All language subtitles for Platoon.Brothers.in.Arms.2018.720p.WEB.H264-DiMEPiECE

[Sheen] On March 30th, 1987,
Platoon, a low budget

independent,
non-SAG film

cast with mostly unknowns
making their first movie

won four Academy Awards,
including Best Picture.

And the winner is Platoon.

[applause]

Platoon

Platoon.

Platoon.

[applause]

This isn't a story
about winning awards

but rather the journey
of the no name grunts

that made this film what it is

and the impact that experience
had on all of us.

[Keith] I had a teacher
and she would say

"Do you know when you're
in the presence of
something beautiful?"

And I had no idea
of the profundity
of the question.

Platoon was one
of those circumstances

when you put together
in the audition

the boot camp, the filming,
and the relationships.

Now I know when I'm
in the presence of
something beautiful.

Who have left that experience
and then come back here in June

and the summer hit was Top Gun

I just thought,
"Well, we're fucked."

Top Gunwas
glorifying the war.

What Oliver made, was
this film about horrible,
horrible things happening.

Not glorious things, that wasn't
Oliver's experience there.

The glory that Oliver
experienced was
love and brotherhood

and that's the film
he shot.

[Sheen]
That brotherhood

is the reason
I'm narrating this film.

The same reason we all want to
be part of this passion project

by our friend and fellow grunt,
Paul Sanchez.

But let's not get
ahead of ourselves.

First, Oliver needed
to get his film made.

[Sheen]
Hollywood is full
of great scripts

that never see
the light of day.

Oliver peddled the
Platoon for over a decade

without success.

I had just gotten into
the production business
and a friend said:

"Listen, do you know
who Oliver Stone is?"

Oliver Stone
for Midnight Express.

I said: "Sure,
I know who Oliver is."

He said: "Well, he has this
script about Vietnam."

And I ran up to my office
and I sat at my desk

and I couldn't believe
what I was reading.

I was literally sobbing,
I had tears coming down my face.

And Ed said to me:
"What's wrong," I said
I had just read

the greatest screenplay
I've ever read.

It's Academy Award time,
we'll never get closer.

I called Oliver Stone
and I said:

"Listen,
I just read a script of yours,
I want to make this movie."

He then got
caught up with Salvador

and I was trying to get
Platoonfinanced.

I met with the people
that had financed Salvador.

He is refusing to make
eight cuts in the movie.

He's really digging in,
and they said:

"We're not getting any
closer to another movie

with Oliver unless
he agrees to make the cuts."

I met with Oliver,
he read it, he says okay,

signed it,
and that got the movie made.

[Capt. Dale Dye] I did a little
over 20 years of active duty

in the United States Marine
Corps. Served all over the world

including three
tours in Vietnam,

one tour in the Middle East,

in Beirut, Lebanon, '82, '83.

When I retired
from the Marine Corps...

Uh, I really didn't know
what to do with myself.

I'd seen every military movie
there was for obvious reasons.

What I had seen, pissed me off.

It's not us,
it's not combat.

That's not war,
that's Hollywood's pipe dream.

So I said: "You know what?
I'm gonna fix this."

It took me some chicanery,
but I finally got his number,
and I called,

and I said:
"Look, I know and you know

that the only way
to do this credibly

is we've got to
train those guys."

You know, he got it,
because he's Oliver

and he loves
a left-handed approach

and because he knew what
I was telling him was true.

I'm gonna give
you 33 actors,

we're gonna shoot
in the Philippines.

I had to produce
a trained rifle platoon.

I look at my life as-- as,
as BP, before Platoon
and AP, after Platoon.

Tom Berenger
I think definitely

was the most successful and
the most high profile actor.

I mean, Looking for Mr.
Goodbar,my auspicious debut.

I was in a show at
Kings Island in Cincinnati

I was Moosey in
Rock Around The Clock.

Telemarketing.
Yeah, I was telemarketing.
[laughing]

I just graduated, I was
looking for something to do
and this was my first film.

I was doing commercials

or at least I was
auditioning for commercials.

I wasn't getting
a lot of commercials.

I had done
the smash follow up

to Grizzly, called
Grizzly 2: The Predator.

I got eaten
by a giant bear.

I didn't feel like an old hand,
let's put it that way, but

next to almost everyone else
where it was their first film

I guess I felt a little

more like an old hand
than they did.

[Dale]
Got a scholarship
from Stella Adler

to go to New York city.

Ah, Eddie and the Cruisers.

I got my first job Hoosiers.

Banging around New York.
I'd just gotten
out of NYU in 1984.

I had been in a movie
called Stranger in Paradise.

Before I got the job,
I had just joined this band.

I had made one other film
before Platoon,and
that was The thing.

I was on unemployment,
just having a good time.
And then The Big Chill.

Really not much of hardly
anything professionally.

Platoon.

There was a project
called The Platoon.

Originally, it was set to go
with Dino De Laurentiis
in like '84...

and it went up to
the Gulf Western Building.

Many times the film got
very close to be getting done

and didn't get done, and...

It was a long
casting process and

everybody and his mother
read for these roles

over, and over,
and over again.

[Sheen]
What a lot of people
don't realize, is that

my brother Emilio
had gotten

the part,
the Chris Taylor part.

Huge desk,
Oliver sitting behind it

and every single space
was filled with stacks,

I would say, this high
of black and white photos.

Two years later,
Oliver called up and said:

"McGinley, we're going
to shoot the movie again."

"Do you want to come in
and audition?"

I'm like: "Well,
I got the role last time."

Oliver Stone is doing
this film Platoon

and he's looking for-- He has
a list of like eight actors

that he's looking for
and it's just like, wow.

And I got the call from Oliver
saying, "We're back on."

I had read in
Backstage Magazine

about this audition
for this film.

I'd like to play
the southern sergeant, uhm...

I don't know if that's
what he was thinking.

[Kane]
I said: "I'd like to
get an audition for this film."

They said: "No, you just have
to leave a picture and resume."

I said: "Oh, really?
Where are they auditioning?"

And for some reason,
she told me the Empire Hotel.

Walked in,
nobody was sitting out front.

[Sheen]
Oliver, he said:
"You're too mannered."

"You're doing all
this Tony Danza shit."

And Oliver offered me
Sgt. O'Neill.

It was one lane here,
it was one lane there.

It was like, "We got
gooks coming over the ridge."

She said, "I, I don't see you
on the list."

And I...

I just threw a shit fit.
I said:

"My fucking agent
fucks up all the time.

I'm so sick of it.
You know what? Call my agent!"

I gave her a phony number.
I said: "You know, I gotta get
to the bottom of this.

I can't take this.
This is the second time
this happened to me."

He was like, "Hey, can you
go get me a coffee?"

Like, "Yes, no problem,
Mr. Stone."

I ran out and got him
a coffee and I was like,

"I might, I think I might have
a real shot at this part."

She said: "Alright, alright.
Relax, relax.

Just do a monologue for me."

I told Mark, I said: "Listen.

I'm going to do this low-budget
independent film
in the Philippines.

It's the greatest
script I've ever read.

Uh, it's for no money, but

when you read--
and there's a juicy part."

-Playin', Lieutenant?
-Nah. Wouldn't want
to get raped by you guys.

Gave it to me. Called my agent,
he got me in.

But this time I'm
auditioning for Oliver.

She said: "You know what? Come
back tomorrow. I'd like you to
meet the director."

Then when I finish, he goes, you
know: "I want you in my film.
I just want you in my film."

I came down
and called my agent, told him

I got this film,
and he said:

"Ah, forget it,"
and just blew it off.

Every single agent
at every agency went:

"Don't go to this movie.
It's not insured.

They don't know
what's going on."

I got called back.
I lost 10 pounds.

I flew to Los Angeles
and he said:

"Greg, you have the part.
Gain 20 pounds."

I brought in my 357 Magnum
to the audition.

The casting
director freaked out.

He's like: "Whoa, whoa, whoa.
What the fuck is this?"

and I was like:
"Shut up. Sit down. Relax."

Oliver had like a big grin on
his face and I knew I had him.
Like I knew I was in.

It's really because of

To Live and Die in L.A.
that he cast me.

Because he wanted to do
kind of casting against type.

Which is funny,
because To Live and Die in L.A.

is a very cool movie,
but I look at it

and it looks like such a little
kid trying to play tough.

Monologue? You--
In my head I'm thinking:

"You did not ask me
to prepare anything.

This was just
a conversation.

Make sure I didn't
gain 50 pounds

and you already
told me I was cast."

And I remember
I kind of lost it.

I don't remember much,
but I wound up under his desk

and I remember
looking up at Oliver

and his hand stuck out and
he said, "Chill out, man."

So, I thought I got the part of
Rhah, and I told my agent like

"Yeah, man, I got it.
He told me I had it."

And I "That's cool, man."
I thought Rhah was a cool part.

And then they go: "Well, no.
You didn't get the part of Rhah.
You got the part of Tex."

"Yeah, but you're doing Sal."
And I-- Of course, I went to
the script, like,

"Where the fuck is Sal?
Where is Sal? Oh, there he is!"

By Monday, I get a call saying,

you know: "Would you
like to come play?"

