"Before the shooting of 'Band of Brothers' began..."

The first thing they did for us was they set up a 10-day actor boot camp.
They train us the same way they train military people.
It seems, the only difference was if you say, "Screw you," in real boot camp, they can throw you in jail.
If you say, "Screw you," in actor camp they can't put you in jail they call Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

40 actors attended 10 days of military-style boot camp.
Preparing:

They gave us these jump boots. They felt like they were made out of like corrugated tin when we first got them. We were going to run in them.



One of the guys who played hockey said:
"Stick them on your feet. Stick them in a tub full of hot water and then wear them that night, and if you can, sleep in them. And by the morning, they'll fit well."

This was the first day everyone was together and nobody knew what to think.

Everybody's apprehensive about meeting Captain Dale Dye.
He's basically carved out a franchise niche as military adviser to the movies.



He and his company had been involved in pretty much every war movie that's been made. There are stories floating around. We knew all the guys in Private Ryan mutinied and wanted to quit, you know, halfway through.

Everybody had a different story and something different to expect.

The next thing we did is getting sent to wardrobe.
There's an airplane hangar just filled with racks of uniforms.

Webbing is that, you know, G.I .Joe kind of harness backpack.
Use that to hang stuff off of you.
You get all suited up and it's like, "Damn, I look like a soldier."
To a soldier you don't look like a soldier, but you think you do.

So we're standing in the commissary in Hatfield, ready to get on the bus... and in come the sergeants.

Sgt. Edmiston: "From here on out, you're no longer called by your civilian name.
What you came in as, is no longer you. Use the name you're going to have throughout this picture."

I, of course, am dutifully recording the whole thing for HBO and posterity when the cadre, the sergeants who apparently haven't been notified by HBO... that this is gonna happen, see it.

Sgt. Farnsworth: That camera you're using, put away. Ron Livingston: Okay.

I had to put it away for a couple of days. There's a gap of about four days that no one's ever gonna see.

Sgt. Farnsworth: When you reply to somebody, it's, "Yes."
Get used to it, "Yes."
If you're British, "Yes."
If you're American, "Yes."
Not, "Yeah. Yep. Yo. What's up, yo? Dog."



All that stuff's gone. 1940, right? Start using it.
If somebody says, "Sergeant Farnsworth, here’s the captain"... when I see him, I'll attention, salute, and you will stand at attention.

He'll tell us to stand at attention, chew our ass, make us do push-ups.

Sgt. Farnsworth: I like that you're smiling, it won't last.

Rick Gomez "Luz": We're so fucked.