The Oscar-winning movie is famous for its stellar cast and iconic quotes from Forrest, both young and old.

When he was eight years old, Humphreys attended a casting call that was reportedly for “a young Tom Hanks with light eyes and a quirky disposition.” Due to his southern accent and fitting appearance, Humphreys was chosen to play the younger version of Forrest. Humphreys and Hanks worked closely to make sure the child and adult characters resembled each other, with Hanks drawing on Humphreys’ real accent for the Forrest Gump character. Hanks and the rest of the Forrest Gump cast went on to star in many other movies. However, after the film, Humphrey’s career made a surprising divergence.

What Michael Conner Humphreys Appeared In After Forrest Gump

Humphrey Carefully Stepped Out Of The Limelight

After Forrest Gump, Humphreys took a break from acting and went on to receive a high school education. He intentionally tried not to become a child star at the time. In a 2019 retrospective interview with The Sun, Humphries said, “I don’t think Hollywood is a healthy lifestyle for kids, and you do not have a childhood or mature quickly.” He successfully returned to a normal childhood after the film, honoring his acting roots with high school theater.

Like his counterpart Gump in the film, Humphreys enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2004. He completed an 18-month deployment in Iraq and worked at an Army base in Kansas until 2008. Calling on these experiences, Humphreys returned to the screen for one more film, the independent World War II drama Pathfinders: In the Company of Strangers, in 2011. In 2021, he appeared in an episode of the television series Knight’s End. And in 2024, Humphreys competed on Fox’s mystery singing show, I Can See Your Voice.

Forrest Gump
is streaming on Paramount+.

What Michael Conner Humphreys Is Doing Now

Humphreys Continues To Live A Low-Profile Life As A Teacher

Overall, Humphreys did not return to Hollywood acting after the success of his first film. After his time in the Army, Humphreys received a degree in international relations from the University of Northern Alabama. He works as a teacher in Oregon, leading a primarily low-profile life. With a major lifestyle change, Humphreys has ensured his performance in Forrest Gump remains a remarkable and iconic part of his professional history.

What Michael Conner Humphreys Has Said About Working On Forrest Gump

The Former Actor Had A Negative Experience With Fame

Michael Conner Humphreys has given a handful of interviews regarding his experience working on Forrest Gump in the early 1990s and the press and awards that followed its premiere. In January 2021, Humphreys sat down with SNACK to catch people up on his life and reflect on the set of the Tom Hanks movie. Humphreys, explaining what happened once he got cast as young Forrest, said:

“We went to film. My mom took me for months to do that, and my dad was back at home taking care of my two younger sisters. He had to leave his job to take care of my sisters during those few months while we were filming. I did the shooting in the middle of ’93, and then I was essentially involved with it for the next two years.”

It sounds as if Humphreys had a pretty normal time on the set of Forrest Gump. However, doing press and attending awards shows is what took up most of the young actor’s time and seemingly defined his experience in Hollywood. Thankfully, Forrest Gump 2 never happened because, as a child actor, Humphreys did not enjoy his time in the spotlight. Humphreys told SNACK:

“Because of the experience I had, I became very anti-celebrity. Just the idea of fame, and all my experiences with it, have been really negative. I think you can either be really famous, and you get the benefits, or you are constantly at the bottom scrounging for it, and that is kind of what I saw as a kid. I just wanted to have nothing to do with it.”

What Happened To Forrest Gump’s Other Young Characters

Hanna R. Hall Played Young Jenny

Michael Conner Humphreys was not the only child in the cast of the Robert Zemeckis movie — Hanna R. Hall starred as the younger version of Robin Wright’s character in Forrest Gump and Haley Joel Osment starred as Forrest Gump Jr., Forrest and Jenny’s son. Unlike Humphreys, Hall and Osment continued their acting careers after Forrest Gump. As of the writing of this article, Hall and Osment are still in Hollywood, with Osment seeing a lot of success.

After starring as the younger version of Wright’s character in the 1994 comedy-drama, Hall notably portrayed Cecilia Lisbon in Sofia Coppola’s psychological romantic drama The Virgin Suicides and played Judith Myers in the 2007 remake of Halloween. Meanwhile, Osment is most known for starring as Cole Sear in The Sixth Sense, which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Nevertheless, Hall and Osmey will always be remembered as young Jenny and Forrest Gump Jr., respectively, in the cast of Forrest Gump alongside Humphreys.

Sources: The Sun, SNACK