[sighs] Yeah, it was my first--

You know how it is when
you get your first job.

I remember it was raining
on Monday and I was on

Fifth Avenue and I'm like
jumping in the street.

I didn't care
how big the role was.

And I called my aunt
who was like my muse

my confidant, and I said:
"Guess what? I got a movie."

She says:
"Baby, great. That's wonderful."

She said: "Where is it?"
I said: "The Philippines."

She hung up
the phone on me.

Okay, I got the job.

Then the war breaks out
in the Philippines.
[laughs]

[Sheen]
In 1986, Ferdinand Marcos
lost the election

but he refused
to relinquish power.

The people revolted.

My plane was
the last plane to arrive

from anywhere before
the airport got closed.

I got picked up, I went
to the Manila Garden Hotel.

I took a nap,
the first thing I did.

[speaker on TV]
Standoff between rebellious

military elements and

Marcos loyalists

began Saturday.

I woke up a little later
and I remember

opening the curtains
and looking down.

There were tanks going
down the street.

Unbeknownst to me,
The People Power Laban
Revolution started to happen.

This is all going down.

We obviously can't shoot here.

They said: "Just sit tight.

The film's probably canceled.
We'll get you out when we can."

I flew from Savannah to L.A.

and was gonna make connection
to Philippines, and they were,
"Oh, no."

And I remember
hitting the streets

with Bob Richardson
and some other people.

And we went to the
People Power barricade

around Camp Aguinaldo
because what happened is

some faction of the army
kind of mutinied and said:

"We're not going to
suppress the people."

[speaker on TV]
General Fidel Ramos
leading the reformists

had decided on mutiny
against President Marcos.

And another faction,
Marcos told to go and,
you know, arrest those guys.

[speaker on TV]
The trucks and armored
personnel carriers

were met with
an amazing display.

People came and made
a million-person barrier

around Camp Aguinaldo
and basically said:

"No, you have to go through the
million of us to get to them."

I think it put
a lot of pressure on
the foreign governments.

They got him out of there
and, you know, it was
a big celebration.

It was really special because
these millions of Filipinos
saying: "A Westerner."

They were so happy because
it was the feeling that,

"Ah, you're gonna
tell the world about this."

And then I remember
Alex Ho saying:

"I think we can
get it back together."

And... we were back on.

Tom Berenger,
Staff Sergeant Bob Barnes.

Saddle up.
Lock and load.

John Glover. My character
in Platoonwas Sanderson.

You're going on reports,
son, now.

I'm Tony Todd and I was blessed

to play the role
of Sergeant Warren.

He's taken us this far, right?

He'll takes us
the rest of the way.

Mark Moses, I played
Lieutenant Wolfe

in Platoon.

I got to run.
I'll catch you men later.

I'm Ivan Kane
and I played Tony Hoyt.

Go for it. Let's do
the whole fucking village.

Hi, I'm Bob Orwig
and I was Gardner.

I show you a picture
of Lucy Jean?

I'm Reggie Johnson,
and I played Junior.

Fuck that honky shit. Got
to give me some Motown, Jams.

Hi, I'm Johnny Depp
and I had the, uh, privilege

of playing the role of Lerner,

[in Vietnamese]

Hi, I'm Corey Glover,
I played Francis.

It ain't
D-E-R-E. It's D-E-A-R.

I'm Chris Pedersen.
I played Crawford.

What's O'Neill got? A nose up
the Lieutenant's ass already?

Robert Rock Galotti, assistant
military technical adviser

and played spec for
Thomas Huffmeister.

Kevin Dillon,
I played Bunny in Platoon.

Yeah, but I still like a piece
of pussy once in a while.

Kevin Eshelman.

Fucking lame, fuck.

I played Morehouse.

My name is Willem Dafoe.

Sergeant Elias.

I'm captain Dale Dye,
United States Marine Corp,
retired.

And I was the military
adviser on the Platoon.

I'm James Terry McIlvain.

Goddamn right,
he does.

A.K.A. Ace.

John C. McGinley,

I played Sergeant O'Neill.

Oh no, no, no.

Paul Sanchez,
I played Doc in Platoon.

This is bad, man.
I have bad vibes here.

David Neidorf,
and I played Tex.

I ain't getting greased
on this bush tonight

so you keep this sorry
cheese-dick off my ass."

My name is Keith David,
and I played King in Platoon.

You got to be rich in the
first place thinking like that.

Richard Edson, Sal.

Man, this is gook stuff.
Let's get out of here.

Mark Ebenhoch, I am one of the
technical advisers for the movie
Platoon,and actor in it.

I'm Corkey Ford.

I played Manny Washington
in the film Platoon.

I'm Charlie Sheen. I played
Chris Taylor in Platoon.

[sound of crickets
and heart beat]

I was living in a funeral parlor
at the time on Sullivan Street,
a five-story walk up.

And so, I'm walking down
the stairs, and in walks Cher.

And I've got those
goofy duffle bags,

or whatever we
were allowed to take.

I'm like, Cher, walking
into my funeral parlor.

And I'm going to do some
low budget piece of
shit halfway around

the world in revolution torn
Philippines." I'm like:

"I stepped out of a hit
plane. What I'm I doing?"

It was not like:
"Okay, my agents and my handlers

and my super star people
will package this together."

It's a bunch of, like,
idiots from the street
who like showed up

and were in the right
place and the right time

to somehow get dumped
on a plane to Manila.

It's really
how it happened.

Had to tell my girlfriend,

had to tell my band members,

had to tell my parents

that I'm going away.

I'm not coming back for like,

what I thought
was gonna be a month,

turns out to be three months.

The first time we all met was

'cause everyone had
to change planes in L.A.

You guys were coming
from New York.

Paul, McGinley, Ivan.

A bunch of us flew out of
New York. We stopped in L.A.

we met a bunch of
the other actors.

We started bonding
right away in that bar

and then I think we felt pretty
good when we got on the plane.

We sat around
and just kind of drank.

And then got on a plane...
for a long time.

There's either little
Filipino families or us.

33 guys just pounding beers.

You know, In my head I thought:
"Oh, I'll be looking
over my script."

Because we were young
and we'd never been on
like a 16-hour plane ride.

It was guys
just tossing beers

from the stewardess station.

We were taking drinks off
of people's trays

-when they weren't looking.
-David Neidorf who ended up
getting a blanket

like lying in the aisle,
the air hostesses

is like, kicking him out
and telling him to move.

A few hours later,
and like the flight
all the way through

I think we felt
really good by the time

we eventually landed
in Manila in the morning.

It was a cold plane ride, man.

[Sanchez] Mum packed for you,
didn't she?

She did, yeah. She did.

She, she packed for me and

she sent a bunch
of stuff ahead of me.

Uh, it was about 14 boxes.

Because we'd been there,
uh, during Apocalypse.

And she knew that uh,
the stuff we might need.

We got off the plane,
I remember the heat

kinda hitting me in my face.

It was everything that my
mom was worried about.

You know, tanks going down
the street, you know, armed guys

with, uh... with M-16s
all over the place.

[Sheen] So I'm sitting
there thinking:

What the mother fuck
am I doing back here?

And all those feelings
I remember so intensely.

You know, as a child, I spent
eight months in the set
of Apocalypse.

I vowed never to return.

Shit.
I'm still only in Saigon.

What are the freaking odds that
I'd come back 10 years later

with my own Vietnam film
and narrate the damn thing?

I think you'd sooner win
the lottery in five states
on the same night.

I don't think I can keep
this up for a year, grandma.

I think I made a big
mistake coming here.

[Sheen]
The warrior, leading
us through boot camp,

Captain Dale Dye, USMC Retired,
was lovingly referred to

as Dai Uy which means
Captain in Vietnamese.

I designed a two-week program

in which they lived in
the jungles in the hills.

They lived exactly as we
lived as young men in Vietnam.

So we all knew heading
over there that there was

gonna be a boot camp,

but I don't think any of us
were really prepared

for what was awaiting us.

Boot camp was designed
to be shock and awe.

Those of us that couldn't
cut it, might be on a plane
back to the States.

When you landed, it was a full
military indoctrination like:

"Hey, welcome. How are
you doing? Good to see you.

Now, boom, you got
no agents now."

[Neidorf]
He stormed in that room, right?

And he started barking
at us right away.

And, you know,
it was really intimidating.

"Just grab your tooth brush
that's the only thing
you're going to need."

We were like, "Oh-oh."

Myself, Galloti and Drew

were the drill instructors,
but we were the docs.

We had to put the fear
of God into you guys.

[Sheen] Did you know once
we got out there, we were
just staying there?

-[Sanchez] I had no idea.
-[Sheen] Guy didn't either.

I thought we're gonna like
you know, take a look
and, you know,

maybe, you know, just take
down our spot and go back.

So, everybody gets off the bus
bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Then the yelling
and screaming starts.

Once we got there,
it was on.

Are you going to dig
a fighting hole?

Wrong place!
Dig a fighting hole here!

We had to dig
our own freaking holes.

The dirt was like super-crete.

We all had to dig these
four or five foot berms

in front of where
we were sleeping.

