Happy birthday to Alex Penkala. There has been some debate as to whether he was born on the 30th or 31st but interviews with his family use the 30th.
Alex joined the paratroopers in 1942 and became close friends with his fellow mortar man Skip Muck with whom he is pictured. Alex Penkala was killed at Foy on January 10 1945 when the foxhole he and Skip Muck were in took a direct artillery hit. He was only 20 years old
Alex Penkala was played by Tim Matthews. I know many of the actors look like the people they portrayed but to me this is one of the closest of all
#35 in my Things In Band series. Things In Band: Things that were real life moments, but changed just slightly for the show ❤️
^ This actually happened to Babe in Holland, he had no idea why he didn't throw the grenade in the house this one time.
^ Janovec was in an accident where he died, but Webster was brought to the medics to identify Janovec. He was distraught over Janovec's death, because Janovec was with him since Holland 😭
^ This one is already correct but they don't show it, so I'm adding it. Alley landed on a fence on someone's farm on D-Day, which had glass lining the top of it. He slit his arm all up the side of it, then was hit again before the attack on the dike.
^ This was kind of true. Luz was in fact in charge of separating the food between the platoons, however, Webster and Cobb (and McCreary, who they don't mention in the show) were the ones arguing with Luz for the food.
^ Lieb usually was the one to kick everyone out of their houses for the guys to billet, however this situation specifically in Germany was actually Webster and "The Camera Killer" (A Captain Web mentions in his book, but never mentions by his real name).
^ After this moment, Webster was not helped by other guys back to base. He crawled (injured) all the way back across the dike and to a village a few miles away, where he ate dinner at a home in Holland with a random family, before being picked up by other soldiers.
^ Webster did say "You don't have to Salute the Germans." But it wasn't to Janovec, it was to Trapuzzano (another paratrooper you don't see)
^ Jackson did not hit himself with his own grenade. A German grenade fell from the 3rd floor of the building they were entering and hit him. (Jackson was awesome and super underrated in the show. Just saying.)
^ Martin did not lead this patrol. It was actually lead by Mercier (who they do not introduce in the show).
Was a blast. The last time I went to one of these was in Bastogne, in 2016, which was a massive event. Hundreds of people, about 20 actors, and just a kind of frantic energy that made me super nervous when we got to pose for photos with the guys. Not so this time. I got there really early and I saw them come in. Doug Allen, Mark Lawrence and Matthew Leitch shook hands with me and introduced themselves. Tim Matthews was there with his twelve-year-old (I think?) son. Everybody just hung out and chatted to everybody before the event began. There were about forty people in the audience. There was a Dutch guy dressed in a paratrooper uniform. Also, for some reason, a US Marine sergeant and his daughter; I guess they were friends with somebody there, but it seemed really random. Everybody applauded when he got introduced. It didn’t impress me that much tbh. *cue Shania Twain*
Sadly Ross McCall couldn’t make it and Mark Lawrence (Les Hashey) had to pull out as well. But the four of them made for a great evening. Matthew Leitch started out asking questions to his castmates and then halfway through the evening the audience could ask questions. I can’t really remember which order everything was said in, so I’ll just list what I recall.
The first question Matthew asked was I think about taking things from the set. Apparently Nolan Hemmings carted away a truckload of stuff (grenades, uniforms, …) but these guys only took their dog tags from their respective characters. Doug Allen had a sweet story about lending his Alton Moore tags to a cousin who did two tours in Afghanistan as a good luck charm; he wanted him to give them back. Lo and behold, the cousin came back, and Doug gave the tags to somebody he knew who had cancer, with the same motivation. He told us she’d just been given the all clear, the cancer was gone, and everyone cheered.
Matthew asked Tim what it was like having to deal with Scott Grimes and Richard Speight all day. Tim grinned and said it was fun, but he couldn’t keep up with them. There was lots of singing apparently, they tried to get a barbershop song into the show but they couldn’t get it in, probably because of the inappropriate (but period-typical!) lyrics.
They talked about casting for a bit, who read for who; Matthew and Mark had read for Lt. Jones, Tim had read for Roe (I think). Doug talked about sitting on a bench in front of the hotel where Tom Hanks was staying in Piccadilly, London, thinking about how his parents had tried to stop him from acting, and thought, if this guy cannot spot any talent in me, I’m giving it up. And of course he could spot talent!
They also talked about what it was like having to play guys who had long been dead when filming started, which was the case for all of them. Mark talked about playing Dukeman, visiting his family in the States, and how he got his army number tattooed on his arm (see the pic below). He then talked about how Dukeman had been a part of his life for such a long time and how lots of things had happened because of him; for example, his wife watched Band of Brothers, fell in love with him and then he married her, had children etc. Awww. On the battlefield tour, which was yesterday, he was going to see where Dukeman had died for the first time in his life.
Tim said he knew very little about Alex Penkala, and more things came to light during filming. Alton Moore had practically no family left and he’d been dead for years, so Doug didn’t have much to go on either. Matthew talked about only learning more about Floyd Talbert as filming got underway. For example, he got a call from Floyd’s brother moments before he filmed the opening scene in Carentan, where he talks to Blythe. (“That’s why I looked so dazed in that scene.”) He also learnt from this brother later on that when The Night of the Bayonet happened, Talbert had a New Testament in his pocket that the bayonet went right through, but stopped just enough so he only got a light wound. Obviously Talbert kept his bayoneted, blood-soaked bible. Matthew said that when he heard that he went ballistic. (“That would’ve been bloody brilliant TV!”)
