Tom Hanks reportedly earned a whopping $40 million for his role in the Oscar-winning movie Forrest Gump.
The Hollywood actor, 66, starred in the hit movie and won his second Best Actor Oscar in a row for it.
The film is an adaptation of Winston Groom’s then-little-known novel of the same name, which became both the highest-grossing film of 1994 and won Best Picture at the Oscars.
Tom earned $40 million for starring in the film after negotiating a specific clause in his contract in which he took home his earnings based on a share of the box office receipts rather than a lump sum for his acting role.
Tom and Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis both made extra money after each invested their own money to keep scenes in the film that Paramount Pictures were unwilling to pay for.
Impressive: Tom Hanks reportedly earned a whopping $40 million for his role in the Oscar-winning film Forrest Gump
Official data on Hanks’ earnings has never been shared, but it is believed that the star could have taken home a total of $60 million in earnings for his role in the film.
The film was produced on a modest budget of $55 million, but took the box office by storm, earning $330.4 million domestically and $678.2 million worldwide.
Forrest Gump was nominated for 13 Oscars, winning six for Best Picture, Best Actor (Hanks), Best Director (Robert Zemeckis), Best Adapted Screenplay (Eric Roth), Best Film Editing and Best Visual Effects.
Tom revealed last year that he wasn’t entirely sure about the now-iconic bus bench scenes.
Hanks was promoting his new movie Elvis in an interview with CinemaBlend, when he admitted that he didn’t think anyone would be interested in Forrest Gump’s bus bench scenes.
The scenes on the bus bench formed the basis for the film, with Hanks’ title character telling strangers several stories throughout his incredible life.
Career: The Hollywood actor, 66, starred in the hit film, winning his second straight Oscar for Best Actor
Still, he never quite understood the weight of these scenes, saying he wasn’t sure how they would be used in the film in the first place.
“I’ll tell you that in Forrest Gump, we just used all the footage we shot on the park bench in Savannah, Georgia, as fodder for a possible story,” Hanks admitted.
“And I said to Bob (Zemeckis), ‘Is anyone worried about this note sitting on a (bench)? What is this? No one knows what’s in this (box), I mean,'” added Hanks to it.
“We ended up filming, it was probably thirteen pages of dialogue that we had to shoot in a day and a half,” Hanks admitted.
“It was on cue cards, (and) I didn’t need the cue cards after a while because you get caught up in them,” Hanks said, before revealing what the director told him about the scenes.
But Bob says, ‘I don’t know, it’s a minefield, Tom, it’s a minefield. You never know what people are going to take from it!’ And eventually it becomes, you know, that thing,” Hanks said.
Fan Favorite: The film is an adaptation of Winston Groom’s then-little-known novel of the same name, which became both the highest-grossing film of 1994 and won Best Picture at the Oscars
Tom has appeared in no fewer than 85 films in his 50-year career.
He said he thinks only four of them were “quite good.” But the Hollywood heavy refused to name them.
Besides Forrest Gump, some of his top movies were Big, Sleepless In Seattle, Philadelphia, Saving Private Ryan, You’ve Got Mail, Cast Away, A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, and Elvis. His next movie is Pinocchio.
“I’ve done a lot of movies, and four of them are pretty good I think, and I’m still amazed at how movies come together. From the flickering of an idea to the flickering image on the screen, the whole process is a miracle,” he told People.