[Orwig] So, I walked up
to stand by and I said:

"What I do about this?"
He looked at my hand and

he said: "Those blisters?"
I said: "Yeah."

He grabbed them
and he smashed them.

I'm like: "Yeaaow!"

You'd look-- look over, and

dudes who'd and be like

blisters everywhere, man,
and bursting.

He said, uh, "Well, you're
still alive, aren't you?"

And I said yeah, he said:
"I'll just rub a little dirt in
and it'll be okay."

I wanted to reduce them to
the lowest common denominator

grind them down,
tire them out

until the only
thing on their mind was

"How do I get away from that
crazy, white-haired bastard?"

Uh, we humped heavyweight,
no styrofoam.

They gave us
real equipment.

I mean it was heavy, you know,

we had to walk
25 clicks a day.

We'd get issued
weapons and shit.

You know, it's like,
"Oh, this is real,
I mean, oh, my God."

That's when it felt
for the first time real
and it felt good.

Like, you know, "This
is gonna be really fun."

Learning how
to clean our weapons,

learning how to
shoot the weapons
and that sort of things.

They were soldiers

that were teaching us

how to do soldier things.

I can teach a monkey

how to carry a weapon and wear
his gear and wear his uniform.

Where I wanted to go,
was inside their minds
and inside their guts.

The way to survived this, was
to learn to rely on each other.

If you could do that,
you would then begin

to understand the relationships
that men in combat have.

They love each other and
it's that kind of love
that I had to teach.

We always addressed each other
by our cast names

and I can... I insisted on that
throughout the run of the film.

In fact,
it's happening still today.

[John] For two weeks, you
weren't allowed to
be called your name

which Stanislavsky
would have loved it,

and it was genius,
in retrospect.

Everybody got into
their characters

and it seemed to gel right away.

You don't get that
kind of luxury every day.

During training, we had
two new guys come in,

Sal and Corkey.

We were late, Corkey and I.

We hear this noise,
chunk-chunk-chunk.

We look up the street and
there's a bunch of soldiers

all decked out looking like,

"This is some bad ass, dudes."

Who the hell
are these guys?

And now,
I realize this is us.

I was like, "How did these guys
get, get so good,

looking so good and authentic,
so quick?"

I only fed them twice a day
if they didn't piss me off.

If they pissed me off that day,
they only ate once a day.

Yeah, I definitely lost
like 20 pounds, for sure.

They were eating
military rations.

Those MREs.

The one that I liked the best
was some kind of

turkey thing that looked
like brains or something,

but it tasted okay.

The rest of it,
I didn't want no part of.

Meals Ready to Eat. MREs,
they're... how should we say?

Meals ready to throw up.

Those, I-hated-
that-fucking-food.

The bean component was the--
That was just bad luck.

The first time
you eat those MREs...

you swear, you can never...
you'll never eat it again

and you'd rather eat dirt
than these MREs.

So, everybody lost
a lot of weight.

[Rock] Nobody likes
the dehydrated beef patty.

It was the worst.
However,

Johnny Depp would
end up wanting to get that

because I taught Johnny how to
make a cheeseburger out of it.

You want a cheeseburger?
You want to do this or that?
I mean, he'd...

They'd found out ways
to mix these things and...

But then, a couple of days later

it started tasting really good.

Like...
They're fully chemical

and then they taste like
they're worse than dirt.

On the set, where they
have fish heads and rice

and the garlic sauce
where the actors were like,

"We can't eat this,
give us an MRE."

You know you did something right
when they're asking for MREs.

There's a pre-determined,
uhm... result,

that they'd like
from those MREs.

Constipates you
beyond comprehension.

So, for most of us out there,
the first three, four

or even five days,
nobody went to the bathroom.

[Depp] It's trying
to persuade you

to not wander out
in the middle of the night.

What I thought was, was a giant
root, that I was poised over

it began to, to slide
and slither.

My first movement was on top
of a-- of a giant constrictor.

That happened.

[C. Glover]
They had all the Marine guys
around us and they were no joke.

These guys were hardcore.

Put us... Uh... through
the wringer, you know.

I mean, it was thrilling.
To me, there was-- there was
nothing better than that.

I mean, no. Okay.

There's the idea of it, and
then there's the reality of it.

You slept two hours on,
two hours off.

A person would have to be awake
and look around and the other
person could sleep.

I would push my watch
ahead a half an hour,

and then wake dude up and say:

"Come on, man, you're up.
It's your turn."

He'd say:
"No, no, no. There's no way."

I'd be like:
"Check the watch, brother."

This is where I learned
how to sleep standing up.

[Rock] So, you were up
pretty much all night.

My theory was they need
to know what tired is.

It wasn't like you
had to make, uhm, some effort

to think about what
it might have been like

for those guys at night
when you're on watch

'cause at night
you were on watch.

We were seriously
sleep deprived.

They would
keep us on our toes.

Drew Clark, Ebenhoch
and I would move around

and we would get
into positions to attack.

I'm in my foxhole and I'm just
trying to keep my eyes open.

It's gotta be like three
o'clock in the morning.

During the attacks, we would
fire blanks at these guys.

Yves De Bono would set up
explosives to enhance
the experience.

[Shouting, explosions
and gunfire]

They're trying to fire and
they've got weapons on safety.

And Dale's running
up and down the line,

"We're being attacked!
Fire [indistinct]!"

And they're just panicking.

They have no clue
what to do.

Oh, this sucks. This sucks.
I-- Fuck, this sucks.

We're throwing things at 'em
and we're breaching lines!

"Come on, you got to go,
you got to go. We are
being bombed. Aaaah!"

"Ah! What's going on here?"
You know.

The shit just
started blowing up, man.

I mean, shit was
just blowing up.

It was like, sounded
like the real thing.
The lights going off.

[Rock] I was about 15 feet
from Charlie Sheen.

I was on patrol with, uh, Bunny,

and we heard some rustling
or some noise out in the bush.

As I'm crawling up
on him real quiet,

he goes, "Shh! I think
I hear something. I think
I hear something."

I was like:
"Hold on. The fuck was that?"

You could see the silhouette
of Charlie turned sideways like
that with his rifle

opening up with an AK 47

and the muzzle flash is
coming off his full load blanks.

I remember seeing Charlie's
face as it's strobing

with the muzzle flashes
and his eyes went from
normal to [shoo]!

I was, I was not far from
Charlie and the next thing
I knew...

Some guy got his balls like
scorched by an explosion

because he was walking
over it when it went off.

Sheen got stopped on a dime.

I got hit in the balls
with a smoke grenade.

That came in from
like St. Louis.

I sort of heard this
involuntary, inhumane noise.

[grunting comically]
You know.

"Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.
I'm hit, I'm hit."

I was so mad that I just emptied
every magazine I had on me,

just screaming, die,
motherfuckers, you know.
Just fucking snapped.

I jumped into the hole with
Ivan Kane and Charlie Sheen.

He's like, "Give me your mag!
Give me your mag!"

He pulls out a copy
of Time Magazine.

He claims to this day that
I handed him a magazine
which was bullshit.

Dai Uy, he'd
snuck up on me

and put something to my
neck and said: "You're dead'.

"Bang, Lerner, you're dead."
Dai Uy.

That was an embarrassing
moment, man.

I was a big fan
of Dai Uy's.

I was kind of gung-ho
and a true believer.

He cared enough to make us
just miserable enough.

But, "Oh, yeah, I'm
gonna fuck with you.

I'm going to try
to make you fuck up,

'cause I got to teach
you not to fuck up."

[David] He was just
a no-bullshit kind of guy.

He didn't cuddle us.
He didn't treat us like actors.

I remember
I took this canteen

and I filled it up
with water in the stream

'cause it was a running stream.

It was 110 degrees.

They gave us little salt tabs.

And I treat it with some pills

and then we went upstream

and we saw this big carcass of

a bloated water buffalo.

Like, you know, dead
for like two weeks.

Like it was rotting corpse.

And I thought,
"Man, I just... put...
got my water from..."

I thought, "Well,
I'm okay because the pills."

We didn't think
anything of it.

We kept hiking,
hiking, hiking.

I wasn't okay.

I'm told Willem's
not feeling well.

I go to him.
His fatigues are drenched

and he's just shaking
and shivering in a ball.

And... I touch him
and he's ice cold.

I went into like a fever
and I remember sweating
through things.

I mean, he looks like death.
He looked like he lost
10 pounds that night.

I have this thing
called Nux Vomica.

Can I get you
a couple of aspirin?

I, you know, I don't know
what I'm gonna do.

He was in bad shape, you know,
and I kind of thrust

a-- just a batch
of shit at him.

And I came back, and
he's kinda like, he's kinda
leaned up against this thing,

you know, and he's more pale
than To Live Or Die In L.A.

I don't remember, but I remember
being really taken care of.

And I looked over
and there's, there's,
a puddle of puke, right?

And in the puke were
all these like

half-dissolved
little white pills.

I go over to
Dai Uy and I said:

"Listen, Willem has
a really high fever.

He looks like he's gonna die.
I don't know what to do."

Dai Uy looks at me and he goes,
"Do your best.

