Forrest Gump (character) childhood friend Jennifer Curran, who eventually becomes his wife. Tom Hanks portrayed the character in the film and earned an Academy Award for his performance, while Michael Conner Humphreys portrayed Forrest as a child. In 2008, Forrest Gump was named the 20th greatest movie character of all time by "Empire" magazine. Forrest was born near the small town of Greenbow, Alabama, on June 6, 1944. His father was absent during his life, and his mother said he was "on vacation". His mother named Forrest after their ancestor Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Scotch-Irish American and a noted Confederate general in the
Carissa Gump Carissa Gump Carissa Gump (née Gordon) (born August 24, 1983 in Stone Ridge, New York) is an American weightlifter. She is a multiple-time American record holder, a five-time consecutive American Open champion (2002–2006), and a resident athlete of the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She is also the wife of Jason Gump, a competitive weightlifter who placed fifth for the 94 kg class at the 2003 Pan American Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Gump represented the United States at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where she competed for the women's middleweight category (63 kg), along