♪ ("BAND OF BROTHERS"
THEME PLAYS) ♪ ROGER BENNETT:
Welcome back to HBO's<i>
Band of Brothers</i> podcast. This is Roger Bennett. I say, "Flash,"
you say, "Thunder." Episode two, "Day of Days." The episode retells
a story of Operation Overlord. The Allied invasion
of Nazi-controlled
western Europe begins on the sixth of June,
1944, a day on which, and it's hard to say this without it coming off
as hyperbole, the future
of the free world hinged. But that's the truth. These are the stakes
this episode confronts. Easy Company's mission
was to land behind the Germans'
first line of defense, to secure the causeways
beyond the beaches of Normandy, allowing men and supplies to roll on in
to the French countryside. If episode one, "Currahee,"
is the show letting us know that this story is gonna take us
on a journey across Europe and that we're gonna
follow this cast of characters, "Day of Days"
is the series warning us, as we do become emotionally
invested in each individual, we're gonna lose many
along the way. That, and two more truths. That everyone wants a luger,
especially Malarkey, and non-fatal wounds
tend to be shots in the ass. BUCK:<i> Where ya hit, Pop?</i> POPEYE:<i> I can't believe
I fucked up. My ass, sir!</i> -BUCK:<i> Your ass?</i>
-(GRUNTING) ROGER: Above all, this episode,
which at 49 minutes is the shortest
in the entire series, really brings to life the emotion Stephen Ambrose
articulates in his book, when he wrote, "Getting shot
and shooting to kill produce extraordinary
emotional reactions. No matter how hard you train, nor however realistic
the training, no one can ever be
fully prepared for the insanity
of the real thing." ♪ (THEME MUSIC FADES) ♪ My guest today
is a remarkable gent, a man who became a television
writer as a mid-career switch. And, prepare to be
blown away, listeners. Not only landed his first proper
writing gig on<i> Band of Brothers,</i> but in crafting episode two,
"Day of Days," and episode nine, "Why We Fight,"
in his words, quote, "...kind of had to write<i>
Saving Private Ryan</i> and then<i> Schindler's List</i>
back to back." Spoiler alert. We know he was up to the task,
and then some. And it's a joy to welcome
Mr. John Orloff. JOHN ORLOFF: Why, thank you.
It's exciting to be here. And wow, that might be
the greatest introduction I've ever had in my life.
No question. ROGER: You deserve that
every single morning for what you've given
to the world, Mr. John Orloff. But let's go back
to the start, John. You are a fourth-generation
film business gent. Your great-grandparents,
the radio comedy legends Fibber and McGee,
were a staple on Network NBC. Roughly, listeners, like a 1940s<i> Friends</i>
Ross and Rachel. But you decided to carry on
in the family business. You went to UCLA film school. But when you graduated, you had
the self-awareness to realize you hadn't lived
long enough to write anything. So you plummet into advertising, meet your wife,
Paige Smith Orloff, who is then an HBO exec. She challenged you to write. Tell us that story, John,
because when I hear that, I think everyone
needs a muse like your wife. JOHN: Right after film school
at UCLA, I ended up
working in advertising, making TV commercials. And when I met my wife, who was an executive,
as you mentioned, at HBO, she would bring home writing
samples from other writers, 'cause she would be
thinking about hiring them. And at the time,
HBO happened to make
a lot of nonfiction films. And I thought I could do
as good, maybe better. And so, she encouraged me
to write something that I believed in
and something from my heart. I chose to write a 16th century
Elizabethan melodrama. ROGER: I love that 16th century
melodramatic heart -that lies within John Orloff...