We're hours away from any
kind of medical facilities

and we've got a job to do."

I never really
investigated what it was,

but that was intense.

[Todd] I saw grown men weep
because what Dale

and Oliver did was to
strip us down to get rid

of all that New York
and L.A. artifice.

[Edson] Like, no, we weren't
actors doing boot camp.

We were real people
doing this training.

When you live in a dirt hole
in a jungle for two, three weeks

you get a little
bored and weird.

Flash didn't speak
a lick of English.

I mean,
the dude would say "hello".

He was like a truck driver
in Nigeria or something

and they cast him!

Suddenly he's in the jungle
with a bunch of 30 other guys.
[laughs]

I started teaching him English.

-"Repeat after me, eat."
-"Eat."

-"My."
-"My."

-"Shorts."
-"Shorts."

-"Dickhead."
-"Dickhead."

I said: "Now put it
all together."

I was, I was lucky enough
to be, near

when he would, yeah... give
that salutation to the Captain.
[laughs]

Just this pure innocent,
and the kindest eyes.

"Eat my shorts, dickhead."

Dai Uy was like,
"What was that?"

He learned it well.
He used it a lot.

Throughout the end of the two
weeks, he started saying:

"You guys are beginning to look

and act like a--
like a rifle platoon."

The present was, we were
allowed to ascend down a--

a wall,
a two and a half story wall.

We were allowed to
repel down the wall.

[David] F. D. Follow
Directions! You're standing,
you know, over 60 feet.

[Sheen]
And I remember it's like,
kind of just tip toeing.

That thing was swaying
in the breeze

and you'd hear
everything creaking.

You know, you're not going
up there to fuck around.

I mean, this ain't no time
to be... nothing but
follow directions.

So, I remember kinda just like
taking like a few steps down
the damn thing.

Just like one,
two, three and then,

he kept saying:
"Come on, come on!

Taylor, bounce! Bounce! Push
off, push off! Slide! Bounce!"

You know, I remember just
stopping and being like
halfway down.

And I looked up at him and
I said: "Sir, the bouncing
thing is not gonna happen."

That's a fucking direct quote.

We had this final exercise

where we were supposed to apply
all the things we'd learned.

And I had two of the squads,
and Elias, Willem Dafoe,

had one, and we're
supposed to meet up.

The idea was we were
gonna converge

on a North Vietnamese
ammunition dump.

and there was
a farmhouse on the map

and there were different
routes to get there.

We were supposed to go
from point A to point B.

And one of the weakest things
for everybody was
land navigation.

[Berenger] We're gonna go off
here to the left.

East on the maps or something.

Uh... West. Uh... whatever.

[Rock] And one group went one
way and the other group

went the other way
and they were lost.

And it became clear we had
no idea where we were.

[Edson] And we'd been wandering
around, around, around.

And this jackass has--
has to read a map

in the middle of this
triple canopy jungle.

He didn't know what
the hell he was doing.

So, he was like,
"Why do you... it's
just a map, you know.

I had like, two days
to learn how to read a map?"

[Rock] Mark Moses,
the Lt. was perfect.

He totally got us
ass fucking lost.

Which every time he had
an opportunity to,
he'd get us lost.

He was very proud of that,
that he never found...

whatever we were looking for.

He never found it.

Uhm, yeah, it was a disaster.

[Neidorf]
We lost radio contact.

Gunny was with us and

Dai Uy was with the other side.

[Rock]
And Dale was freaking out.
"Where the hell is Robert?

Jesus Christ, we got to
find him, it's getting dark!"

What's the delay
up off point?

You having compass
trouble again, Wolfe?

We couldn't find this place.

Everyone was getting hot,
everyone had drunk
all their water,

and then we got to a cliff.

[Ebenhoch] I remember climbing
up, and I found a way

that was clear
enough to get out.

Up a walk wall,
about 40 feet tall.

Climb up the cliff.

You guys have
learned to repel.

So steep,
we could have been killed.

I'm climbing it,
getting weaker and tired

and I get about five foot
from the top and I'm like:

"Oh shit, I'm stuck."

And Mark Ebenhoch found me,
stuck on the side

of the wall. And he said:
"Are you okay?"

I said: "Nah, I'm not
so sure I'm okay or not."

And he actually climbed up,
took my weapon to the top,

and he said: "Oh, you
can do this. You can make it."

And I made that last five foot.

And, he actually was
really responsible

for me being here today because

I think he saved my life.
He saved all our lives.

So now we get up to the top
of this area and we thought:

"Okay, we're in a clearing,
we're good. Let's--

We're gonna-- we're gonna
bivouac here for the night."

We don't have anything
to eat because we didn't

plan on being
gone for the night.

So, guys are hungry, guys have

drained all the water
in their canteens

so they're totally thirsty.

It was only supposed to be a
day-trip, it was not supposed
to be an over-nighter,

so you guys weren't
ready for it.

I saw a cow.

[Ebenhoch] They're going:
"Hell yeah, there's beef!

Let's, let's light
a fire, let's go

kill the damn thing,
let's go eat it!"

It's like:
"No, no, no, no, no."

I c-- if I just hit it like
right behind the head, uh!

But you leave
the damn bull alone.

We found that farm and
we grabbed these pineapples.

It's like, "Dude,

you ain't got
nothing else to eat.

There ain't no
farmer around here."

So there was a little bit
of a raid on the

pineapples and bananas.

We were all so hungry
and so out of water,

that people gorged
themselves on pineapples,

and to a man,
everyone got these horrible
lesions in their mouths.

If they can't get the coconuts
down, you might as well bring
the fucking tree down. Screw it!

Yeah, but then we uh,
chopped them down.

A couple of guys took a whack
at that thing with

a machete it took
about an hour...

Pulling the tree down as
it flipped over, I remember.

You built a fire, and then
it was like camp fire
girls at night.

All the fun stories, because
then all the bitching stopped.

You were fat,
dumb and happy.

It was sort of like
an adventure away from

Dale Dye. We didn't
have to go out that night,

we could actually sleep.
We had, we had, a fire,

a bonfire, so we had
kind of a good time.

[Neidorf]
I thought that was the moment
where everything turned.

Probably for my money,
the most fun, the most fun,

and the most that
I learned in the training camp.

Rock was sent by Dai Uy
to reconnect with us.

Gunny made us march in
really proud and really strong.

[Richard]
Stan stopped us and said:

"We're gonna march in there

and we're gonna march
in there like men."

The other half of
the platoon came out to greet us

and welcome us back and ask us

if we wanted anything to drink,
and we were like, "Fuck no."

Dale Dye told me they gave me
the wrong coordinates
on purpose.

-[man in background] Liar!
-And I'll stay with that story.

[Ebenhoch] Yeah, we had our
graduation and uh, a lot
of it's a little foggy.

We were rewarded with uh,
with copious amounts of...

[C. Glover]
Moonshine. And it was,
like, over proof

whatever it was,
you could start fires.

We had the drink.

Whatever that coconut rum was

and we were howling at the moon.

We heard it was coconut wine.

It was supposed to be good

because it had a little bit

of coconut in it or some shit.

It wasn't,
it was lighter fluid.

It was pretty smooth for 200
proof, it was pretty smooth.

Lambanog.

Yeah, lambanog.

Lambanog?

Ah, yeah! Lambanog. Lambanog.

Lambanog. It was lambanog

And it was
pretty much moonshine.

It was essentially moonshine,
man. It was moonshine.

Lambanog, shit.

We stayed all night
drinking lambanog.

People woke up the next day
like out of comas.

We had to wake up really early
in the morning,
it was like four.

A couple of guys
were lifted into the truck.

It was such a throbbing gristle
in the skull and confusion.

Then all of a sudden,
they faked us out and said:

"We're going to go shoot
that first scene

just walking
through the jungle."

There was no way
to get rid of the hangover

because we couldn't
get our hands

we couldn't get our mitts
on the lambanog anymore.

We were looking bad because we
were like, you know, dirty

because we hadn't
changed in two weeks.

People looked at us and
they were kind of horrified.

We were, I remember,
"Good, you should be horrified."

They went from there
just feeling miserable.
So, we looked perfect.

Now we're going to something
that might look like a hotel,

and we'll start this thing
tomorrow. Bullshit.

And then Oliver, to his eternal
credit, woke everybody up.

And we had to walk
around along this slough.

And it's the first time,
in the movie,

that any of us were actually
on camera, in that condition.

[Susan] What I was told was:
"The kids are gonna walk in
from boot camp

and we're going to roll camera."

But everyone had that look

uhm, because nobody gave
a shit about the movie

'cause we were all sick.

When I brought them down
out of the jungle

and they were looking rugged,
and they were looking ragged,

Oliver looked at me
and he said:

"Yeah, I think so.
I think that's them."

We became a rifle platoon,
somehow.

[Kopelson] When the guys were
coming out of the jungle

all of you, you looked like you
had been at war for about a year

and which is exactly
the way Oliver wanted you.

He wanted you mean. You were
hating him for doing this
to you, but he got that look.

[Sheen] So, we started to
sense, uh right there and then,
uh, Oliver's manipulation.

