diff --git a/docs/misc/changelog.rst b/docs/misc/changelog.rst
index b9bffb8c..52c862d1 100644
--- a/docs/misc/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/misc/changelog.rst
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ New Features:
 
 Bug Fixes:
 ^^^^^^^^^^
+- Do not call ``forward()`` method directly in ``RecurrentPPO``
 
 Deprecations:
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
diff --git a/sb3_contrib/common/maskable/distributions.py b/sb3_contrib/common/maskable/distributions.py
index 52d1d709..b1bf92e2 100644
--- a/sb3_contrib/common/maskable/distributions.py
+++ b/sb3_contrib/common/maskable/distributions.py
@@ -110,9 +110,10 @@ class MaskableCategoricalDistribution(MaskableDistribution):
     :param action_dim: Number of discrete actions
     """
 
+    distribution: MaskableCategorical
+
     def __init__(self, action_dim: int):
         super().__init__()
-        self.distribution: MaskableCategorical | None = None
         self.action_dim = action_dim
 
     def proba_distribution_net(self, latent_dim: int) -> nn.Module:
diff --git a/sb3_contrib/ppo_recurrent/ppo_recurrent.py b/sb3_contrib/ppo_recurrent/ppo_recurrent.py
index bdc3b85c..0c32e97a 100644
--- a/sb3_contrib/ppo_recurrent/ppo_recurrent.py
+++ b/sb3_contrib/ppo_recurrent/ppo_recurrent.py
@@ -239,7 +239,7 @@ def collect_rollouts(
                 # Convert to pytorch tensor or to TensorDict
                 obs_tensor = obs_as_tensor(self._last_obs, self.device)
                 episode_starts = th.tensor(self._last_episode_starts, dtype=th.float32, device=self.device)
-                actions, values, log_probs, lstm_states = self.policy.forward(obs_tensor, lstm_states, episode_starts)
+                actions, values, log_probs, lstm_states = self.policy(obs_tensor, lstm_states, episode_starts)
 
             actions = actions.cpu().numpy()