-(LAUGHS) ...because it produced
a screenplay
called<i> Soul of the Age...</i> JOHN: Very good. ROGER: ...about Shakespeare. But this is right around
the time<i> Shakespeare in Love</i> is smashing it
at the Academy Awards. Best Picture, Best Actress,
best everything. And in doing so,
it's kind of saturated, the late 90s Shakespeare market. So your project's DOA. JOHN:
Which is already a small market! ROGER: (LAUGHS) Yes. It's
a big niche in a tiny niche. And to the extent that one agent
who received it-- I love this. Actually called you. They took time out of their busy
day to ask you, John Orloff, "How dare you
write this script?" And I love this story, because any young listeners will
know they should never give up, because you've said
this agent was not just passing, he was passing with malice. JOHN: He's still a big agent,
at the same company. And he took time
out of his busy, busy day. Somebody I've never met
in my life. I didn't even know
he had read the script. And he calls me up to tell me how offended
he was by the script. I mean, it was just insane. Another agent
at the same agency read it, and he's been
my agent ever since. The script made its
way to the desk of Tom Hanks. It allows you to have a meeting. You, a self-proclaimed
Second World War nut, and Stephen Ambrose fanboy. And you took the opportunity
to sell yourself as a writer for a project he's starting
to develop,<i> Band of Brothers.</i> Take us back into that room, how you first find out
about the project, and pitch yourself to Tom. JOHN: There's this one guy,
the guy that had read <i> Soul of the Age</i> first,
who still works for Tom, named Kirk Saduski. He's also a big World War II
buff and history buff, and that's one of the reasons
he liked<i> Soul of the Age,</i> and then gave it to Tom. We talked a lot
about World War II, and he brought it up to say,
you know, "Hey, we're working on this
project, it's really cool." And then I went in
and met with Tom, to talk about
a whole another project, a film that
never got made. And so, we talked
a little bit about that. And I think either
in that meeting or the next meeting, I said, "Hey, I hear you're
writing a World War II, or you know, creating
a World War II miniseries. I'm a huge Ambrose fan,
huge World War II nut. And I would just love
to be part of it." And Tom said,
"Yeah, that's great. But, you know, we're probably
only gonna have one writer, this guy Erik Jendresen,
and... da-da-da-da-da... So sorry, and..." So, we have another meeting
or two about this other movie. What would the acts be
and all that kind of stuff. Out of the blue, at the end
of the meeting, he's like, "Hey! You still wanna work
on<i> Band of Brothers?"</i> And I go, "Uh... Yeah, sure." And he goes, "Well, great. You wanna
write the D-Day episode?" -(ROGER LAUGHS)
-JOHN: And I go, "Uh, okay..." ROGER: I need to rewind for
one moment here, John Orloff. I need to know,
how did you... A gent born in the mid-60s
in Los Angeles, California... How did you become
a Second World War nut in the first place? JOHN: As you said,
I'm fourth-generation Hollywood. So, my grandmother
was a B-movie actress, who's in<i> The Big Sleep.</i> My father was
a commercial director in the 60s and 70s. I mean, like a very successful-- every other commercial
was made by his company. And so, he was very wealthy. Well, at least
in a short-term way. (LAUGHS) My parents were divorced,
and I would go every other weekend
to his house. And he had a screening room. Like a proper,
16-millimeter screening room with seats and a projector,
and the screen that came down, and the whole nine yards. ROGER: Oh, heaven...
Heaven! JOHN: He owned a couple hundred
films on 16 millimeter. Now, this is like
the early, mid-70s, where there's no VHS,
there's no streaming. The only way you get
to watch an old movie, like<i> Guns of Navarone,</i>
or<i> Patton,</i> or<i> Paths of Glory,</i> or<i> Run Silent, Run Deep,</i> I mean,
I could go on and on and on... ROGER: The classics. JOHN: You either had to just
kind of find them on television on a Saturday morning,
and that was kind of it. So, my dad had
a lot of these movies. So, you know,
I really just got into it. And then, as a kid,
I played in uniform, pretending to fight Nazis. And I had at one point<i>
The Guns of Navarone</i> figure guys and the... mountain made by like Mattel,
or whoever made it in like 1970. ROGER: That's product placement -before there was
product placement, but...