[theme music]

Oliver, as we have all got
to know and love him,
is not easy.

'Cause he thrives on
confrontation, you know.
He wants to upset you.

I've done six
films with Oliver.

Oliver doesn't
direct by committee.

It is a quasi-collaboration,

but it is Oliver's movie
and it's Oliver's vision.

Oliver can be
chaotic when he directs.

He feeds off of
that sort of thing.

I understood it. I'd served
with commanding officers
who are like that.

[Dafoe] He wore his experiences
on his sleeve.

I mean, I felt like there was
a part of him that was
still in the jungle.

[Kane] He is crazy genius,
has that look in his eye

and that smile
that you have no idea

what the fuck is
really going on in there.

I was on point,
and I was rigged up

with just a zillion squibs.
In my hand

I have the detonator that
shoots off the squibs.

Charlie comes in
and carries me.

Doc, help me out now!
[groaning]

There was the kind of, you know,
Oh, my God, I'm dying-scene.

Please tell my mother
that I, you know, gurgle.

[indistinct]

Gets through about
two and a half lines.

"Cut. Bullshit. Do it again."

Alright, back in, you know.
Just lying there on the ground.

Rain. Blood. He's working on me.

Charlie is talking to me.

[rain]

"Please tell my mom--"

"Cut! Bullshit!
Fucking bullshit!"

And he hit me with that about...
seven times, you know.

"You're full of shit,
you're fucking lying."

From that moment on

I would avoid any
conversation with Stone that,

you know, involved anything
more than action or cut.

He is a genius...

a dark evil genius.

At whatever cost,
he's going to get what he wants,

what he is after,
and that's great

if you're sitting
in that movie theater

and looking at
the 40 foot screen.

But when you're on the
opposite end of that...

You know, you've got
to be selective.

You've got to treat different
actors different ways

because you've got to
have some sort of intuition

about how they can respond.

During the film, I didn't even

like Oliver very much.

I thought he
was kind of distant.

He liked-- And I think
this is the way he makes films,

he likes to just
kind of stir shit up.

Just like create crisis and
stress and then he shoots that.

I knew what he was doing.
But it was...

Uch, I felt it was...
unnecessary.

[Rock]
Doc Sanchez, in that head
hooch where the line was

"Let military justice
do the job on him."

We did 30 something
freaking takes of it.

An eye for an eye.

I say let military
justice do the job on him.

[Rock] He was just
Oliver being Oliver

and Doc would
try different ways

and he'd get more pissed,
and it was just Oliver
fucking with Doc.

[Berenger]
I'm alone in that giant pool,
just swimming laps

and all of a sudden,
I see these feet.

It's Oliver. He goes:
"What are you doing?"

I go: "What do you mean
what am I doing?"
I'm, I'm working out.

I'm swimming laps. He says:
"Are you coming up? Today?
Tonight?"

I go: "Well, I'm not
really working."

He goes: "Yeah, but
you're coming up, right?

Show a little
support to the guys."

Then I get there,
and I'm watching a scene,

I don't know, it's like,
Lieutenant Wolfe and
Ralph and just go:

I want you to take those
two holes right there and there.

You're tying it off with
Barnes up here, King down there.

[Berenger] I'm watching
a scene, off back--
behind the camera

and he turns around and
he goes: "What are you doing?"

I said:
"I'm watching the scene."

He says:
"You're making them nervous."

I go: "What?"
"You're staring at them."

I go, "I'm watching the scene,
you told me to come out..."

"Back off, get over there."
[laughs]. This is Oliver.

[David]
The way he would yell:
"Hey, it's not working.

You know, this is just, you know
the scene is flat!
What's the matter with you?

You're the fucking actor!"
You know, I mean.
[laughing]

You know, I don't think people
know how traumatic he can be.

Confrontational, traumatic, sets
up antagonism wherever he goes.

I did a scene in...
When it was done,

he just--
He just dropped his eyes

and shook his head and
turned and walked away.

When you're a young kid,
it's your first film

and, man, all you want
to do is please.

And he knows that.
When you don't know
that that's just a setup,

because the next scene
you do, two days later,

where you break down
that's 48 hours

of thinking you're the biggest
asshole on the planet.

[Sheen] He treated us
like we were suddenly
the worst casting choice.

I just thought like:
"Damn it, man,
there's such a smoother

and cooler way to get results."

[Rock]
Oliver loved to fuck
around with the actors.

Push them around, bully them,
if you will.

[Sheen]
You know, there was one day
I came to set prepared

for what was
on the call sheet

and there was a new scene
that had been added.

[Depp]
Ace had been talking to Oliver

saying:
"I've written my monologue.

I've got this thing, and you
can shoot-- we can just get it."

Oliver shot it
and Bob Richardson operated.

[Sheen]
'Cause Oliver said,
"I'm going to need you

to back out of this shot."

"What am I-- what am I doing?"

"You're carrying, uh,

water buckets, back and forth."

I said:
"The same water buckets?"

He said: "No, if you exit frame,
we'll think that

you've loaded up new ones. Then
you're taking those back over."

I said: "But shouldn't
the thing be empty on the way
back?" "Don't worry about it."

Oliver would go,
you know, he'd cut him,
you know, at a certain point.

Kill his confidence and he'd go:

"Don't waste my fucking time,
man. Just go, just do it again."

Jesus fucking Christ, man.

They do about fifteen takes,
and I'm back there and you know,

I'm giving it my all.
And he wrapped the scene, and
he was already off to the next,

next location, and I caught up
with him and I said:

"Hey, man what, what, uh,
what was that all about?"

I'm talking
to Boos and I said:

"You know, we got some
stuff outta the guy.

There's stuff in there.
What's he fucking..."

And he goes: "There is
no film in the camera, man.

There's no film in the camera."

[Sheen] He did this just as
an exercise in-- in torture.

Yeah, it was like
psych warfare, you know.

Sometimes
it happens to people

that can't take it
and then it gets ugly.

In that village,
Berenger was screaming at the--

What about the fucking rice and
the weapons? Who the heck for?

[Depp]
The man and the woman,
uh, interpreting.

Oliver's standing back there,
and she's not crying.

He wants real tears.

[Depp] She couldn't have
been more than nine.

Oliver's strategy
into bringing real tears

to the little girl's face,
was a bit much.

Oliver yelling
at us is one thing.

He raised his voice, and...

It went on for far longer
than it needed to.

These people aren't actors.
These people aren't actors.

Sergeant Barseball
who had been involved quite

a lot in our training camps
down there,

he was with the Philippine
constabulary police,

you know, the dude was-- He
could handle himself very well.

He just reached
in for his weapon

and was like, you know,
he was coming out,
and he was moving forward.

And I went: "Oh fuck!" And I
just put my arms on his wrist.

You came over, like:
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down,

everybody calm down. It's okay."

And then Barseball explained
to us: "What I just witnessed,

I will never see again."

-You lie! You VC!
-[shouting in Vietnamese]

[shouting in Vietnamese]

When you come after
a little girl like that,

the Philippines is
a very big place.

People disappear here
all the time. You know?

That was a very heated,
scary fucking moment, though.

'Cause he was...
He wasn't joking, man.

That was bad.

I'll never forget it.

[Depp]
So, I'm going to the
restaurant and I saw...

The edge of the bar
is a restaurant.

I saw Oliver and Alex Ho,
I literally thought:

"This is it. I will make
my statement here and now."

I was wasted.

So, I climb up on
this marble banister

and I got behind
Oliver's table,

there was a curtain right here.
Oliver's head's there.

So I unzipped
the old fly, and...

pulled out the old friend and
uh... was about ready to uh...

Yeah, I was going to urinate
on Oliver, and history
will absolve me.

Challenge after
challenge after challenge.

Word after word
after word and you go:

"Oh, I'll get you, man.
I'll get you".

And that was my moment.
I've seen it, I was about
to take it, and...

I felt, I felt this violent,
like tug on
the back of my shirt.

I fell flat on the ground
and it was the first AD,
H. Gordon Boos.

And he says: "Are you
out of your fucking mind?

-What are you doing?"
-I'm gonna piss
on his fucking head.

No!

[Sheen]
Oliver chose each of us for
our commitment and our desire.

He led us and
willingly we followed.

We didn't always
appreciate his methods,

but we gave his film
everything we had

because we believed
in him and his vision.

Even Tom had to surrender to
Oliver's vision and it worked.

[David] The power of that
kind of authenticity.

Suddenly, we didn't,
we didn't have to act anymore.

One of the things that I think
is a mark of a good director

is putting your actors
under the circumstances

to which you just have
to now find the behavior,
so you don't have to act.

[McGinley] The jump into
where Oliver had been

for two tours in Vietnam.

The actors were
not strained

to take that leap
and so people were in.

I think he thought
the material deserved it

and they should be
operating from a place

where they aren't
too in their stuff.

[Kopelson] Oliver was full
of passion to make this movie.

[Dale]
I mean, he desperately
wanted to tell this story

and he had worked for
10 years to get this story

told and couldn't do it.

And here was
our only opportunity
and neither one of us

wanted to strike out with this
because it represented

the experience we'd
had in Southeast Asia.

