David Alan Grier refused to audition for Forrest Gump

Actor David Alan Grier still regrets turning down the role of Tom Hanks’ best friend in Forrest Gump.
The star was offered the role of Bubba Blue in the Oscar-winning film, but he turned it down because he didn’t like the fact the character went on and on about being a shrimp boat captain.
“My manager sent me a script and she said, ‘I want you to read this. The lead character is a mentally challenged man; his best friend is mentally challenged’,” Grier told U.S. late show host Busy Philipps on Monday (26Nov18). “Now already I’m funky. I’m like, ‘Listen, if I’m going to be playing a mentally challenged person, I got to be the lead, I can’t be the mentally challenged sidekick.”
“It was Forrest Gump,” he continued. “So I read 20 pages (of the script) and I said, ‘Listen man, I’m not going in on this. He’s talking about shrimp the whole d**n movie, no. I don’t get it’. She called me three times, she said, ‘The director (Robert Zemeckis) loves you, everybody (loves you)’.”
However, after he saw Mykelti Williamson’s performance as Bubba, he knew he should have auditioned.
“Cut to a year later, we’re in New York, same manager, said, ‘Let’s go see the movie’ and seven minutes in I’m like (crying), ‘D**n, he’s talking about shrimp, it’s in my soul, I feel it’. I was like, ‘Why didn’t you (convince me to take the part)?’ She’s like, ‘Shut up, I sent you that script three times, you never went in (to audition)’.
“That was a lesson learned. It was all on me, I screwed that up.”