-JOHN: Yeah! ROGER: Essentially, as a kid,
you inhaled the canon. So when Hank says,
"Do you want to write episode two, 'Day of Days,'
the D-Day episode?" Was that your version
of making the Super Bowl as a QB in your rookie season? I mean, that is the stuff
that dreams are made of. How did you feel when
you walked out of that room? JOHN: In shock, and in awe,
and then terrified. Because he didn't just say, "Do you wanna work
on<i> Band of Brothers?"</i> But... "Do you wanna do
the D-Day episode?" And this was maybe a year after<i>
Saving Private Ryan</i> came out. Both the cultural impact
that film had... and the cinematic impact the D-Day scene
specifically had, as being called one of the greatest
combat sequences ever, now has to be duplicated. So, I was terrified.
Absolutely terrified. ROGER: Do you have
impostor syndrome at all? -I am projecting here--
-JOHN: Yeah! I want to be quite honest,
John. Were you like, "You know what?
I was born for this." JOHN: No, no, no, no.
I was absolutely terrified. But, at the same time,
I did think, well I kind of know
what I'm doing, both about the war
and about screenwriting, and Tom Hanks seems to think
I'm a decent enough writer. So they'll give me a shot. ROGER: The stakes
of every episode in this series, you have to get it right
on Easy Company's experience. To me, that could
crush a writer. And this is not just
any episode. This is the Allied invasion
of Normandy, arguably
the most important battle in the history
of modern human conflict. So, under the weight of that, how did you prepare?
What were the first steps? Who did you speak with?
How did you think through the thread, the narrative
that you wanted to tell? JOHN: So then I met
Erik Jendresen, who had written the bible
that we sort of followed in terms of what
happens in what episodes. ROGER: The<i> Band of Brothers</i>
bible which broke down the whole show's structure. JOHN: Eric had done
all this amazing research. He had started
to talk to the men. I think at that point,
I'd talked to Dick Winters. He was the first guy I spoke to. And the first time
we didn't meet, we only spoke on the telephone. My first few times
talking to him, he stayed in Hershey
and I was in LA. Dick is an amazing--
was an amazing man. I became friends with him
and stayed friends with him
until his illness. After I'd spoken with Dick,
I realized,
"Oh, that's the episode." You don't need to
go beyond Dick Winters. If you can't make a guy
dropping into Nazi-occupied France with nothing but
a fucking trench knife, and by the end of the day, he has taken
405-millimeter German cannons and saved hundreds,
if not thousands, of lives on Utah beach. If you can't make that
dramatically interesting, then you need another job. So that was sort of
one of my choices was to say, "Hey, rather than seeing
all these other guys, let's just do Dick Winters. His point of view that day
and nothing else." And everybody was like,
"That's a great idea." Now maybe it seems obvious
in hindsight, but that's not where we started. So we just sort of said,
"Let's just tell that story." And if you got his blessing...