It did force me to really
dig a little deeper.

The one thing he did,
that was amazing,

made us feel like we
were a platoon, that's why

we formed such a brotherhood
that 30 years later
is still there.

[Moses] He gave me my first
job ever in film.

I will always
owe Oliver Stone

and I always thank him
and love him for that.

[Sanchez]
The night before our first day
of scenes with actual dialogue

a piece of paper
was slipped under my door.

It turns out
it was a call sheet.

I'd never seen a
call sheet before.

I said: "Oh, I'm putting it
in my pocket, we might
need it tomorrow."

The 2nd A.D. says:
"OK, so, we're gonna go--

Uh, you've got about five
minutes left of breakfast

and then we're gonna
rehearse and shoot."

I said: "What? What the
fuck are we going to shoot?"

And I'm starting
to go in a panic.

I didn't know this at the time,
but it was your, your

first day, and I think
your first time ever
speaking on, on film.

So, we start to do the scene
and, uh, Charlie collapses.

I got covered in, uh, in ants.

You know, I'm bug phobic,
like, like, like a bitch.

They don't just like,
stay on your neck,

they start on your neck
and wind up all around.

[Sanchez] He's really
uncomfortable, he slams down.

Willem comes over to him
and says, "Hey, you're okay?"

I come over, all the guys
are marching behind.

It's 110 degrees heat.
"Oh, this is fine, you know.
Charlie, this is fine."

See, the red ants are bad, but
the black ants are the one--"

"Cut." I went: "Oh, please don't
be me, please don't be me.

I think Willem fucked up.
I hope Willem fucked up."

And, Oliver goes:
"Susie, what's the line?"

She was: "Black ants are bad,
but red--"

"Yes, I thought so.
The red ants are the worse."

Oh, my! So, everybody's
like, everybody in
the background grumbles.

'Cause there's, there's
a line about, you know,
red ants and black ants

and I could see you were
starting, starting
to panic behind it.

It goes back to
first positions and okay, okay.

Charlie goes down again,
da-da-da... And I come in,

and "Red ants are bad,
but black ants are--." "Cut."

I thought,
"Okay, I, I get the nerves, uh,

but he's either dyslexic
or, or, uh, or, or colorblind."

Everybody's like:
"Oh, my God. It's one line."

I've got ants
all over my neck.

[Sanchez] It felt like
we were there for days.

I've got some red ants,
quite some killers.

[Sanchez] Instead
of correcting me

she crossed out
the lines after a while and

just put in... Whatever
I said she wrote it into
the script

"That's your new line."

And Oliver looked over to her:
"Sus, is that it?"

She goes,
"Yup." "Okay, moving on."

I get an e-mail, uh, and
it's yourself, it's Paul.

And he's reaching out
to contribute

to this very documentary
and I wrote back

"Red ants,
black ants, blue ants."

And then it says:
"XOX C."

That's so emblematic of how deep
this stuff got into our DNA.

We hadn't spoken
for easily a decade,

not for any, any
reasons of, of, of whatever,

just 'cause, uh...
You know, people's lives
go different ways.

But as soon as I got that,
I wrote you back,

uhm, and the first thing
I thought of was uh,

was the various colors
of those ants.

Happy to help.

[Dafoe]
I had a beautiful role because
he's kind of a charismatic

sensitive guy,
and he dies so tragically.

Which, you know,
it's a fantastic shot.

It's these helicopters.
It was physical.

It was complicated.
It was a quite dramatic shot.

[helicopter over
Adagiomusic]

But Tom as Barnes
was inspired casting.

He's the performance
of the movie

and he was able
to contact some sort of rage

and bitter disappointment
that really ran deep.

Out here you belong to me.
Now move!

Tom is fantastic in that role.

I was the first to talk,
and the first to die.

I didn't live long,
but I had good screen time.

My line was, "Oh, man.
Is that what I think it is?"

Berenger just came up with
that phone and just wreck--

I think actually, he knocked the
helmet off with the telephone.

But a few times it just
blew off by itself.

That's how strong
those explosions were,
and they were frightening.

You didn't have
to do much acting.

Sort of reacting.
[explosion]

[shouting]

We were working with, uhm,
those huge helicopters
that had no doors.

[helicopter overhead]
King, King grabbed
me from behind.

You almost went out
of the thing?

Well, it was close,
but I'm still here.

[Depp]
I just remember being,
being thrown on that chopper,

and it took off, and
it immediately went sideways.

You don't know
where a camera is around.

There may be one in the chop.
You don't know, so...

You just keep going,
you just keep going.

We had to keep flying
around in circles [chuckles].

The ground is
there [laughter] now.

And I don't
remember my gurney

being especially roped in
or anything [laughs].

I'm wounded at that point.

I don't know about you,
but I'm holding onto something

because I'm not going to
go through all of this

and not
get in the final cut.

[Berenger]
My favorite in the film
would be the hooch scene.

I am reality.

Because it is a great
piece of theater.

Kill me.

"What are you doing?"
I said: "Ah, this is
my entrance."

He said: "Yeah, but
you think you... Like,
maybe come around the corner?"

I say we frag
that fucker tonight!

If they are all in there
talking about Elias being killed

and I set Elias up for this.

You're wrong, man! Any way
you cut it, Barnes is
a fucking murderer.

You don't see me.
You hear me.

He goes: "What do you mean?"

Talk about killing.

[Berenger] They look around,
and I'm sitting down there

in a little gook squat
smoking a cigarette

and drinking a bottle
of Jack Daniels.

How long has
he been there?

You're all experts?

[Berenger]
How much did he hear?

You all know
about killing?

Well, I'd like to hear
about it, potheads.

You know, you hit that point
where anything you do

is right for
the character.

It was like the first night
of the final siege,

you know, and uhm, you know,
just me and Cory are stuck
in that, in that foxhole

when it all goes to shit.

I missed a mark
or overshot something

and I was too close to one
of the pots, you know,
for the bombs.

And the shit went off
right here.

I got knocked out
before I knew anything.

I think that shot's in the movie

'cause I was basically drooling
[laughs] and dizzy eyes.

I also sprained my ankle.
It was, it was a fucking
bad night.

And so, Captain Dye
rolls up and, you know,
he shakes out a cigarette,

and he says: "Taylor, it's
moments like these why
we continue to smoke."

It was the Tet offensive
at the end of the movie

and Doc and the Lt.
and myself were all
featured in this one shot.

Bombs going off
all over the place.

For me, it was an overwhelming
experience to shoot that night.

And don't forget, 40 bombs.

They put the little
yellow flags in so crew

and camera knew
where those bombs were.

And then just before filming,
they pulled the flags out.

And you have 125 extras
at the top of that hill

gonna have to run
down in the dark.

Didn't know where
the bombs were.

I mean, it was something.
It was such a huge, huge shot.

It was one of
the highlights for me.

[explosions]

[Sheen] Tom Cruise, uh,
he done a film called Taps.

So, Tom's last moment
in Tapsbefore the tank

just riddles
the shit out of him,

It's beautiful, man.
Beautiful.

That's where I got that thing
in the foxhole at the very end.

I just stole it from Tom.

[gunfire]

-It's beautiful!
-What are you doing?

In the script, it was Sal who
was supposed to be blown up.

Man, these are gook stuff,
let's get out of here.

No, Sal this is important.

Which made sense.
He picked up the, uh,
the metal box.

And I was like:
Man-- [laughter]

It's like, I can't get respect
around here no matter what.

But, uhm, so I was
really like pissed off.

They took my arm and
pinned it behind my back

and then they took
what was left out

and they stuck a piece
of sh-- like thing on there

to make it look
like my arm was blown off.

And the same with the other.

So, it was a long time,
it was probably from like eight

till about noon we took
to do the make-up.

But then I saw what--
how much work...

He was like four hours preparing
for that thing and I was like:
"Oh, just as well."

[J. Glover] It's probably
15 seconds on film, but uhm,
it works pretty well.

[music]

My favorite scene would be,
uh, the scene

where I bash
the guy's head open.

When Bunny and I
go into the hut that day,

and discover
the handicapped kid,

something snapped,
something completely snapped.

Dance you one-legged
motherfucker, dance!!!

Then Bunny did things
that were brutally unsound.

[yells]

They kept saying get in
as close as you can,
get in as close as you can.

[yells]
[cries]

One time I actually,
accidentally hit him with a gun,

which they used on film.

Because at that point
we were so freaking tired
and just, just addled.

I felt bad
and I felt like the guy
didn't understand acting.

He didn't under-- he didn't even
hardly know where the camera
was, so he didn't know.

He was looking at me
like it was all real

and it was really,
really hard to do.

[Sheen] At that point, it was
just reaction and raw emotions.

[crying dies out]

I felt terrible for that kid.

I felt awful about that.

I always carried
all my per diem on me.

Then Charlie
took our per diem

we pulled it together,
we gave it

to the kid so that he could
get his cataracts fixed.

[Sheen] That same day,
shot the scene when
I come in and break up the rig.

My character was supposed
to be the one raping.

[crying]
Get outta here!
Get the fuck off!

[dramatic music]
Don't do it!
Don't do it!

