Tom Hanks paid for iconic 'Forrest Gump' scene out of his own pocket

Tom Hanks had to personally pay for an iconic scene in Forrest Gump to be shot after the studio couldn't cover it.

During an episode of In Depth with Graham Bensinger, the actor revealed that director Robert Zemeckis was keen to shoot Forrest running across America but that they couldn’t secure the funding.

Hanks, who played the unforgettable character in the 1994 feature, said that he and Robert came together as "soulmates" to make the scene happen.

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He told Bensinger: "We called it The Run and I said, 'Why is he talking to me? He’s the boss I’ll do whatever he says. This is above my paygrade.' And Bob came and we talked and he said: 'Look, you are Forrest Gump, you’re the title role in this. I need you to be not an actor but my soulmate. I will open up the cuts and talk about every aspect of the post production of this with you if you will be my collaborator and not just my employee.'"

"I said, 'Deal, let’s do that' He said, 'Well this run is going to cost X amount of dollars' and it wasn’t cheap. I said 'Okay you and I are going to split that amount and we’re gonna give it back'. He told the studio, Paramount, at the time that the scene would be paid for, but it would have to 'share the profits a little bit more'."

"To which the studio said, 'Fabulous, great, okay, it’s good for us too.' It happened again, they said 'We can’t get the insurance so you can’t shoot' and Bob and I said, 'Okay we’ll cover the insurance', and we did. So it ended up being very easy after that."

According to the publication, the movie went on to make $683million (£535m) at the box office, and it’s been estimated that Hanks made $65m (£50m) from it in profits. It's safe to say it paid off.