Gary Sinise on How Playing Lt. Dan in 'Forrest Gump' Changed His Life - Pickler & Ben

[Applause] now we have a photo of you with your Apollo 13 cast tell us about that tell us about this photo ah see that airplane back there that's a kc-135 tanker for your Air Force guys out there is so it's a tanker and they they kind of gut the tanker in there and they put all this padding inside and then the tanker goes up to about 40,000 feet and then it it falls like this straight down toward the earth the bomb it comet right all the vomit common and it falls for about 25 seconds and you experience weightlessness so you see us there aha the little white things are little plastic bags Oh each one of our pockets just in case you might need one of those plastic bags so of course we come back and everybody has two plastic bags except for me I came back with one plastic bag it's not just you go up one side you have to do it multiple kit they go right in 50 times right like this 50 times like that and at about 42 I just had to sit down grab my plastic bag yeah put strings on you like Peter Pan and make you look like you're floating and some CGI do you really have to go in the vomit comment well you know that's where Ron that's Ron Howard next to me there on the end he got the idea to put the cameras in there yeah Oh after this trip and when he shot the movie they went up two weeks in a row and did that and shot actual weightlessness in the in the movie so when you see the gloves floating around things floating around in there that's actual zero gravity for 25 seconds they would shoot 25 second bursts like every day for two weeks Wow first up was a game changer for you wasn't it well yeah no question I think in in in many ways it was a career changing role I hadn't done that many movies up and up until that point I'd made a movie of Of Mice and Men which the Steinbeck novel which kind of got the attention I think of the Purdue and the director and they asked me to come and audition for Forrest Gump I am veterans of my family on both my side the family my wife's side of the family Vietnam veterans on her side of the family in the 80s I started working in support of our Vietnam veterans in in the Chicago area so when the opportunity came along to audition for a Vietnam veteran in Forrest Gump I very much wanted to do that it was lucky to get the audition heard about three weeks later then I got the part we shot the movie this is actually the first scene that we shot in them this was the first scene the first scene that I shot that was my first day it's the day where the boat crashes in the dock oh yeah the movie came out it changed the course of my career and it also began a relationship with a disabled american veterans organization right they asked me to come to their National Convention about four weeks after the movie open and they wanted to present me with an award for playing what they considered catastrophic ly injured veteran then in a positive way it is a positive story lieutenant Dan's okay in the end he's moving on with his life he's successful in business he's standing up and you know I mean that's the story that we want from memories for every single veteran returning from the battlefield we want him to be able to move on and be okay and do well and succeed and and that story of a Vietnam veteran returning from war and being alright hadn't been told him before right prior to that the movies that had come out that depicted Vietnam veterans you always have this question in your mind whether the veteran was gonna be okay deer hunter coming home or Hockley like a platoon you just didn't know if that veteran was gonna be alright at the end of forrest gump he pulls up in the limousine and they were married in these well and he's he makes some money on shrimp people still call you lieutenant dan all the time right everywhere you go you know when I started on my first USO tour overseas to Iraq it was June of 2003 I didn't have a national television show at that point I'd done some movies but everywhere I was going on that trip nobody knew my name they just knew a Lieutenant Dan so they were calling me that all the time so when I created my band and I started taking a band out there I thought well I want people to know who's coming so let's just call it Lieutenant Dan band and I love it [Applause] you

Channel: Pickler and Ben

Views: 585,037

Rating: 4.9273152 out of 5

Keywords: Kellie Pickler, Ben Aaron, Nashville, Daytime TV, Talk Show, Pickler & Ben, Country Music, Funny, Television, DIY, Home Decor, Cooking, Recipes, Good News, Gary Sinise, Military, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Veterans

Id: HuAbq1GtsQk

Length: 5min 14sec (314 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 27 2019