Forrest Gump: The Actors Who Almost Played Bubba

Forrest Gump’sarmy best friend is the lovable and now-iconic Benjamin Buford “Bubba” Blue, but which other actors almost played the role before it was snagged by Mykelti Williamson? Bubba, a Southern Black man with Autism-spectrum disorder, appears in the most substantially fleshed out historical event in Forrest Gump: the Vietnam War. After enlisting in the 47th Infantry Regiment in 1967, Forrest is onboard the bus to basic training when he meets Bubba, who offers him a seat. Throughout their time in the army, the two become best friends, and Bubba even enlists Forrest as his First Mate for the shrimping business he plans to start after the war.

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Tragically, Bubba gets killed by the Viet Cong – but not before he inspires Forrest to found the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company with their platoon leader Lt. Dan Taylor and later give Bubba’s share of the profits to his mother. Things might have played out differently for Bubba had Williamson not taken the role. In the original Forrest Gump novel and the first draft of the screenplay, Bubba was much smarter, snarkier, and was more of a big brother than a best friend to Forrest. However, Williamson had other ideas. He suggested making Bubba only slightly smarter than Forrest and also have a heart of gold, making the characters more equal. These changes to the original material helped establish a tighter and more heartwarming connection between Bubba and Forrest Gump.

While there’s no question that Williamson made the character of Bubba his own, he wasn’t the first actor who was considered for the role. Before finally settling on Williamson, Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis had several actors in mind for playing Bubba. One of them was comedy legend Dave Chappelle, who turned down the role because he felt Bubba’s name and character had racially demeaning connotations.

According to Hollywood, comedian and actor David Alan Grier also turned down the opportunity as he wasn’t interested in playing a character with Autism-spectrum disorder. “Listen, if I’m going to be playing a mentally challenged person, I got to be the lead, I can’t be the mentally challenged sidekick.” A similar reason was given by rapper and actor Ice Cube, for whom playing Bubba would’ve also been a stretch from his previous tough-guy roles. Notably, after Forrest Gump won several Oscars and saw massive box office success, both Grier and Chappelle regretted not playing Bubba. And while Williamson had some difficulty taking on more roles after Forrest Gump, he eventually rebounded and bagged roles in series like Justified and Lethal Weapon and movies like The Purge: Election Year.

Interestingly, Williamson isn’t the only actor who wasn’t the first choice for their role in this award-winning film. In fact, Forrest Gump’s original casting plan placed veteran actor John Travolta in the titular lead role instead of Tom Hanks. However, Hanks, who previously won an Oscar for his role in the legal drama Philadelphia, proved to be a much better fit for the now-iconic character.

In the end, it seems that director Robert Zemeckis and his crew made the right casting choices for Forrest Gump. Although he wasn’t the first choice to play Bubba, Williamson greatly contributed to the character’s development as Forrest’s best friend. Meanwhile, Hanks actually funded the film’s production and even opted to get paid through the film’s box office gross in place of a salary. The dedication that these actors have shown for their respective roles definitely helped Forrest Gump become one of the most iconic dramatic films in history. In fact, after nearly 30 years since its release, Forrest Gump fan theories continue to circulate online. And though a sequel never came to fruition, a Hindu language remake of Forrest Gump titled Laal Singh Chaddha is releasing by the end of 2021.

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