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Aug 4

Highlights, Tidbits, and Clips from Band of Brothers 25th Anniversary Symposium Cast & Crew Panels: DAY TWO

PANEL ONE

Kirk Saduski (producer) and Michael Cudlitz (Bull Randleman) moderated the panel.

Actors Ben Caplan (Smokey Gordon), James Madio (Perconte), Dexter Fletcher (Martin), Richard Speight (Skip Muck), Frank John Hughes (Guarnere). Tony To (producer and director), Billy Fox (editor and producer), Remi Adefarasin (cinematographer), Erik Bork (writer of E8 and E10), and Dale Dye (who arrived fashionably late), as well as a video message Graham Yost (writer of E4 and E7).

PANEL TWO

Moderated by Ross McCall (Liebgott)

Tim Matthews (Penkala), Robin Laing (Babe), Shane Taylor (Roe), Rick Gomez (Luz), Matthew Settle (Speirs), Eion Bailey (Webster), and Ross McCall. Producers Ian Schwarz, Tony To, director David Frankel (E7 & E9) and writer Bruce McKenna (wrote E6, co-wrote E4 and e8). There was a video message from Rick Warden (Harry) at the beginning, and another from Nick Aaron (Popeye) at the end.

PANEL THREE

Moderated by Michael Cudlitz (Bull) and Frank John Hughes (Guarnere)

Rick Gomez, Robin Laing, Ross McCall, James Madio, Dexter Fletcher, Richard Speight,, Ben Caplan, Eion Bailey, Tim Matthews, Matthew Settle, Shane Taylor, and, from yesterday’s panels: Rene Moreno (Ramirez) and Peter Youngblood Hills (Shifty). It began with a video message from Scott Grimes (Malarkey) and, at the end, a video message from Damian Lewis (Dick Winters)

Video Message Highlights

- Scott Grimes set the third panel off to a great start, and is worth watching: Here’s a link to the clip

- Damian Lewis's video message at the end is worth watching, too: Here's the link

- Michael Cudlitz was asked to say on behalf of Kirk Acevedo (Toye) that "he really wanted to be here, and up until the last minute thought he was going to make it, but fortunately/unfortunately he is working. But he definitely wanted to be here, and he sends his love."

- Writer Graham Yost dug out a custom shirt that he’d had made during production:

- Graham ended his message saying: “I hope you have fun this weekend, and I'll see you again for the 50th.”

- Rick Warden: “My main hello is to the lads: Hey guys, love you. Love you forever.”

(me: 🥹😭)

GENERAL TIDBITS

- Dexter Fletcher with his to-go cup at the 9 a.m. panel is such a vibe

Tony To: AmyMcKenzie, Terri DePaolo, and Jennifer Jackson were the glue that kept the production running Michael Cudlitz: Basically it was like World War II: the men were running around pretending to do things, and the women made it all happen.

- The scene from Episode 1 in which Sobel denies weekend passes, and the night march scene, were not originally in the episode. They were added after editor Billy Fox advised Tony To that the episode needed more emotional and character moments

- The episodes were shot in the following order: 1, 2, 3, 5, 4, 9, 10, 7, 8

- Their last week of filming was the week of Thanksgiving, and many of the cast threw a party for that Thursday to celebrate, and then the next day they finished filming.

- After filming ended, Matthew Settle had the suggestion that they all burn their Corcoran boots on the airfield in a symbolic fire

- Bruce McKenna, giving a shout out to vets from the book who they didn't have time to focus on (Ranney, Burr, Buck Taylor, etc.): “You could make this miniseries again and focus on other guys in the company, and it would be just as powerful and interesting and dramatic.” (me: i guess i'll file that under 'things i didn't know i needed until just now')

Matthew: My name is Matthew Settle and I played Rufus on Gossip Girl Rick: My name is Rick Gomez and I WISH I’d played Rufus on Gossip Girl

- Baberoe confab

- Luz's line: “That dog just ain't gonna hunt” wasn’t in the script. It was suggested by Richard Speight as he and Rick were rehearsing in the van on the way to set to film that scene

- Eion Bailey shouts out to Webster’s book Parachute Infantry multiple times

- Shane Taylor called Ron Livingston “as sharp in mind as he in in looks.”

- Matthew once carpooled to set with Jimmy Fallon

- James Madio was roommates with Matthew during the filming of Episode 8, and he almost burned down his London apartment. (Madio had left hard-boiled eggs on the stove and left to go shopping. He received a call from the front desk guy, telling him the fire brigade was here, and that: “I’m afraid your eggs have burst.” They had to move because apartment was uninhabitable.)