My mom said:
"Please, please don't do that."

You just don't fucking
get it, do you, man?

You just don't fucking get it.
It's okay.

I was young and didn't
want to upset my mom.

If I could compare one day
to the hundreds that dad had
in Apocalypse.

That's the one day.
Let's just say there was

a lot to drink away
in the bar that night.

[music dies out]

Once we got out there,
it was shot so kind of
unconventionally, that uh...

you had no sense of anything
outside of that world.

That was one of
the beauties of it.

We left Hollywood
so far behind.

You know, we would
drive the trucks

they only went so far
into the jungle

and then we had to hike
30 - 40 minutes.

Actors were picking up camera
cases and humping them in.

And they didn't
give it a second thought.

And everybody wanted
to be there and everybody
carried their own weight.

We had gone
down to Manila

and we had found
actual Vietnamese refugees

who would play these roles.

What we didn't realize is that
when we got them all together

they would begin
speaking Vietnamese.

[chattering in Vietnamese]

Oliver actually
had to walk off the set

and he was sitting out
on the dike of a rice paddy.

And I shook my head because
it was really getting to me.

And finally, I just went out
and sat down next to him.

We didn't say a word because
both of us at that moment

were back in Vietnam.

In making the movie

yes, we're actors, but
there were none of the trailers

there were none of
the makeup conventions

The-- And we were in a foreign
area and a lot of these guys

had never even
been out of the country.

My dressing room,
my pot, my helmet.

I'm sitting in my dressing room,
uh, in the jungle.

So, it was very exotic.

There were so many
parallels and of course,

I'm not saying
that that makes us--

I'm saying maybe it
invites us to pretend better

not makes us understand
better necessarily.

I remember teaching you
to handle a sucking chest wound

and, uh, you know, you kept,
you kept wanting to add things

and I said:
"Doc, stop it. You're a medic,
you've seen this before.

You know that this one is
probably not going to make it.

You can talk to him, you can
try to keep him conscious,

try to keep him breathing,
but probably can't save him."

I knew that you
would do the right thing

with the battle dressings
and so on and so forth.

What I didn't expect was
the emotion that got to you.
And I saw it,

and I said: "You know,
that's not acting."

It's so fucking hot
and you are so tired

and then people
are harassing you

and we just saw it a little bit,
and you know what?

Like, I'm pissed. I'm thinking
like, any mother fucking gook
that comes in my path

I'm going to light
your fucking ass up.

Fuck you. I don't care.

And I thought that
is how they felt

and that was real
for us in that moment.

We were doing
the first night ambush

where you see two NVA soldiers
that come out of the fog

and make that little
signal about "come ahead."

I always kept an M16 loaded

with blank ammunition
next to the camera

because Oliver
would every once in a while

want me to fire the thing
and you know,
heat things up a bit.

So, I was kind of
leaning on the muzzle
of the rifle next to the--

While all the fog was settling
and Oliver said: "Action."

And those NVA
came up and did this

and I came awake
and looked at them.

Dale, in an eighth of a second,

went-- I mean, cause he was just
standing there and was just
sort of spacing out,

you know. He just went, swoosh!

You know, I had a firearm.

It was one of the heaviest,

things I've ever seen, you know.

Puerto Azul was this resort
and they had a, they had
a lounge-bar.

We were just kinda salty
at the end of the day when
we'd get off the set.

We were filming for 12 hours
in these really intense scenes

and come back
looking like hell.

[Sheen] No one would
go to their room.

Everyone would, uh, forget
how bloody they were,

caked in dirt or whatever.

Forget a shower, we all
went straight to the bar.

[C. Glover]
At the end of the day, we'd
all ride in the bar together.

[Eshelman]
Full fatigues, blood.

[Sanchez]
We don't care.
We own this place.

[C. Glover] We needed a break,
we needed a real sort of release
from that sort of thing.

So, the lounge at Puerto Azul
was what we needed.

[Sheen] That bar was like
the greatest place in the world.

It was real gathering uh, spot
for us, where we sought refuge.

[Depp]
We all knew that binge drinking
was dangerous, you know.

So, if you kept your blood
alcohol level to a certain point

it was a whole lot
easier to deal with shit.

Well, it really did help.
It helped a lot.

That was our moment,
to just phew...

And it didn't matter if, if,
you know, the later we stayed
the less sleep we got.

It wasn't
you know, sleep, schmeep.

I think we were
all pretty inebriated.

I remember glasses breaking,

being chucked at the bar.

[C. Glover] And there was this
cover band basically singing
pop tunes phonetically.

They didn't speak any English.

They were saying that,
"We built this city."

There's a point
when it was like:

"Hey, you play guitar,
you play the drums?"

We overtook
this little bandstand
where the local band played.

[C. Glover] The band would take
a break and we'd pick up
their instruments.

[Sheen] The Platoon band
consisted of the following:

Johnny Depp, lead guitar.
Corey Glover, vocals.

John Glover, vocals,
rhythm guitar,

Chris Patterson, bass and
Richard Edson on the drums.

Playing, you know, old blues
covers and old like soul songs

and just entertaining ourselves.

We just said
hey, can we borrow
your instruments?

And then, that was
the first night, and
the second night it was like:

"Hey, we're taking
your instruments."
And then after that

I was like:
"Don't even come
near the stage."

For four guys
that never played together,

they were fabulous.

Depp and John Glover were
some amazing guitar players

and they were playing
some of this stuff

and it sounded
really, really good.

I wasn't good enough
to make the band.

I played the drums
back then.

These were really
talented musicians.

It was hard
to break into the band.
They were very tight.

It was a really good band,
I mean, amazing.

I still didn't really consider
the idea of myself as an actor.

I was still a musician
as far I was concerned.

I remember Johnny kept saying
"I don't want to be an actor.

I want to be a musician."

Look at him now.

[C. Glover] It became a thing.
When we came to the bar

the manager was like: "Okay, you
go on in 10 minutes?" "What?"

I'm not even sure
those dudes ever came back.

They just left
their instruments.

I don't know
how much I'd pay today

to have just
one night of that back.

But... the better it was
and as good as it got,
guys started leaving.

[Sheen]
What we didn't really anticipate
is as certain characters

in the movie died,
they were sent home.

You have 33 people
in this bar every night.

And... one by one, throughout
the course of the shooting

there would be
one less guy at the bar.

When you got killed in the
movie, you left the next day.

It's a practical enough thing,
but it had a weird effect

because you get
close to these guys

and then they got killed,
and then they were gone.

The NVA comes in
and Bob Orwig is up

and his character gets a sucking
chest wound and he's dead.

Next day,
he's on a plane out.

We got Bob on the airplane
and sent him home

and Berenger looked at me

and he said: "Wow, that's
feels weird, doesn't it?"

I said: "Yeah, it feels
like we just lost one."

He's not dead in real life,
but it felt like that,

because they were,
they were just suddenly gone.

Manny.

The whole scene about looking
for Manny, and he's gone

and you feel that loss.

Cookie was a good friend,
and like--

I went through
boot with him. I was,

I was having
a good time with him.

Everybody ended up in the bar
of the hotel that night

drinking San Miguel beer
and mourning the fact

that we had lost one of ours.
Now, he was fine.

He was on an airplane
going home, but not to us.

To us we had lost one.

That was another clue that we'd
really done something special.

Oliver obviously
did a really smart thing.

He filmed the movie in sequence
so that when people got killed--

They left, so it was
the most bizarre thing

that you created this
camaraderie of this
acting company

and then you get to a certain
point in the schedule,
they were gone.

Depp left. We had a party
the night before

but, he-- after his scene
he was, he was gone.

Richard Edson left early,
John Glover left early.

Uhm... all of a sudden there
was fewer and fewer
of those, of us.

I don't wanna
lean on it too much

but that, that really plays
on your... On your imagination.

And the community we created,

you saw it get
chipped away at.

You know, you're
a few days into filming

and you already know
how tight this group is.

If you could time-lapse film
a tableau of that bar

and all of its initial glory,
and watch it just
shrink down and down

and further and further,
and further.

The group
kept getting smaller

and smaller
and smaller and smaller.

Suddenly there was no band.

There was no music.

Uhm, it was, it was
the few remaining souls.

[Berenger] Then you go back to
the hotel and it's just...

there's nobody there,
and I went back to my room

and I'm getting like:
"Oh God, they're all gone.

Everybody's gone.
I'm getting depressed."

I, I felt each death,
and each wounding

much more deeply
than I thought.

I think I had crossed

some fourth wall
and those were my guys.

[Sanchez] You know, the van's
outside and I've got my stuff
and I look in the bar

which was normally
packed with us.

Well, there was just
John McGinley and it's just him.

[nostalgic music]

And no music.
There's nobody playing.

There's nobody.

It's him, I came and I put my,
kinda, softly just slapped
his shoulder,

and I said: "Hey, I just
wanted to, uh, say goodbye
'cause I'm leaving."

Without turning,
not out of anger

but to contain his emotions,

he just said: "Well, if
you're gonna go, then go."

[McGinley]
All of a sudden there was
fewer and fewer of us.

You didn't have
to act your ass off.

