diff --git a/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/dispatch/AbstractDispatcher.scala b/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/dispatch/AbstractDispatcher.scala
index abb5495b45..91a875a442 100644
--- a/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/dispatch/AbstractDispatcher.scala
+++ b/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/dispatch/AbstractDispatcher.scala
@@ -381,7 +381,10 @@ object ForkJoinExecutorConfigurator {
              unhandledExceptionHandler: Thread.UncaughtExceptionHandler) = this(parallelism, threadFactory, unhandledExceptionHandler, asyncMode = true)
 
     override def execute(r: Runnable): Unit =
-      if (r eq null) throw new NullPointerException else super.execute(new AkkaForkJoinTask(r))
+      if (r ne null)
+        super.execute((if (r.isInstanceOf[ForkJoinTask[_]]) r else new AkkaForkJoinTask(r)).asInstanceOf[ForkJoinTask[Any]])
+      else
+        throw new NullPointerException("Runnable was null")
 
     def atFullThrottle(): Boolean = this.getActiveThreadCount() >= this.getParallelism()
   }
diff --git a/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/dispatch/Mailbox.scala b/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/dispatch/Mailbox.scala
index b7c1d7104c..ef0d09fca3 100644
--- a/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/dispatch/Mailbox.scala
+++ b/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/dispatch/Mailbox.scala
@@ -11,8 +11,8 @@ import akka.actor.{ ActorCell, ActorRef, Cell, ActorSystem, InternalActorRef, De
 import akka.util.{ BoundedBlockingQueue, StablePriorityBlockingQueue, StablePriorityQueue, Unsafe }
 import akka.util.Helpers.ConfigOps
 import akka.event.Logging.Error
-import scala.concurrent.duration.Duration
-import scala.concurrent.duration.FiniteDuration
+import scala.concurrent.duration.{ Duration, FiniteDuration }
+import scala.concurrent.forkjoin.ForkJoinTask
 import scala.annotation.tailrec
 import scala.util.control.NonFatal
 import com.typesafe.config.Config
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ private[akka] object Mailbox {
  * INTERNAL API
  */
 private[akka] abstract class Mailbox(val messageQueue: MessageQueue)
-  extends SystemMessageQueue with Runnable {
+  extends ForkJoinTask[Unit] with SystemMessageQueue with Runnable {
 
   import Mailbox._
 
@@ -228,6 +228,21 @@ private[akka] abstract class Mailbox(val messageQueue: MessageQueue)
     }
   }
 
+  override final def getRawResult(): Unit = ()
+  override final def setRawResult(unit: Unit): Unit = ()
+  final override def exec(): Boolean = try { run(); false } catch {
+    case ie: InterruptedException ⇒
+      Thread.currentThread.interrupt()
+      false
+    case anything: Throwable ⇒
+      val t = Thread.currentThread
+      t.getUncaughtExceptionHandler match {
+        case null ⇒
+        case some ⇒ some.uncaughtException(t, anything)
+      }
+      throw anything
+  }
+
   /**
    * Process the messages in the mailbox
    */