Dale Dye: I think too much is being made of my contributions… Frank John Hughes: I’m working on a statue for him. The paver (announced yesterday) was first but we’ll get him a statue.

- One time, to get out of coming into work just to be in the background of a scene, Rick lied to Dale Dye and claimed that he had plans to go to Paris for the weekend. Afterwards, having a panic attack from guilt, he went to Ron, who told him: “I don’t know, man, put on a beret and grab a baguette and come into work on Monday.” 🥖 (He, Ron, and Madio ended up actually going to Paris for the weekend, and had a great time.)

- Robin, when asked about characters wished they'd been able to interact w/ more in the show, gave shout-out to Hoobler and his actor, Peter McCabe.

- Robin: I was telling Richard: "You know who is really, really great and underrated in the show?'" and I said: "Pete McCabe." And he went: "Exactly!"

@hooblerism

- Madio: I would've liked to have a scene with some of the actors who only had one or two episodes... Maybe would've liked to have punched Tom Hardy in the face... ("I mean not now, Tom, not now! I know what you do, I've seen you, not now. He’ll tear me apart.")

- Matthew used to drive a Prius

- Richard does a distinctly Muppet-like Tom Hanks impression (watch the full clip here)

- Madio said that his wool coat was so big on him it dragged on the floor, and that his main goal during filming episodes 6 and 7 was just to not let it to be noticed how overgrown that coat looked 🍎🍎🍎

- To recreate the vibe of the guys being pissed off at Webster for being gone during Bastogne and coming back fresh-faced, Eion went off and toured Europe while the rest of the cast were filming Episodes 6 and 7 💀

On Winnix

- Ross (on the crew of characters): You take Winters and Nixon to one side, they’re in a universe of their own

- Dexter: There was a really special relationship between Damian and Ron . . . there was something very special, and dare I use the word magical, about that relationship that they created in the middle of all the kind of craziness that was going on with the rest of us. And that was something personally that I really admired, the kind of easy, really important friendship that those two created . . . We had our camaraderie and our busting each each other's balls and all that sort of stuff, but those two just really stood out for me, and especially when you watch back the series as well, there's something really sort of special and important about that

Michael Kamen and the Opening Score

- According to Tony To, Michael Kamen’s parents were survivors of the Krakow concentration camp, and he was deeply connected to WWII and this story

Madio: Well, oddly enough w/ the score, 25 years later, I still work out to it . . . So don't play it right now, or I’ll start doing push-ups for “General Dye” over here. Richard: I can’t listen to it. It’s too emotional for me. I literally cannot. You're gonna do pushups, I'm gonna cry Michael: I do both. I’m doing push-ups, sobbing- Richard: -you’re crawling away from an imaginary tank

Michael: (The opening score) is stolen a lot. . . You're sort of like, "Oh, that sounds like..." Richard: My wife and I’ll be watching something, and I’m like: “Dah! They ripped off Kamen! I’m out.” And somewhere Jimmy's doing push-ups to the wrong movie.

More Bootcamp Lore

- Ben Caplan (on how it started off): We met, we chatted, we laughed, and then we got told we needed to get changed into uniform. Then the cadre arrived... I just remember a hell of a lot of shouting, organizing us into our platoons, and then getting on a coach, and it was silent. I remember sitting on that coach going to Longmoor… Not a word was spoken for the whole journey.

- Michael: We're a bunch of young jerk-offs, we're not quiet. But nobody’s joking. We're sitting there, we're like:

- Dye: Both Rick and (Michael) could do an imitation of me, and they would do it at the damndest times… Not knowing it was two of them, I said to my cadre guys: "Find out who that little shit is.”

- Madio: (Although absolutely no cameras were allowed) I snuck in a small disposable camera Meg (Liberman) gave me to take some pictures (Frank: “She knew you knew how to handle contraband.”) One time, a flash went off at night, which Michael saw, and he decided to doing an impression of Dale Dye and sneak up on him, and Madio said: “Oh shit, it’s the Cap!” panicked, and threw it out the window

- Madio implied that he still has the photos from that camera ‼️👀

- Dale Dye didn’t know about the little video camera which they gave Ron to sneak into bootcamp (to record the video diary), until Dye was giving a speech at the end of bootcamp, and said: “Geez, I wish we would’ve recorded this,” and Ron said: “We did.”