And he liked me, I clearly knew my stuff
in terms of the war and talking to him in a way
that he was comfortable with. He told all the other guys
that I was okay, and he didn't go to
the guys' reunions. So, he never went to them. He went to maybe
one or two over 50 years. But I did go
to the next reunion, Easy Company reunion,
which was in the summer of, I want to say '98,
in Denver, Colorado. So now I've gotten the papal
blessing from Dick, so now I fly to Denver
and walk in and... (LAUGHS) It's a big ballroom
in the middle of Denver. You know, not the fanciest one
you've ever seen. You know, those standard
white tables with tablecloths, There's no food being served,
there's no nothing. There is a table filled
with jugs and jugs and jugs of every alcohol known to man,
and it's serve yourself. There's just a bunch
of old guys. Obviously, they're in their 70s. Some have brought
some family members, but not a lot--
Actually, not a lot at all. They were just huddled
in separate tables, talking, drinking. This is before<i> Band of Brothers</i>
has come out. So, the guys were maybe less shy
after<i> Band of Brothers,</i> but before<i> Band of Brothers,</i>
these guys were all very, very private men
who'd gone on and lived their lives,
had families... and they were not
a society that-- a generation, rather,
that talked a lot about themselves. And so, they wouldn't talk about
their war service with anybody else
but themselves. They didn't tell
their wives about it. They didn't tell
their kids about it. And so,
they would just get together-- We would now call it
like a therapy session, you know,
like a group therapy session. But that's not what it was
in any classical,
technical way. It was just a bunch of guys
telling war stories, getting drunk together. But that's what they needed,
you know? ROGER: What did
it feel like for you, a self-professed
Second World War nut on this project of a lifetime,
to be in that barroom with the actual heroes,
just hearing them open up? JOHN: It was amazing,
it was electric, it was jaw-dropping. And the more I talked to them,
the more my jaw would drop. I just came from Ambrose's book. It's a whole 'nother thing
to start talking and saying, "Well what did you feel about--"
So I met all these guys, Malarkey, Compton, Lipton,
"Popeye" Wynn, Guarnere, Heffron. How can you forget
Bill and "Babe"? I mean those two guys
could drink anybody -under the table. Anybody.
-(ROGER LAUGHS) -Go on.
-JOHN: It was amazing the amount of liquor
those two men could consume and have no effect. Unbelievable! ROGER: I mean listening
to these stories, these liquor-soaked stories,
these stories of trauma, of agony, of wonder, of pain. Was it there in that room
that you realized both what you needed
to tell and what you were
writing against, you needed to tell
with authenticity, rather than heroizing it all. JOHN: Spending any time
with the guys themselves put an extraordinary extra onus
on all of us to get it right. Because when you sat
and you talked to them, and they would share
these stories, they were just
mouth-droppingly amazing. The sacrifices... Because again, before<i>
Saving Private Ryan,</i>
in particular, and then<i> Band of Brothers</i>
just a couple of years later, World War II wasn't shown in this really graphic,
intense, emotionally... How war affects people
not just in the positive. None of those things
were explored in<i> Patton</i> or<i> Guns of Navarone,</i>
these films I did indeed love. But they were made
in the 1960s and the early 1970s.
And by then, World War II movies
were totally out of fashion until<i> Saving Private Ryan.</i> So what these stories were
was changing. It wasn't just John Wayne
taking a hill. They were also
17 other guys who died, so John Wayne
could take that hill. And let's talk about that story. And these were those guys. It's hard to sit down
at a table with Carwood Lipton, who had the most intense
sparkly blue eyes, and not be captivated
by his storytelling. Or Malarkey,
you know he's Irish, he was really emotional,
he cried a lot. But he also told
some really intense stories. They were so ingrained
in his memory. It was like it was yesterday, and he had
an emotional reaction. Now, he probably hadn't told
these stories to very many people, other than the people
that were in that room. So, he was probably
telling somebody outside that small circle
some of these stories for the very first time
in his life. He probably never went
to a therapist. He probably never told
these stories to his wife. It was intense,
it was super intense. And then you've been given,
as a writer, as a dramatist, this stuff,
and you have to present it as honestly
and as correctly as you can. How I wrote it
is pretty much what we
understood happened. Is there drama to it? Well, yeah,
there's a little bit of conflict between Guarnere
and Winters, but there really was that night. That's not a lie.
So I just built off of it. Everybody who worked
on the show, though, not just the writers,
but it did start with us... We took the responsibility
of telling these men's stories as well and as accurately
as we could. Yes, we made mistakes. I want to remind everybody
it was before the internet, and you couldn't check
some of the stuff. One of the vets
told us something, we tended to believe it. And since, we've learned
that their memories weren't always perfect. And, for example, Albert Blithe
did not die right after the war, as it says
at the end of "Carentan." But we didn't know that,
the guys thought he did. ROGER: Let's dive
into episode two. From the very beginning,
we find Easy Company, who we've lived with,
and come to know
through basic training. At long last, it's their moment. They are packed into C-47s, on the precipice
of making the jump that they've been preparing for
since Camp Toccoa. The scripting...
