When the cameras rolled on the set of Forrest Gump, few realized that Steven “Stevie” Griffith, whose memorable role as the supporting character, Tex, had strong connections to Greenwood, South Carolina.
Those acting skills were honed at Lander University as a theatre major.
Griffith brought his Southern charm and authenticity to the Oscar-winning classic, carving out a special place in film history. During one of the most dramatic scenes of the movie, Gump, portrayed by legendary actor Tom Hanks, rescues several of his platoon mates during an ambush in the Vietnam War. One of those characters was Tex, the first soldier rescued by Gump.
“We had no idea that the movie was going to be as big as it was,” said Griffith, who discussed the filming of the movie during an interview from his home in California. “We sat all day in the rain. I was so miserable but so excited to be in the movie. They filmed it as realistically as if we were in Vietnam.”
The actors dug their own foxholes, dined on military-issued MREs (meals ready to eat) and received field training from Vietnam War veterans. Even his Army helmet had been used in Vietnam. “The experience was like a dream. When you are there on the set, you want to do your job first and foremost. I didn’t want to be the one to mess things up.”
Griffith, a Greenville native, attended Lander from 1979 to 1983, where he became immersed in all areas of stage productions, even learning to build sets. It was a skill requiring precision and creativity behind the scenes that he’s often used during his storied career.
Griffith’s first professional acting job was portraying a young Abraham Lincoln in summer outdoor theater productions and other theaters in the Midwest from 1983 to 1986. After performing with the Cincinnati Playhouse, he earned his Actors’ Equity union card, which enhanced his opportunities to advance his career professionally. In 1988, he moved to New York, where he starred in commercials for well-known companies, such as Citibank and Visa, and began writing plays. His play, Tower, won an award from the Drama League Of New York and later was produced by TheatreWest in Florida.
While many actors wait tables between gigs, Griffith found work as a carpenter to create the very worlds others perform in. “This was important because I needed to be able to go to auditions during the day,” he said. “I built 16 sets at Lander, and that helped me start my dual career as a carpenter. I found a way to work and go to auditions.”
He also became interested in writing and perfecting his woodworking skills while building his career as an actor and a set designer. When a friend encouraged him to return to the South and pursue work in the region’s burgeoning film industry, he moved to Atlanta. He landed television roles in the series, Heat of the Night, for which he was personally cast by the late actor Larry Hagman, and the TV movie, Scattered Dreams, with Tyne Daley and Alicia Silverstone. He also had a role in the 1993 film, The Program, a sports drama starring James Caan and Halle Barry.
It was a call from his agent that led to an audition for Forrest Gump, a movie that made Tom Hanks an Oscar winner. Griffith said his cousin convinced him to go.
“This was the role that changed my life,” said Griffith, who was on the set for three weeks. “We were outdoors all the time. We had the best crew you could get from Hollywood. People were so supportive of each other.”
In an interview with Garden & Gun magazine, Griffith said, “The greatest day of my life as an actor was the filming of the scene when Forrest finds me in the ravine … Tom and I had to sit there all day, waiting for the golden hour to shoot. At the end of shooting, he signed out and was walking away, and then he came back to tell me that I had done a great job that day. That meant everything. His generosity. That’s Tom Hanks.”
Griffith was eager to continue his career in Hollywood, where he had a variety of roles. In 2004, he was cast in the film, Our Very Own, starring Allison Janney and Keith Carradine.
But one of the greatest opportunities came when he began working as a carpenter for Walt Disney Imagineering, where his talents have resulted in the creation of immersive environments for Disney guests from around the globe.
A highlight was building the first prototype for Disney’s MISSION: Space, a NASA-styled mission to Mars. Over the course of a decade, Griffith worked on more than 30 attractions for Disney parks throughout the world.
Griffith returned home to Greenville in 2015 to help care for family. Once again, his creative talent found him at work in his own custom design and fabrication workshop, dubbed Texwood. He built museum exhibits, escape rooms and theatrical sets.
Throughout the many variations of his career, Griffith became increasingly committed to writing. “As an actor, you can’t really control your career,” he said. “But when I’m writing, I can control everything.”
Last year, he returned to Los Angeles. His play, The Florida Room, was one of 17 out of 700 selected in 2025 for production by the Road Theatre Company Summer Playwrights Festival in Los Angeles. The story centers on a woman's quiet regimented life, which is disrupted by the return of her two grown sons. All are forced to face a tragic past of ghosts that haunt them once again with echoes of childhood trauma.
In a career that has put him on stage and screen with many of the world’s leading actors – and behind the scenes on many memorable projects – Griffith comes back to his memories of Lander.
“Lander was an immersive experience in all of the arts. It was a magical place,” Griffith said. “I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if I had not gone to Lander. I had opportunities there that I would never have had at a larger university where I was competing with more people. These opportunities have been part of my career for decades.”