Just as Forrest Gump famously said, \u201cLife is like a box of chocolates \u2014 you never know what you\u2019re gonna get.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s certainly true for one former child star who appeared in the classic family film \u2014 and he\u2019s currently being\u00a0hailed as \u201cunrecognizable<\/a>\u201d upon resurfacing years after leaving the industry.<\/p>\n All grown-up now, Michael Conner Humphreys, 38, played the younger version of\u00a0Tom Hanks\u2019 title character<\/a>\u00a0in the 1994 film \u201cForrest Gump.\u201d<\/p>\n Humphreys was just 8 years old when he played the titular character, cast from an open call to play Forrest as a child.<\/p>\n However, 29 years on from participating in cinematic history, he decided the spotlight wasn\u2019t for him \u2014 instead choosing to finish school, then enlist in the US Army, spending four years as an infantry soldier, which included an 18-month tour of duty in Iraq.<\/p>\n He completed his military service in 2008.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Humphreys said his parents never pushed him to pursue a career in acting, as he doesn\u2019t think \u201cHollywood is a healthy lifestyle for kids,\u201d and his family wasn\u2019t interested in uprooting from their native Oregon to life-in-the-fast-lane Los Angeles.<\/p>\n \u201cBack then, my parents just let me decide for myself what I wanted to do next, and they never pushed me to pursue other acting roles,\u201d he\u00a0told the Sun,<\/a>\u00a0adding he \u201cmainly wanted to have fun and play with my friends.\u201d<\/p>\n