John, your scripting is a study in economy
of language. It speaks volumes
with just a dusting of dialogue. What did that sequence
look like on paper when you first wrote it? JOHN: It was trying to capture,
unspoken, the terror of battle
as they're about to go into it, and the apprehension of battle,
and the nervousness, and what these guys were feeling
and how to show that in different people
and different characters. And introduce our characters
for this episode at the same time,
'cause they were mostly from Winter's stick
and mostly end up at Brécourt. And so, we're doing
multiple things at once, showing the men's nerves. We're saying,
"Hey, look at these guys." And then the first thing
we really hear is the radio guy over the C-47,
another pilot in combat... PILOT:<i> We got a paratrooper
on the wing,</i> <i>I repeat, we got a paratrooper
on the wing.</i> JOHN: ...and then you start
to hear the battle... (RUMBLING) ...like thunder,
all that was scripted and was meant to suck us in
with the guys. Then we zoom into Dick's C-47... You know, when we do that,
we almost never leave him again. ROGER: Then, it's time
for the 101st airborne to jump. In Stephen Ambrose's words,
in the<i> Band of Brothers</i> book, "Thus did 13,400
of America's finest youth, who'd been training
for the moment for two years, hurled themselves against
Hitler's fortress Europe." We begin to follow Dick Winters
as he drifts through the sky, down to the fire-strewn
ground below. And the first soldier
he encounters is Private Hall, from Able Company,
First Division. PRIVATE HALL:<i> Flies, shit!</i> DICK WINTERS:<i> I don't think that
is the correct reply, trooper.</i> <i> I say, "flash,"
you say "thunder."</i> HALL:<i> Yes, sir! Thunder, sir.</i> ROGER: John, Private Hall only
appears in this one episode, but it's clear that he's
shouldering a lot of the emotional side
of the story. He's really our conduit. He's scared, lost,
intimidated, eager. He has no idea who anybody is,
or what's going on. Can you talk about how
you used him in this script as an emotional device? JOHN:
In my interviews with Winters, he remembered it,
it was part of the story. Was this young man, Hall. He's the first guy
he met on D-Day. I didn't make up any of it. So this episode, in particular,
was just, "Don't fuck it up." Just don't get
in the way of it. ROGER:
Thank God, John, you didn't. Because we're all
the better off for it. The men that experienced
their first combat, the ambush
of a horse-drawn transport, the slaughter of the horses. Really a fascinating
creative decision to ease the viewer into warfare. But also signaling,
"Hold on, brace yourself, this is all gonna be much more
brutal than you thought." JOHN: Exactly, and again,
it's what happened. It wasn't a wagon in actuality. That was the slight
cinematic license taken. It was just some
German soldiers marching, but we all thought it would be
a little more interesting if we added the wagon and gave it a dynamic sense
to the scene. And then the horses was
sort of the brutality of it, exactly as you said. This is not gonna be a simple,
easy thing for these guys. ROGER: Or for the viewers. JOHN: Yeah, exactly.
It's gonna be hard. These guys did hard things,
and you're gonna see 'em. And Dick was
really pissed off about it. -(GUNSHOTS FIRING)
-WINTER:<i> That's enough,
Guarnere!</i> (HORSE NEIGHING) <i> Next time I say,
"Wait for my command,"</i> <i> you wait for my command,
Sergeant.</i> (HORSE NEIGHS) WILLIAM GUARNERE:<i> Yes, sir.</i> JOHN: That was the other thing
that drove the story. 'Cause you look for conflict
in shows and in characters. And so, obviously, there's
a conflict with the Nazis. But you need to personalize it, and that was a point
that Winters told me, he had a point of conflict
with Guarnere, that he started shooting
without waiting for his orders. And that is not something
you did with Dick Winters. You did not disobey
Dick's orders. And so I built off of that,
both in the beginning of it... GUARNERE:<i> You see?
