It was the first and only time the Corps has promoted a retiree. Jones promoted Ermey to E-7, Gunnery Sergeant, the rank he became so well-known for. But it was in 2002, that Marine Corps Commandant James L. He was medically retired for the injuries he received during his service. He rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant after spending 14 months in Vietnam and doing two tours in Okinawa. Ermey is the only Marine to be promoted after retiring. Kubrick never gave him input on what a drill instructor might say. Interestingly enough, Ermey wrote the insults he hurled at the Marines in the film. He taped the interviews he did as Hartman and Kubrick cast him after seeing those tapes. He got the job as technical advisor because of his other roles in Vietnam movies. They already hired another actor for the part but Ermey had a plan to get the part. Hartman while interviewing extras for the film. He wasn’t supposed to be in “Full Metal Jacket.”Įrmey was doing his job as technical advisor, reading the part of Sgt. R.Coppola also hired him as the film’s technical advisor for all things military. “That’s all I ask.” I left it in his hands. “I want you to play Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. When I walked in, Stanley was sitting there with the kind of big, old shit-eating grin on his face as only he could muster. The next morning, sure enough, I had a call right away to report to the production office. He did that every night, reviewing the day’s work. I knew that Leon would give the tape to Stanley, and that he would be looking at it late that night. This is working.” I only stopped when the camera ran out of tape. After a couple of minutes, I noticed Leon had stopped focusing on the recruits and was pointing the camera at me. I had people with their pants down at their knees, people sucking their thumbs, people doing pushups. With Leon on the video camera, taping the candidates for Stanley’s benefit, I started working down the row. “Smokey” hat I picked up from our wardrobe department, and since I wore Marine Corps dungarees and a duty belt every day, I looked the part. ![]() “Forget what I will be saying about your mothers and fathers.” I explained to the recruits when I lined them up in platoon formation that I was going to come at them like a true Drill Instructor. Stanley had to approve every last detail of the picture, including still-shots of the prospective extras and our videotapes. We were about to start selecting and videotaping candidates to be background extras in the film. Leon and I were getting along so well that I thought I could ask him for a favor. To me, he seemed more like a son to Stanley than an assistant. I had been working closely on the film with Stanley’s Number One Assistant, Leon Vitali, who had been in Stanley’s movie Barry Lyndon. The Marine Corps had not taught me to roll over and play dead. The Marine Corps had not taught me to establish a beachhead and then give it up. Now in England to work on the movie, I did not allow Stanley’s rejection of me auditioning for the Gunnery Sergeant Hartman role to last very long. About a week and a half later, I got the call: “Lee, we would like you to join the film as Technical Advisor. The “outline” I promised Stanley became a 20-page book report that I express-mailed to him ASAP. He had talked to Sid Furie about me and gotten my number from him. Stanley told me he had been watching a lot of Vietnam movies, and my name kept cropping up. Stanley Kubrick was one of the hottest directors in the world, with films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Spartacus and The Shining. I had thought, “Yeah, right.” It was some guy from the office dicking around with me, I suspected. Our telephone conversation had started with Stanley saying, “Hello, Lee. The idea was entirely a product of my own ambition. The role of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman was to die for.īack when he had called me at my home in Illinois, Stanley had never mentioned any possibility that I might play Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. I had put myself into position for acting roles in my three previous movies- Apocalypse Now, The Boys in Company C and Purple Hearts-and I thought I could do it again. I had joined the film company only a short time before, but I fully expected my bid to audition to be met with success. We were in his office on the set of Full Metal Jacket at Pinewood Studios outside London. Stanley Kubrick had hired me to come to England to act as Technical Advisor on the film, and that was it. He already had his Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. The famed director told me he would not give me an audition for the role of Drill Instructor Hartman in Full Metal Jacket.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |