Tom Hanks’ 1994 American Classic Needed Robin Williams’ Help

Tom Hanks is one of the most successful film actors of our time, and in the mid 1990s, he was on a streak few other Hollywood stars have known. He wasn’t just making hits like Sleepless in Seattle and Toy Story, but was also the driving force behind Oscar-caliber movies. With Philadelphia and Forrest Gump, he won back-to-back Oscars for Best Actor. The latter is still one of his best performances, despite now being controversial to some, because of Hanks’ acting talent, along with the directing skill of Robert Zemeckis and the screenwriting abilities of Eric Roth.

In total, Forrest Gump won six Academy Awards, including for Best Picture, along with Zemeckis and Roth receiving recognition for their contributions. It wasn’t all smooth sailing, though. In one of Forrest Gump‘s most pivotal scenes, Roth was so stumped about how to write it that he turned to Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, and Jon Lovitz for help, only to discover that they couldn’t crack the code either.

An Important Moment Has Forrest Gump Speaking at an Anti-War Rally

Forrest Gump, based on Winston Groom’s novel of the same name, tells the story of a man with intellectual disabilities who rises above his supposed expectations to do great things. Throughout the movie, Gump meets Elvis Presley and John F. Kennedy, plays football at the University of Alabama, and marries the love of his life, Jenny (Robin Wright). The most dramatic moments belong to the second act, where Gump joins the Army and serves in the Vietnam War.

When he returns home to America, Gump receives the Medal of Honor and meets activist Abbie Hoffman (Richard D’Alessandro) as, in full military garb, he accidentally stumbles on a rally against the Vietnam War. In front of tens of thousands, Gump walks up to several microphones to speak, only for his big moment to be silenced when the microphones are cut off. He keeps speaking, but no one in the audience can hear him. That’s not how the scene was supposed to play out, yet it’s what Zemeckis and filmmakers settled on when they were conflicted on how to write it.

Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, and Jon Lovitz Tried To Rewrite the Scene

Eric Roth, who also wrote Munich, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Dune, spoke about how the Forrest Gump scene was supposed to happen on the Pardon My Take podcast. The screenwriter wanted to write something serious that mirrored how he felt about Vietnam. However, Zemeckis didn’t like the approach and said, “You either have to write the greatest dramatic speech ever written, like a Shakespeare thing, or something really funny.”

After Zemeckis turned down the most dramatic speech he could think of, he went the funny route. Roth said, “I’m not, by nature, a comedian — so I asked Billy Crystal to try — he tried it. Robin Williams tried it. I think John Lovitz tried it. Anyway, a bunch of comedians I knew quite well tried it and it didn’t work.”

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In the end, Zemeckis decided to just scrap the whole speech, and because Roth “never wrote the whole thing properly,” the scene plays out with Forrest Gump, caught up in a line he doesn’t understand, being brought on stage for the rally. He stands there for a moment, not knowing what to do, when Abbie Hoffman instructs him to tell us about the war. Gump thinks about it for a second and says, “Well, there’s only one thing I can say about the war in Vietnam. In Vietnam—” At that moment, an Army officer unplugs the mics, cutting off Gump, who continues to speak unheard. When the mics are plugged back in, Gump is finishing his short speech, which leaves Hoffman next to him, the only person who could hear what Gump was saying, moved.

The Scene Works by Not Knowing What Forrest Gump Is Saying

Image via Paramount Pictures

Several sources report that Tom Hanks apparently revealed what he was saying during this cutoff speech. If it’s to be believed, when Hanks is speaking, his silenced words are, “Sometimes, when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don’t go home at all. That’s a bad thing. That’s all I have to say about that.” If true, it’s a pretty short speech for a scene that lasts several seconds longer, unless Gump is speaking very slowly.

This also doesn’t align with what Eric Roth said. Perhaps Tom Hanks is really saying something as a placeholder for the scene, but whatever it is doesn’t matter. What Gump’s reported words are would be heartbreaking and accurate, no doubt. Still, the scene works better by not knowing. Forrest Gump is such a complex character, a seemingly simple man who lives an extraordinary life. He experiences the impossible, which means his big speech, living up to the hype of the scene, is impossible as well. Is he being deadly serious, a man more aware than others know, or is he accidentally funny because he’s oblivious to his surroundings?

Neither scenario truly fits Forrest Gump, even if Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, or Jon Lovitz were writing the scene. He is an unpredictable character during an unpredictable time. It’s more powerful for the audience to not know what his words are, but because it’s Forrest Gump saying them, to know it must be great either way.