He just sat there.</i> JOSEPH TOYE:<i>
He didn't have a weapon.</i> <i> What's he gonna do?
Shout at him?</i> GUARNERE:<i>
Shouts at me for killing Krauts.</i> JOSEPH:<i> He just wanted you
to wait for his command.</i> GUARNERE:<i>
Joe, he don't even drink.</i> JOHN: But in the end, when he's
talking about his religion... WINTERS:<i> Oh, Sergeant?</i> GUARNERE:<i> Sir?</i> WINTERS:<i> I'm not a Quaker.</i> (UNIT LAUGHING) GUARNERE:<i> If he's
from Lancaster County,
he's probably a Mennonite.</i> WINTERS:<i> What's a Mennonite?</i> JOHN: Those are sort of me
filling in those blanks, so there's a beginning,
middle, and end to that moment of conflict. ROGER: Possibly one
of the greatest moments of conflict between the men
in the entire series then takes place. It begins with a tender
exclamation point of a scene. Malarkey, God bless. Bonding with a surrendered,
captive German soldier from Eugene, Oregon. A man born just 200 miles north of Malarkey's native
Astoria, Oregon. His family had somehow
decided to return to Hitler's Germany
to fight for the Fatherland. GERMAN POW:<i> Yeah,
so I was an implant in '39.</i> DONALD MALARKEY:<i>
That's when I was at Monarch</i> <i>tooling propeller shafts,
no kidding.</i> <i> What are the chances
of that, huh?</i> <i> You and me, 100 miles
from each other,</i> <i> working practically
the same job, geez.</i> POPEYE:<i> Hey, Malarkey!
We're waiting on you!</i> MALARKEY:<i> Yeah, I'm coming!</i> <i> Oh, I gotta run.
I'll see you around.</i> GERMAN POW:<i> Yeah...
See you around.</i> ROGER: Your script, John,
managed to fleetingly make them seem like just
two kids from the Beaver State. They made us, momentarily,
sympathize with the enemy. JOHN:
Well you're always looking for
those human moments, aren't you? The kid from Oregon was not
in that actual group of men. Malarkey met that kid,
I think, a couple days later. But again,
to humanize that moment, and to make us really
feel something in that moment, I thought, "Well, maybe I'll
combine it into one event." And sometimes you have
to do that as a storyteller to get both of those stories in. Otherwise, if I hadn't
made that choice, the only choice is he doesn't
meet the kid from Oregon. Or at least, you never see it. So my choice is either, you forget that story
and it's never in the show, or we cheat it
by a couple of days and combine it
into this other event, making that other event
even more... emotionally impactful
and personal. Dramatically speaking,
it's a twofer. ROGER: The second half
of that twofer, enter Speirs. With cigarette in mouth, and a Tommy Gun slung
across his shoulder, Malarkey's ordered back
to the company, but Speirs calmly offers
the captured German prisoners
cigarettes. GERMAN POW:<i> Danke.</i> (GUNFIRE) (GUNFIRE) ROGER: But we only see
Malarkey's horrified face
from a distance. You intentionally leave
the scene end ambiguous. Tom Hanks talked to us a lot about the real story
surrounding Speirs. I want to get a sense
of the discussions in the writer's room
about how to write this scene. Especially the idea
to leave the end unclear. JOHN: There was no writer's room
on<i> Band of Brothers.</i> We all went off
and did our own scripts, and actually talked
to each other very rarely. So much so, when we were talking about
Hall a little bit earlier, I had always hoped
that in episode one, you would meet Hall, because he actually did
know Winters before the jump. He was on the basketball team, the 101st basketball team
with Dick Winters. But I thought it would
be better if we saw it in one. But there was no writer's room. So you didn't have
these conversations. We all wrote our own episodes
by ourselves. Like you write a movie.