- Madio: Donnie (Wahlberg) was a good prankster, one of the best. With a straight face, Donnie suggested that it was a good idea for me to ask Dye whether I could call my girlfriend . . . Afterwards, I was like: "I'm gonna kill Donnie,” and I came back, he had a shit-eating grin, like: “That didn't go well, did it?”

- Madio: Matthew was not (*gesturing at him*) this way during shooting in boot camp… I don't know if you were method or what you were doing during boot camp, but you were scary. You were a lunatic. You were unhinged. You were headbutting us, and you were Speirs. I stood far away from you.

- Eion would carry around his rifle around his shoulders like it was the Vietnam War. When he did this, Rick and Richard liked to start singing 'White Rabbit' by Jefferson Airplane (clip of them doing this)

- Ross, telling a story of Shane helping him with an minor injury during boot camp: "Looking at him, I knew he’s an actor, but to me, I would've let him do heart surgery. I was in. I was in, one hundred percent"

- (Richard tells a boot camp story of a memorable joke Scott Grimes had made at Dale Dye’s expense. Everyone’s laughing, and Frank hands the mic to Dale Dye:)

Dye: None of this happened. They were all angels 👼

The Legendary Post-Bootcamp March

- When the guys got off the bus in their uniforms post-bootcamp, Dale Dye immediately made them sing and march around the hangars of Hatfield airfield (which he knew would make the sound echo)

- Tony To: We were watching out the window, we saw you guys going by, and our jaws dropped. It was truly incredible.

- Bruce McKenna: I had the great privilege of being at Hatfield when you cock-of-the-walks came in with your uniforms, singing in cadence around the thing, and it was like everyone said on the last panel- the hairs just stood up on all of our necks. It was unbelievable. And that's when I knew that the show was going to be good.

Dye: And you talk about a panty-dropping unit, that was… they were somethin'. Michael: I drop my panties often. I wanna balance it out. I’m wearing panties right now. No other panty wearers should be offended. Panties are worn. Dye: Say you

- Dye: You could see it in the set of their jaws, and you could see it in their beady-ass eyeballs. These guys were gonna give it everything they could. And I said, if we can just hold onto this, (this show) is going to be a jewel … It’s going to be dynamite. And lo and behold, it was.

On Stunts and Action Filming

- Remi Adefarasin: By the end, the camera team were wearing hockey gear, shoulder pads. I'm not kidding. Running through, slamming up against the foxholes and the trenches. We should've gone to bootcamp. And it was one of the wettest years in England for 75 years . . . (*smiles*) But it was fun.

- On the day they shot the attack on Foy, their regular camera man wasn't available, so they brought out a guy from London who had never worked on the show at all. Everyone ran down the hill, everything was going great, and then the machine gun came out from behind the steeple, and the camera man jumped for cover. They had to say cut, stop, and explain to him: “Those are not real bullets.” And then do the whole take all over again.

- Tim Matthews accidentally injured his head while filming the dike sequence in Episode 5. When Dale Dye saw him and his gushing head wound, he just said: “Penkala, blood on your rifle. I'm sexually stimulated.” 😳

- Dye trained a cadre of “about 50 hard-ass Germans who could do anything,” trained in artillery, infantry, etc., to be there always, in whatever German uniform you put them in.

Dye: “The idea was to be a legit challenge to our guys. These guys would go hard, so our guys would go harder. I wanted (the Germans) to fight back.”

- Frank (discussing the cadre of German soldiers/stuntmen:) We never talked to them, never saw them, didn't eat with them. The only time we encountered them was in the field. . . . It feels real, when they’re an enigma. The panic was so real with these guys advancing, and a tank firing, and the trees exploding over your head.

- Tony: Aside from the 50 German stunt guys, there were no stunt guys. The actors were the stunt guys. There was extensive training for them to be able to go through explosions and bullet hits, and be chased by tanks, etc.

- (On filming he scene in E4 of the tank chasing Bull)

Dye: He looked like he thought it was real and it was gonna run him down Michael: It WAS real and it WAS gonna run me down. Dye: The bastard could crawl quick

On Authenticity

- Tony: We set the environment so you never felt like you have to imagine you’re in places, or that you’re under a certain threat. That was part of the philosophy.

- Speight: This was one of first jobs, maybe only job, where I didn't know where cameras were most of the time. We didn't have conversations about where lights or cameras were. We were just trained to do the things, and to not to give a shit about the camera. Tom Hanks said, early on: “We’re not filming a war movie. We’re filming a war. You fight, we’ll film it.”

