Forrest Gump, is that you?
A photograph of Queen Elizabeth II has gone viral on Twitter after people spotted someone they lightheartedly suggested was Tom Hanks’ iconic character in the background.
Valentine Low, the royal correspondent for The Times of London, on Tuesday tweeted this picture he took of the British monarch’s surprise visit to Paddington Station to officially open the new Elizabeth tube line, named in her honour.
There, behind the queen in the background, is a man who at first glance could pass for Gump in scenes from the hit 1994 film in which he finds himself witness to historical events.
Low “wasn’t looking at the background” when he took the picture, he told HuffPost. “I was concentrating at the queen, who is looking pretty good for 96.”
Twitter user @SkillsMcGill was among the first to highlight the man’s presence.
“I had to zoom right in to check if this was Forrest Gump,” they tweeted. The post has now garnered more than 300,000 likes.
“I just noticed the image of someone furtively lurking at the back and zoomed it to see what was going on there,” the Twitter user, who did not reveal their full name, told HuffPost.
“Lo and behold ‘Forrest’ is looking back at me and it instantly just appeared as a still from some time hopping deleted scene from the film.”
“It really is rather lovely to imagine being some way responsible for making many people smile, that seems quite important right now, more than ever,” they added.