This is what the kid who played Forrest Gump looks like now

Film fans have an odd fascination with childhood movie stars: an insatiable interest in "what does X from that cult film Y look like now?", pondering if yet another actor has fallen foul of the Macaulay Culkin curse.

Take Michael Humphreys - the boy who played the younger iteration of Tom Hanks in 1994's Forrest Gump. 

The internet merry-go-round has recently thrown Humphreys' story back into the limelight, with Twitter users spreading an old story of what happened to the young actor after he hung up the iconic leg braces. 

Unable to afford the trip to the Academy Awards, Humphreys and his family watched Tom Hanks & co pick up six Oscars from the humble comfort of their own home. 

"At the time I wasn't sure if I wanted to go or not, but it would be a different situation now," he told the Daily Mail. "I would try and go. As an eight-year-old I didn't mind, that's the perspective, I guess, of a child."

Humphreys was able join the film's promotional tour of the UK, Germany and Japan - but declined several high-profile film roles for a life in the military.

Where we were filming was very close to Parris Island, the Marine Training Camp in South Carolina where all the helicopters that were used in the Vietnam scene came from.

"I would often tell the director and producers how cool I thought all the helicopters were and then one weekend they actually arranged for some of the Marine Corps to take me over to Parris Island and show me the fighter jets," Humphreys told the Mail. "It was definitely one of the little perks of working on the movie. It was basically all the stuff that regular kids my age would never have got the opportunity to do, and I can honestly say that experience directly motivated me to join the military later."

Much like Forrest, Humphreys joined the military, serving a tour of Iraq before enrolling at the University of North Alabama in 2008. He's since picked up another acting credit in the (less successful) Pathfinders: In The Company Of Strangers. 

Life. It's like a box of chocolates for some people.

(Images: Rex)