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Forrest Gump has a surprising Kurt Russell cameo you probably missed

Kurt Russell, star of Fast and Furious, the MCU, Big Trouble in Little China, The Thing, and more has a small role in Forrest Gump you might not have noticed.

Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump

Kurt Russell is one of those actors that’s been in more of the best movies than you might realise. His near-60-year career is littered with bit-parts and cameos, little appearances that make for good trivia. One such roles is his uncredited part in Forrest Gump, starring Tom Hanks.

 

In the drama movie, Russell’s role is less ‘blink and you’ll miss it’, and more ‘if you knew it was him he was doing it wrong’. He lends his vocal talents to a brief scene involving the king himself, Elvis Presley. During Forrest’s childhood, he remembers being a major fan of rock ‘n’ roll, and Presley in particular.

Passing by an electronics store while shopping with his mother in the film, Forrest stops to look at one of Presley’s performances on a TV show. The overdubbing sounds remarkably like Presley’s rugged mannerisms, but it was actually provided by Russell. It was actually the second time Russell had portrayed the musician, after playing him in 1979’s Elvis: The Movie. The man was already qualified, why not give him a call for some quick ADR?

Russell’s participation is noted in The Elvis Encyclopedia, a robust compendium on Presley’s life and times, by Adam Victor. By the time the book was published in 2009, Russell had played a Presley impersonator in 3,000 Miles to Graceland. The irony!

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Nowadays, you can find Russell in the Fast and Furious movies. His Fast and Furious character is Mr Nobody, a tech-savvy government agent who handles covert operations and works with Dom Toretto and the team. He’s starred in three of the action movies so far, but he missed Fast and Furious 10.

The highly-acclaimed Forrest Gump was one of the biggest hits of Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis’s career, netting them the Best Picture win at the 1995 Oscars. No heartbreak hotel for them!