- Eion: All of the sets were staggering and made suspension of disbelief easy. You could look in every direction and see nothing that didn't look real. You could never see a side of a stage. It was like time travel.

On the Bastogne/Bois Jacques set

- (One of the first audience questions was about Bastogne- the set and what it was like filming)

Frank, handing the mic to Eion: Wanna tell us what that was like? Eion: Well, because I was wounded in Holland… (Everyone laughing their asses off)

- Ironically, it had been terrible weather all year filming, but the time filming episodes 6 and 7 were during some of the best weather they were going to have all year

- The set of the Bastogne woods that Anthony Pratt made was a 50,000 sq ft set inside one of the hangars, and about 10 feet up in the air. It was set up to control night and day, and the walls were painted, so it looked as though the set didn’t end

- Though they were very hot and sweaty, they had to constantly act as though they were cold, and the actors' puffs of breath were added in special effects

- They brought in “a shit-ton of dirt” for the ground of the forest set

- They brought in around 300 live trees, and the special effects team also put in many fake trees which they could rig to get blown up, etc. (and it was hard to tell which trees were real or fake)

- Ross claimed there were some squirrels, and even a badger 🦡🤨 (Reactions from cast members around him suggested they thought he was full of shit)

On Episode 6

- Dye: Well, one of my favorite episodes is Bastogne, because it was another brilliant performance by Bob Sink, who showed up.

- McKenna: This was the episode no one else wanted to write, and I was excited to write it... but then I had to figure out what to do ,because nothing happens.

- McKenna never looked at the book, never looked at the BoB Bible, but only went and interviewed men for information. Everyone said to him: “Doc was an angel,” “I loved him,” “He was an angel.” Ralph Spina said: “Doc trained me, saved my life more times than I could count.”

- Ross: Talking of Doc Roe being an angel, boy did they cast well. My lord."

- Shane said that, while filming Episode 6, it became his thing to get pumped up and get going (for running around in his scenes), to do a few push ups

(Roenee shippers might want to skip this next part 🙈)

- McKenna: I was instructed when writing it, there should be no notion of romance between them, no horseshit, just pure spiritual stuff. And you guys pulled it off. It was just so beautiful.

On Episode 7

- David Frankel: To help give a notion of how cold it was, we decided that there should be snow always coming down and blowing around in every shot, through the entire episode

- A company called “Snow Business” created the snow effects by spraying tiny bits of paper, soap bubbles, &/or burnt paper (which floats like snow.) There were also fans everywhere, blowing the “snow” around

- None of the original sound is actually in the show! Every single line of dialogue was recorded after the fact and added over it

- One day while filming, a Spice Girl showed up to visit the Bois Jacques set (it was Baby Spice, according to Dexter)

- In Episode 7, Luz's run through the woods (towards Muck & Penkala's foxhole) was built on a soundstage, and it took 4 or 5 hours just to set up the shot and all of the (real) explosives. Rick was given a shit-ton of instructions on the choreography he had to navigate (and to avoid the dynamite), and then remember it all while they filmed the scene. Rick said that he was petrified out of his mind, and just trying to stay alive.

- Tim and Richard were in the foxhole right up until the split second frame before the shell hit, and then they were replaced with model/effigies of Muck and Penkala, which were filled with watermelon, etc.

- Tim: When it happens, it’s incredibly moving and it drives home the sheer absurdity of what these men were faced with all the time in terms of the carnage, and the death, and the maiming that was going on all around them, while the world was burning, and nobody knew what the outcome of that was gonna be. And they’re expected to kinda hold themselves together and get on with it. 🚬

On Episode 9

- Frankel decided to include the infamous sex scene after he interviewed his wife's uncle, who had been a medic in Patton's army. Frankel asked him: "What was something people don't know about, that you experienced personally in April 1945?"

His response was that he remembered the most was the sex. "All these German women who hadn't seen a man in five years. We were these strapping young men who hadn't seen a woman in a year. And it was like an orgy every day."

- The trees used for the woods near the concentration camp WERE in fact the same trees used for the Bastogne set

- Madio was picked to be the one who runs back to tell Winters about the camp they found, because he was the fastest runner at bootcamp

On Filming the Concentration Camp:

- Director David Frankel and producer Ivan Schwarz both discussed their family’s connections to the Holocaust, and their personal experiences on the set and while filming

- Remi: We shot 27 frames per second at the camp scenes to slow everything down slightly to keep it in sync, so every performer looked slightly slowed down, and slightly numb w/ experience

- The set of the concentration camp was kept a surprise to the actors. When the patrol finds the camp, everyone was seeing the camp for the first time, except for Madio (who had seen it for the first time earlier that same day, while he was on set to film the shots of him, Winters, Speirs, and Nixon cutting the bolts to the camp entrance.)