Matthew had a great Dale Dye story: at some point during boot camp everybody was standing at attention, and Dale Dye had his daughter on the phone and they were all singing happy birthday to her. (Matthew pointed out there were lots of great singers among them, Tim Matthews being one.) And Dye was standing right in front of Matthew when they’d finished and he was basically saying sweet nothings to his daughter, “Daddy loves you very much” etc. So Matthew stands there, slightly slouching, grinning at hearing DD talk like this, and then he hangs up and immediately turns to Matthew and screams in his face, “WHADDAFUCKAREYOULOOKINGATSERGEANTTALBERT?” and Matthew said he jumped about four feet in the air and snapped to attention. I can just picture it LOL.
They talked some more about bonding with each other on the set, and how often they all went out drinking together; so often in fact that at one point they were ordered to start doing runs again because they were gaining too much weight! And Matthew talked about being super hungover at one point, but it was alright, they had put his scene the next day on hold and he thought, they’ll never end up filming that scene anyway. Much to his surprise he got a call that his scene had been ‘moved forward’; it was the scene where Moore talks to Speirs in his office in 10, then Moore leaves and Talbert comes in. The scene where he talks to Speirs was filmed in a different moment, but the part where he comes in, apparently, he said “My face was green, I was sweating, all the make-up was sliding off of my face…” And Doug agreed that he looked green. I went back to watch it and
That man is hungover.
They talked about how sad it was when men got killed on the show and the actors just left overnight. Tim mentioned that they asked him and Richard Speight to go and watch the team blow up the effigies they’d made of them for their death scene. They went down, all jolly, but then they got quiet as they realised damn, this is how they died.
One question from the audience was about who they thought at the time would go on to make it big as an actor. Tim said Eion Bailey, because he was so beautiful. (LOL!) Tom Hardy they agreed had something special, but James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender were a surprise to all of them. They thought the episode leads would make it big for sure, especially Shane Taylor; Matthew said Shane would be the biggest Hollywood star now if he wasn’t also the nicest guy in the universe. They weren’t surprised Michael Cudlitz had made it big either, but Matthew said, if I email any of them to do anything BoB-related, they’ll do it—no question, no matter how famous they are now, they make the time. Doug explained that who gets famous and who doesn’t is a question of luck, for example Fassbender was friends with somebody who happened to put him in two projects that really launched his career, and it just doesn’t happen for every actor.
Doug said that they all thought it would launch their career to have been part of something so prestigious, but obviously guys were rotating in and out all the time, and some of them got to Hollywood before the others. By the time it had finished and he went to Hollywood, and said he had just been on Band of Brothers, people went: Not another one!
There was a question about whether they were aware of the impact the project would have, at the time. Tim said he really didn’t, he’d been an actor for twelve years by then and for him it was something that looked nice on his resume, but his role was relatively small and there was a lot of sitting around in a trench outside so he didn’t feel as involved with the project as some of the others. He later added that events like these though made it clear to him how big it really is and he now feels more proud of having been a part of it.
Then there was a question about which scene made them feel they were doing something big at the time. Mark said the scene with the woman being shaved in the streets of Eindhoven really stuck with him. England was never occupied and so he could never imagine what it was like having to live here during the war; it made him think. He also mentioned when they’re riding on the tank and they give candy to the woman with the shaved head and her baby. I was personally glad he said that because I’m really glad that made it into the show, the scandalous treatment of female collaborators is barely talked about when we in the NL talk about the war.
One question was about how they spent the money they made. Doug Allen went first: new sunglasses, I bought a car then crashed it, lots of booze… Tim agreed; he lived across from a pub at the time. It paid the rent, he said.
Someone asked if there were scenes they’d shot that didn’t make it into the series. Mark said they’d had them digging latrines for ages – in vests too, showing off their arms! – and it didn’t make it, which he was gutted about. (“A waste of pushups!”) Doug talked about a scene too but I can’t really remember it. Matthew said that during Crossroads, when they’re firing on the Germans, he had a magnificent sequence with his M1 – loading, reloading, shooting – until they looked at the footage and it clearly showed that the weapon was firing blanks, not real bullets, so it couldn’t be used. Tim said there was a scene where he was supposed to vomit on the plane, and they’d rigged it so a tube came out of his sleeve and into his hand with like. Chicken soup coming out so it would look real if he had his hand in front of his mouth, but they couldn’t get the velocity of the vomit right and after numerous attempts they just gave up?! Lmao
They talked lots about what they took away from the show; the friendship and the bond between them, and Tim said he was glad it allowed him to meet so many different people from all walks of life.
After the Q&A was over I got my paratroopers shirt signed, and I got pics with the four of them. They were ever so kind and gracious, really lovely guys. I’m kind of gutted I didn’t go on the battlefield tour yesterday, but my energy was so low I didn’t think it was a good idea. This night was amazing though!
I’ve probably forgotten a whole bunch of stuff so I’ll add to this post if I think of more :)