You really had to hit
your mark and say your lines

and, and,
and exercise this collage

of experiences that
you've been bombarded by.

Bob, I've had a bad feeling
on this one, alright?

I mean I got a bad feeling.

I don't think I'm gonna
make it out of here.

I, I sat next to
this, this businessman and,
uh, as soon as we got airborne,

it was-- it was so deeply akin
to the, the last chopper flight.

The war is over for me now

but it will always be there
the rest of my days.

When I was overcome with...
in that scene, you know,

it was identical
leaving the Philippines.

[dramatic music]

I think now, looking back,

we did not fight the enemy.

But this guy next to me,
he sees I'm in a state,

I'm crying and I'm just like,
you know, I'm just
out the window

and I'm really
having in this moment.

He says, he says:
"What's going on?"

And I said:
"I don't think this flight is
long enough to explain it."

We got back to the States side
a lot of the actors
we did get together.

Dale had
several parties at his home
and we would all go to that.

[Kane] We were all clinging
to that, you know, camaraderie.

I get to L.A.
and moved in with Depp.

[chuckles] We had a little
studio apartment in Hollywood.

And, uh... there's cast
and crew screening.

I remember we
watched it and I think

many of us
were a little bit in shock.

Platoonis a really,
really tough film to watch.

It's like ugly and violent
and depressing.

And I had my grandmother
and my mother and my stepfather,

kind of like: "Oh, my God.
I probably shouldn't have
brought my family to this."

I remember my grandmother
afterwards saying:

"I never want to see
a movie like that again."

You know, my mom tried to
scramble out in the middle
of the scene

where Bunny's
bashing the head open.

And I basically
had to physically
put her back in the seat

and say: "Mom, you have
to stay. You cannot walk out."

And it was tough for her
to watch that.

They had a little party for us
across the street in some bar.

And... I'll never forget,
you know, everybody saying,
"Great shot, great shot."

About six of us actors,
Moses, McGinley, myself, Ivan,

we just pushed right up
to that bar. "Yeah, tequila."

We're just drinking
and maybe three words

were shared like: "Fuck. Fuck."

All of us knew
we fucked that film.

I was looking
at minute things.

"My God, he had his finger
on the trigger in this scene.

Come on, what we worked for
three months for?"

We didn't get Dai Uy's
instruction good enough.

Oliver's dream was, was
gonna crash and burn.

I think it was the third time
I saw the movie.

Uh... And we sat and watched it.
And, and watched it
differently this time,

'cause it wasn't like we had,
you know, worried
about getting a job

from that or winning some
fucking award or some bullshit.

We, we kinda watched it,
sort of, over here, and uh...
everybody was proud of it.

We're all proud of it, you know.

Uhm, I found out the film
was gonna be released
right on Christmas.

I'm like: "Super! Nothing
says Christmas like Platoon."

But what, what are they doing?
We're shit out of luck.

No one is gonna see
this fucking thing.

Well, we can show it to
our cousins, that'll be good.

Ah, and I'll be goddamned
if it didn't all work out.

We're up at Depp's and it's
Christmas. It's opening night.

Let's go and see
what the film is doing.

Hop in the car,
I see some people milling
about the box office.

"Okay, somebody's coming."

Then, we get closer.
Oh, the--

Okay, there's
a few people waiting.
You get to the corner,

there's a line down the block

and we took a left down
this block and half a block up.

It's good
to be wrong sometimes.

I'm going: "God, Oliver,
have you seen the reviews?"

He says: "I know, there's
not a bad review."

I said:
"Every single one of them."

I go:
"You can't do better than this."

I started hearing
good things about it.

And then, in those days,

because it wasn't so
sophisticated as it is now.

I'm at home and my
son's babysitter calls me up

and says:
"Hey, you've been nominated."

The only, the only thing
I think is, I really wish my dad

was still around to see this.
He goes, "Me too."

The most surreal thing was
that it won the Academy Award.

I remember McGinley stood up
and just couldn't...

didn't know what to make of it.
I think he's gonna fall over.
'Cause it's a little

low-budget film,
with a bunch of,

you know, we're not...
You know, we get like maybe two

and a half actors in the thing
and then the rest of us.

Hemdale threw a party for us
at La Scala in Beverly Hills.

We were all dressed like we were
going to the Academy Awards.

It was so great.
When the show was over

Oliver, Arnold, Tom,
Willem, they all came.

That was a really,
really special night.

That was a nice payoff.

When we won four Academy Awards,
including Best Picture

my phone suddenly
started ringing

and all of those guys who said:
"We don't need you,"

suddenly did need me.

This is the beauty of it.

None of us had pumped
in our heads that

"Oh, my God, this movie's gonna
win four Academy Awards.

It's gonna put us all on the
map." We didn't know that.

We were there to do the work.

He hired the right people
at the right time,

that were hungry enough
to get in there
and do the task at hand.

[Sheen] To be part of the Best
Picture it's like you won

the championship that year.

Maybe we didn't get the MVP

but together,
we won the championship.

I, like many other Vietnam
guys, came home to not so
nice a welcome.

Uh, the country was ragged
and the country was tired.

We were ostracized and I think
a lot of Vietnam veterans,

uh, too damn many of them,
kinda went in the closet

and they kept all
this stuff inside.

I showed it around
to a few veterans,

uh, before it had ever been
released or anything like that.

Oliver gave me a copy
and let me show it.

And the veterans said:
"Ooh, that's it."

But we now understand it

and rare is the film that brings

such understanding
of horrible things.

This helped people understand.
It was a point

of reference for something that
they could never talk about.

A guy rushed over to me

and he said: "Listen man,
I don't want to disturb you.

I just want to know-- I just
want you to know

that I was in the 365th
in 1968, and I know you!"

And he walked away,
and I wept.

That film
had a huge sociological
impact on the nation.

They, they were
talking about Platoon

and talking about each other and
talking about their experience.

And I think that
was very healthy.

A lot of Vietnam guys,
who had for 10 years,
kept this stuff inside

eating a hole in their guts.

A lot of them took
their family to see Platoon,

and said: "Look,
I haven't talked about it.

I can't talk about it, I won't
talk about it, but there it is."

[theme music]

I'm here
because of the impact...

Make it outta here...

...of a little movie we did...

Every day of the rest
of your life man - gravy.

...in the Philippines
30 years ago.

A group of guys that
I bonded with so quickly
and so impactfully.

I think it was because
it was a trial by fire

that we all sort of
went through together.

It may have been the,
the training we went
through together

that we are--
We consider ourselves brothers.

It's not like a job that
you get where you show up,

and you're gonna know your lines
and you're in a safety net.
This had no safety net.

If I see anybody,
it's like seeing a brother.

Yeah. It was 30 years ago
and when you get back together

uh, it's the same spirit
that we had back then.

You and I see each other,
uh, it's like yesterday.

And If I run into,
into anybody from our
experience back in the world,

uh... it didn't matter
what I was doing.

What was going on? It would--

It would all come to
an absolute Flintstone's halt.

We all had the best time
in the world

and the worst time
in the world.

I've never been
in another circumstance like it.

It was, it was wonderfully
unique in that sense.

It gave us a chance to bond
as actors and as human beings.

I love the guys
I made that movie with.

On every film you
go away for three months

and you live together and
you become like a family.

But this was a whole other
level and watching you guys,

It was like brothers,
all of you guys.

And It's amazing
even today just seeing
you guys out in the hallway.

It's, it's like a bond
that was created.

I don't want to romanticize it,
but it never existed for me...

I did 10, 15 other
movies and stuff,

it never existed on
any other movie, that bond.

It was the tightest bond
I've ever had on any film.

You know, it was the camaraderie
that we formed. It's the bond.

Without a word, you hug...

and it's like everything else
will wait and you reconnect.

You look into their eyes and it
doesn't matter if it's a month
or three years or a decade.

These are my brothers. These
really are my brothers.

[Sheen]
It's truly a confluence
of the time that we did it

of the place that we did it in
and of how we did it.

I'll probably, you know,
be buried with my helmet

and my entrenching tool and
maybe a picture of my wife.

[Edson]
The bond that was
created isn't one

that had to be reinforced by
constantly seeing each other.
What is that?

'Cause this is
something special.

This is something,
this is something you just...
don't forget.

What we all got 30 years ago

is a gift I think every one
of us is going to die with

and I am so proud to be
here doing this today.

I've never been impacted
more by three months

or four months than Platoon.

I'll never forget ya.
You know, it's like,
I love you guys.

I mean, I have no problem
looking at these guys and
saying: "I love you, guys."

We all ended up sort of getting
clipped on to one another

in this, in this very organic
and necessary way.

[Sheen] We're all connected
forever. We're all... we're all
just we are linked, cosmically.

I just wanna be
back with those guys.

Platoonwas great.

For four months,
you got to be involved

in something that actually
came together and worked.

[John] It grounded everybody
just for once in excellence.

You got to connect
with greatness

if you can just reference
it from time to time

it functions as salvation,
as oxygen.

The bond, a strange bond,
uh, will never go away.

It's, it's seared onto
my brain forever

until the very final
second when I become smoke.

[music]