How Tom Hanks Helped Haley Joel Osment Through Forrest Gump's Final Scene

The end of Robert Zemeckis' 1994 mega-hit "Forrest Gump" saw the titular character, played by Tom Hanks, presented with a young son he didn't know he had. Forrest — "not a smart man" as he says — had spent the bulk of the film attempting to declare his love for his childhood sweetheart Jenny (Robin Wright), who was often kept out of his life by their differing circumstances. He went off to war, she went off to protest. Forrest was finally able to state his love out loud when they found themselves in each other's company again as adults. A few years thereafter, after yet another separation, Jenny returned again, this time with six-year-old Forrest Jr. The film ends with Forrest and his son living together. Jenny, sadly, dies from complications with AIDS. 

The young Forrest Jr. was played by child actor Haley Joel Osment, a performer who would come to great acclaim five years later in M. Night Shyamalan's ghost story "The Sixth Sense," and who would star in Steven Spielberg's "A.I. Artificial Intelligence." "Forrest Gump" was Osment's first film role, and Zemeckis reportedly discovered him after he appeared in a Pizza Hut commercial. 

Osment has continued to act into adulthood, appearing in Kevin Smith's horror film "Tusk," and has played multiple animated characters on TV and in video games. He can most recently be seen in the 2023 film "Somebody I Used to Know." 

Back in 2015, Osment was interviewed by "Today" about his experiences working on "Forrest Gump" when he was only six years old. He recalls a vital meeting with his co-star and his director wherein he was given his final memorable lines. 

In the final scenes of "Forrest Gump," we see the father and son waiting for a school bus to arrive. Forrest Jr. says that he intends to bring an old copy of Margaret and H.A. Rey's "Curious George" to school for show-and-tell, as his grandmother used to read it to him. Forrest Sr. says that it remains his favorite book. Upon opening it, a feather — a central symbol of "Forrest Gump" — falls out. When the bus arrives, Forrest Sr. lets his son know that he loves him, and the boy moves to get on. The bus driver (Siobhan Fallon Hogan) looks askance at Forrest Jr., asking him if he knows what he's doing getting on a bus. The child answers that he does indeed, laying out a few details. Satisfied, the bus driver lets him on. 

Osment recalls that his scene was written by Zemeckis and by Hanks in a last-minute meeting between the three of them, at a point when the final scenes were quickly being workshopped. Evidently, he and Hanks were called into Zemeckis' trailer where Osment said, "Tom wrote down my lines on a piece of yellow legal paper." That impromptu script page made its way into Osment's personal collection. "My parents kept it around, and I still have this little piece of film history," he said. He posted a picture of the page in question to his Instagram account in 2014. 

When asked if Hanks was as kind and as generous as his reputation dictates, Osment confirmed, saying that "He truly is." Osment referred to Hanks as his "first great cinema dad." 

There were once talks about a "Forrest Gump 2," which would have starred Hanks and, presumably, Osment, but those plans dried up in, literally, about 40 minutes.