Michael Conner Humphreys. Remember him?
He was the child actor who played a young Forrest Gump on the big screen. Only, unlike many young stars that break into Hollywood before they can even legally drive, Humphreys didn’t stay long. He took gigs here and there, but when he was 18 he joined the Army and fought in an unpopular war.
Today, Humphreys is less than a month shy of completing his enlistment and he says he is ready to head back to the silver screen. And he won’t have to wait long before he gets paid to do so. According to Humphreys, he has already landed a role in an independent film, playing, ironically enough, a solider.
The movie, called “Pathfinders,” tells the tale of the brave men of the 504th Parachute Regiment who jumped into Normandy on D-Day to disrupt German activities and secure a way to safety for their own comrades. Humphreys will be playing the part of Eddie Livingston, one of the original pathfinders.
Producers say it’s a small part, but that makes no difference to Humphreys who is planning to attend the University of North Alabama once the movie wraps. At this point Humphreys says he is keeping his options open.
“If acting snowballs and it goes somewhere else, that’d be fine,” he told reporters.
In the meantime, Humphreys says not a day goes by without him recalling the fond memories he made while shooting “Forrest Gump.” The young actor remembers it as “a great experience” in which he learned “a lot” from the movie’s stars Tom Hanks and Sally Field, who played his mother.
Humphreys said he chose not to move to L.A. to pursue an acting career following “Forrest Gump’s” release mainly because he liked school and loved living in the South. Humphreys says he turned down quite a few offers and in the end opted to follow his dream of serving his country in the Army. He enlisted in 2005 and was trained as an infantryman assigned to a tank battalion and spent a year in Iraq’s dangerous Anbar Province.
A long way from Hollywood.