‘Saving Private Ryan’ Anniversary: 9 Things You Might Not Know About the Epic War Film

The Actors Were Sent to Boot Camp

Real-Life Training: Steven Spielberg took a realistic approach to the film, and he wanted the same for his actors. Tom Hanks and his team, including Ed Burns, Tom Sizemore, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, and Jeremy Davies, were sent to an intense, week-long boot camp run by Capt. Dale Dye. Dye, a 21-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps. Dye had previously worked on a number of Hollywood films, including Forrest Gump and Platoon. 

“A regular soldier does four months of boot camp and these guys did six days. But I wanted to put them through boot camp not just to familiarize them with how to hold a weapon and how to clean and fire it—but because I wanted them to respect what it was like to be a soldier,” Spielberg told Roger Ebert in an interview about the film. 

The D-Day Opening Took Over A Month to Film

The Beach Shoot: The 24-minute opening sequence of the film depicts the landing of American troops on Omaha Beach in Normandy on D-Day, putting the audience right on the boats with the soldiers as they storm the beach. The graphic scene has explosions, bullets flying, and blood splattering everywhere, and it took a long while to shoot—over a month for just filming that scene, according to an interview with Spielberg for the Directors Guild of America. 

“I had to shoot this sequence one step at a time because that’s the way the Rangers took the beach: one inch at a time. As a result, I was able to make up this whole sequence as I went along,” Spielberg said in the interview. “I don’t mean the whole history or the narrative of what happened on June 6, 1944, but literally to come up with shots on the spur of the moment and not a month ahead of time. It helped make things a little more chaotic and unpredictable.”

Matt Damon Didn’t Go Through Bootcamp

Spielberg’s Strategy for Damon: Steven Spielberg sent his main group of actors to a military-style bootcamp before production started—but he didn’t send Matt Damon. In the story of the film, the group of soldiers sent to track down Damon’s Private Ryan are a little pissed off and resentful they have to put their lives on the line to save a random soldier, mainly because Ryan will be able to go home due to his other brothers having been killed. That decision helped make the resentment feel realistic.

“They started to harbor that kernel of resentment, ’cause I wasn’t there,” Damon told Entertainment Weekly in an interview. “These guys are lying facedown in the mud, and I’m, you know, in a bubble bath in America. When I showed up on set, a lot of that resentment just translated right onto the screen.”

Steven Spielberg Handpicked Vin Diesel for a Role

Spielberg’s Casting: Before he became a worldwide superstar, Vin Diesel had a part in Saving Private Ryan as one of the members of Tom Hanks’ team that helped track down Private Ryan (Matt Damon). Diesel was reportedly picked for that role by Spielberg himself after the director was impressed by Diesel’s performance in Multi-Facial, a short film that was written, directed, produced, and scored by Diesel. “That was the most bizarre form of recruitment I’ve ever experienced,” Diesel previously told Yahoo! Movies. 

The D-Day Scene Cost $12 Million and Had Over 1,000 Extras

Major Production: For the D-Day invasion scene, Spielberg wanted to recreate Omaha Beach as accurately as possible. The production used Ballinesker Beach in Ireland for the majority of the shoot, installing period-accurate barriers on the beach as well as barbed wire and military pillboxes where the German soldiers fired on the oncoming American troops. Over 1,000 extras, including Irish soldiers and actors, were used in the scene, and Spielberg allowed some parts to unfold naturally, according to an interview with the Directors Guild of America. 

It’s (Sort of) Based on a True Story

Real-Life Inspiration: While the story of the Ryan brothers in Saving Private Ryan is not directly adapted from a real story, it takes inspiration from multiple stories about brothers in war from American history. Writer Robert Rodat used the story of eight members of the same family during the Civil War as inspiration, according to an Entertainment Weekly feature on the film. The story is also similar to the Niland brothers, who were four brothers who served in WWII. It was first believed that only one brother survived the war, but later another was discovered alive in a POW camp, according to the Smithsonian Channel. 

Robin Williams Helped Matt Damon Get His Role

Robin Connection: When Spielberg was ramping up for Saving Private Ryan, actor Matt Damon was on his way to stardom after winning an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay alongside Ben Affleck for writing Good Will Hunting. Damon worked with Robin Williams on that film, and that friendship led Williams to introduce Damon to Spielberg before Damon won the award. The rest is history. 

“Robin Williams introduced us,” Spielberg told Roger Ebert. “I thought he had a great American everyboy look, and he was also a fine actor. Who knew he was gonna go off and become a movie star overnight and win the Academy Award for screenplay? And not be the anonymous actor I had in mind? But he looked the part. You know, the people in World War II actually looked different than people look today. A lot of the people I cast in this picture, I was looking at their faces, to match the faces I saw on the newsreels.”

Spielberg Shot the Movie in Chronological Order

From Beginning to End: Even though Steven Spielberg had to deal with recreating period-specific sets and using all kinds of complicated props, vehicles, and stunts, the director didn’t cut any corners while shooting the film. While it may have been easier at times to shoot sequences when it would best serve the production, Spielberg went chronological. In an interview with Roger Ebert, Spielberg said, “It was a mentally demoralizing experience for us, because we shot in continuity, from beginning to end. We were all reliving the story together.”

Tom Sizemore Could Have Been Fired

Before production on Saving Private Ryan, actor Tom Sizemore had been dealing with drug addiction issues, and Steven Spielberg made sure to let Sizemore know he wouldn’t tolerate any mistakes. Sizemore told the Daily Beast in an interview that Spielberg told him that if he tested positive for any drugs that the director “would fire me on the spot and shoot all 58 days that I’d worked over again with someone else.”