- Frankel: It felt almost like filming a documentary when actors came up on set. There was almost no acting involved. It was just reacting, and capturing those moments.

- Schwarz: Walking onto that set, honestly the only thing I can imagine missing was the smell. That's how real it was.

- Frankel: Before every take, we’d get everybody ready, and (the assistant director) would say: “Remember the stench and devastation! And… action!”

- Frankel: We were there for the better part of a week, and for the first few days, it was like the Museum of the Holocaust. It was as if we really were inside a camp. Everyone whispered, no shouting, setting up everything delicately, almost no lights, etc. Then on the fourth day, the sun came out, and the guys playing prisoners put on their sunglasses. And l remember at lunch, they were singing '50s pop hits or something, sitting on top of the barracks. So there were moments where reality went out of the window.

On the Actors Taking their Job Seriously

- Frank: I was introducing Bill and Babe to Rich and Tim, and said: “This is Skip Muck and this is Penkala.” And Babe, who’d carried the war in eyes all those years, walked up to him and said: “Damn kid, I was there when you got it,” and shook his hand.

And I realized we were ghosts. We were ghosts of these men brought back. We weren’t just names in a war movie. We were playing their best friends.

- Richard: It was not acting, it was retracing. It was a job of recreating what someone else did.

- Richard: There was not an ego involved from the acting standpoint. Never seen it before, never seen it since. . . It wasn't about screen-time. You're doing it to honor your guy.

On Continuing Connections to the Vet’s Families

- When the cast was asked who is still in touch with their vet's families:

- Rene only just was able to meet Joe Ramirez's family (his granddaughter) a year and half ago. (She didn't know he was part of Easy, the book, any of it.) She showed Rene her grandfather’s scrapbook, what he wrote, and it turned out that he was a poet, an artist, and a romantic

- Shifty’s daughter Margo taught Peter how to drive

- Robin’s oldest son is friends with Babe Heffron’s great-niece on “Snapchat, or TikTok, or whatever the hell it is those kids do.” 👴🏻

More Babe and Bill Lore

- Frank: “I’m still open to meeting a few more Guarnere kids from when he was on leave in London”

He told a story in which picked up Guarnere at the airport, and after he landed, he went outside the airport for a cigarette. He was leaning against the wall, with his hat all cocky, smoking a Pall Mall, and he was going to the women going by: "Hiya, sweetheart. I may be your father."

- Frank: Bill and Babe (coming to set), it was like Lennon and McCartney. As big as this production was, they shut it down. Everything stopped.

- McKenna, while researching and doing interviews with the vets, etc. early on, once spent 4 days in a drunken stupor with the guys from Easy

“Bill and Babe's room was like Led Zeppelin had been in there.” 💀

- Schwarz: I’d call Babe and, every time, Robin can attest to this, every time I was getting off the phone with Babe, he asked me if I needed any money, was I alright? (Robin grins and makes an expression, like: “Yeah, that tracks.”)

Schwarz: -and every time I would see him, he would try to slip me some money

Robin:

I’m guessing Babe wasn’t offering him money 😂

LAST BUT NOT LEAST... WEBGOTT

PANEL TWO

- Straight out of the gate, Eion gets this big goofy-ass grin when Ross McCall was introduced. After which, Eion leaned over to say something to Ross and they smiled together like doofuses (here's the clip)

- In the middle of a discussion on filming the camp scene in episode 9, Ross goes to direct a question to Eoin, and instead starts flirting with him, which begins a whole exchange (here's the full, UNBELIEVABLE clip)

- After answering aforementioned question, there's more flirting

Me, meanwhile: i think i ship Eion and Ross now? RPF of the guys who’re playing the guys I ship, who’re based on real guys? It’s RPF within the RPF… It’s like RPF-ception 💀

- and more flirting

also, whatever this is:

- Ross: There's joy in (episode 9) too. There’s Webster and Lieb goofing around in the deuce and a half, getting into it. (me: 😏)

PANEL THREE

- Ross and Eion went out to dinner the night before filming the hilltop scene

- There's various moments of them (especially Eion) smiling fondly at one another, getting weird looks from their co-stars, and laughing at things together