If you ask me, Forrest Gump is one of the best movies ever made.
With its fantastic acting contributions from actors such as Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise, as well as its spine-tinglingly good script, the movie is a classic that will truly never grow old.
Of course, some of the stars in the cast may not be as familiar now, when we fast forward to 2022.
Take Jenny, for example, the love interest of Forrest Gump. No one could ever forget her shouting ”Run, Forrest, run!” – and yet after the movie, the young actress who played her slowly disappeared from the spotlight.
Now, I’ll admit that I’ve not thought about Jenny for a long time, but I came to do so after seeing Forrest Gump recently. Though she’s not in Hollywood anymore, it turns out that that cute little girl who played Jenny as a child has grown up into a gorgeous and talented woman!
Forrest Gump premiered in 1994 and since then, the movie has brought so much enjoyment to so many people. In my opinion, the movie is very much a love story – firstly a love story between Forrest and his caring momma, and then a love story between Forrest and his childhood sweetheart, Jenny Curran.
The young Jenny was played by Colorado native Hanna Rose Hall. Hanna was born on July 9, 1984, a date she shares with Tom Hanks, who was born on the same day in 1956.
Hanna was born in Denver, though when she was two, her family moved up to the mountains. After that, Hanna attended the Colorado Rocky Mountain School in Carbondale, until she graduated in 2002.
By then, though, she had already established herself as one of the most promising young stars in Hollywood. When Hanna was just seven, she went to an open casting call for Forrest Gump, held by talent agent Nina Alexrod.
That audition would change her life forever. As Forrest Gump said: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.”
“Actually, it was very random. Nina Axelrod, my manager, was tired of LA and moved out to Colorado to teach classes and she had a relationship with an agency that she would get represented by and she had an open casting call in the newspaper when I was seven years-old,” Hanna said.
She also revealed that she would never have landed the role of Jenny – if she had listened to her mother.
“My mother didn’t want to take me. It was a Sunday afternoon and she really didn’t want to go, so I went with some friends and Nina ended up liking me. They called me back a couple of times and sent my tapes from Colorado to LA and they ended up casting me.”
Even though Forrest Gump is a very light and warm film on the outside, it also contains dark thematic elements. The same goes for the character of Jenny, whose life journey – much of which is seen in the movie – is hardly a walk in the park.
The producers even cut out many scenes that dealt with the mistreatment that happened to Jenny when she was younger.
“I had read the whole script. I was about 8 years old and I understood the full extent of the character’s journey and what she had been through,” Hanna told HollywoodChicago.
Hanna’s path to becoming an actress was somewhat different from the norm. For a start, she didn’t do a lot of TV commercials, as most child actors tend to do when they want to pursue a career in acting. Even so, she liked to play theater in front of her friends, and obviously had great talent.
“I loved doing that with my friends while growing up. It wasn’t a career that I was necessarily interested in at the time, but it was definitely something that I always enjoyed doing. I was so young that I don’t think I even questioned it. That first film was a very organic experience,” she said.
There is no question Forrest Gump catapulted Hanna into stardom, and many people thought she had a bright future in Hollywood. The movie was a perfect showcase, and the young blonde actress even won the Young Actors Award for her performance.
Thanks to one of the most resounding lines in movie history, people still remind her about “Run, Forrest, run!” Indeed, that’s a phrase has followed Hanna followed throughout her whole life.
“Oh yeah, definitely. [laughs] It’s fun to hear other people say it in public, not knowing who I am. As a kid, it was an interesting experience,” she explained in the 2012 interview with Hollywood Chicago.
A few years after her breakthrough with Forrest Gump, Hanna landed her next big role when she appeared in the iconic Sofia Coppola movie The Virgin Suicides, which premiered in 1999. Hanna first screen-tested for the role of Lux Lisbon (eventually played by Kirsten Dunst) but filmmakers thought she was too young for the role, so cast her as Cecilia instead.
Once again, Hanna portrayed a dark character in a movie with some very troubling themes.
“I read the script when I was 13, and I just knew that I had to be a part of that film,” Hall told House of Horrors.
The film marked Sofia Coppola’s directorial debut. After shooting the classic movie, Hanna hailed Coppola for her work on set.
“Sofia was wonderful. She really listened to me and the rest of the cast when it came to working on the characters,” Hanna said.
“As an actor, you don’t always feel like the director cares about what your view of something is.”
After graduating high school, Hanna relocated to Hawaii and lived in Los Angeles for a brief period. She eventually moved to Canada to attend Vancouver Film School. Studying at the private film school was a big contrast for Hanna, who was used to huge Hollywood budgets and star-filled casts.
In Vancouver, Hanna learned to see movies as a “collective art form”, and began to understand that every actor is just a tiny part of something much bigger.
“It takes the ego out of being an actor when you realize that the overall product is not solely about your performance,” she told Hollywood Chicago.
Her time at the film school also ignited an interest in directing and producing her own movies. But she continued to work as an actress, and could be seen in several independent films during the 2000s.
One of her most well-known roles came when she starred as Judith Myers in the cult-movie Halloween, directed by Rob Zombie.
“Honestly, he’s one of my favorite directors. He and his wife are the most intelligent, classy people I’ve ever worked for,” she said.
After Halloween, Hanna appeared in the independent comedy American Cowslip (2009), appearing opposite stars like Val Kilmer, Diane Ladd, and Cloris Leachman. She has also had guest roles on famous TV series like Criminal Minds and Masters of Sex.
Jenny from Forrest Gump today
According to The International Business Times, Hanna Hall, aka little Jenny from Forrest Gump, started working as a theater director in Venice, California in 2012.
She directed underground plays at the Electric Lodge Theater and set up a play called Astral Dick: “A psychedelic absurdist comedy noir that is very dark, very funny.”
Today, Hanna works for Intimacy Professionals Association as an intimacy coordinator on different movie sets and TV series. One of her most recent jobs was on Netflix’s Tall Girl sequel.
“Hanna’s background as both a performer and working behind the camera in production gives her a unique perspective for understanding the needs of all parties involved. She believes that promoting a safe environment is what allows for the highest level of creativity possible,” the Intimacy Professionals Association writes on their site.
According to IMDB, Hanna hasn’t been featured in a movie or a series since 2019. It seems she is focusing on her job behind the camera, though obviously she’s still involved with film and television.
Do you remember Jenny from Forrest Gump? Personally, I will never forget her and the movie. It’s so much fun that she still has a career in the film industry and seems to enjoy what she does.
Good luck in the future to you Hanna! You look splendid.
