Mykleti Williamson was relatively unknown when he landed the role of Bubba in “Forrest Gump,” a role that would send him straight into major cinema and out of the episodic television guest star roles he had grown accustomed to. Before casting it, the producers of “Forrest Gump” tried to find an actor that audiences would be more familiar with, and in addition to rising star Dave Chappelle, David Alan Grier also said no.
A film and Broadway veteran, Grier was best known in the early 1990s for his role on “Boomerang” and his four-year stint on Fox’s popular comedy series “In Living Color.” “Forrest Gump,” starring Tom Hanks and directed by “Back to the Future” director Robert Zemeckis, would have been Grier’s highest-profile gig, but he still pulled it off. “I’m like, listen if I’m going to play a mentally handicapped person, I have to be the lead, I can’t be a mentally handicapped sidekick,” Grier told “Busy Tonight” in 2018 (via JustJared). “So I read 20 pages and said ‘listen man, I’m not getting into this. He talks about shrimp the whole damn movie. Although Zemeckis asked Grier to play the role three times that Hanks also wanted him for the film, he still passed. “I messed that up,” Grier admitted.
Mykleti Williamson was relatively unknown when he landed the role of Bubba in “Forrest Gump,” a role that would send him straight into major cinema and out of the episodic television guest star roles he had grown accustomed to. Before casting it, the producers of “Forrest Gump” tried to find an actor that audiences would be more familiar with, and in addition to rising star Dave Chappelle, David Alan Grier also said no.
A film and Broadway veteran, Grier was best known in the early 1990s for his role on “Boomerang” and his four-year stint on Fox’s popular comedy series “In Living Color.” “Forrest Gump,” starring Tom Hanks and directed by “Back to the Future” director Robert Zemeckis, would have been Grier’s highest-profile gig, but he still pulled it off. “I’m like, listen if I’m going to play a mentally handicapped person, I have to be the lead, I can’t be a mentally handicapped sidekick,” Grier told “Busy Tonight” in 2018 (via JustJared). “So I read 20 pages and said ‘listen man, I’m not getting into this. He talks about shrimp the whole damn movie. Although Zemeckis asked Grier to play the role three times that Hanks also wanted him for the film, he still passed. “I messed that up,” Grier admitted.