We were all featured writers. So there was no writer's room. I mean, literally,
we never got in a room together,
all of the writers. We had one meeting one time
with Steven Spielberg, we didn't talk story at all. Steven was just looking
at the model of Brécourt Manor saying how cool it was gonna be. It wasn't a writer's meeting,
or a writer's room, it was like, "Oh, wow,
look at from this angle! If we shoot it over here,
you can see this!" And you know,
Spielberg being Spielberg. But my point is,
there was no writer's room. I finished my script,
I gave it to Tom Hanks. That's what it was. ROGER: So let me
rephrase the question. Take us into the discussions
inside your own head,
John Orloff, about the decision
to write this scene and leave the ending unclear. JOHN: At that time,
nobody would totally admit
whether it was true or not. Dick just said,
"Well, it was a rumor." And I think the other guys stuck to that story as well
at that time. And then on the dramatic point, the Speirs myth
continued through the series. I mean that just was who he was. And this story, on D-Day, was
a rumor around the whole 101st. It really did go around, like, "Can you believe
what Speirs did?" And the story did
get bigger in the telling,
and then obviously, Speirs did other
interesting things
during the war. So we all--
Well, I don't know, "we all," I thought it would be
more interesting
if we didn't see it. ROGER: If you were
a betting man, John, knowing what you know,
what happened? JOHN: Oh, he did it,
absolutely. I'm not a betting man,
Dick Winters told me he did it. Speirs was... I don't know if... There's some stories
maybe I shouldn't tell, but let's just say I absolutely
know that he did do it. And I don't make
a moral judgment on it, because, you know,
they were supposedly ordered in a larger way, by-- There were rumors that they
were supposed to do this. Remember,
they're behind enemy lines, they have a mission to do. Their mission
is to save the boys, the Americans,
that are coming on the beach. You can't set up a POW camp while you're trying
to do that at the same time. So by their very nature... The men of Easy Company,
they're behind enemy lines. What do you do with POWs? Now... Does that mean
he should've killed them? No.
But it's complicated. ROGER: And you're also
setting up a statement
on leadership. We met Soble on one end
of the spectrum. We've seen
Dick Winters in action, at the other end
of the spectrum. And you're almost using Speirs,
somewhere there in the grating. JOHN: Speirs...
it's a great entrance, you know? It's a great way
to reveal a character. And the-- I'm sorry, I'm not stuttering, so much as trying to express
such a complicated relationship between Speirs and Winters. They were
so different as leaders, but very close to each other
intellectually, and as friends. Not the way Nixon
and Winters were friends, it was a different relationship. It was more peer-to-peer,
leader-to-leader. With totally different
leading styles, and leading accomplishments. And yet, I think, most men, if not all the men
under their command, would have done anything
for either of them. Even though they
were so very different. ROGER: The episode
then pivots again, narrowing back
to a study of Winters, as he leads an assault
on the guns at Brécourt Manor, another battle sequence
in which we learn more about the characters
through their actions rather than their words. How did you go about crafting
the execution of this
legendary engagement? This is an engagement which is
now taught at West Point still, as an example of how
a small force can confuse and overwhelm
a much bigger one. How did you approach
your writing of this scene? JOHN: When I started
to interview, specifically, the Brécourt Manor guys,
so Compton was there, Guarnere was there,
Malarkey was there, Popeye was there, they all remembered
it differently. They all had a whole different--
Not a whole different, but slightly different stories
of what happened, when, on the attack,
on the assault of Brécourt. So that's one of the reasons
why Ambrose's book
has stuff wrong. Is because he might've
taken this bit from that guy, and that bit from this guy. But he didn't have to do it
in three dimensions like I did. So I made a map
when I started writing it, to just get the geography
in my own head. I included that map
in the end of the script, so people who could read it
would understand it. 'Cause it was a very
technical script. Very technical script. Almost
a shot-for-shot in the battle. You know, "Close on Winters
doing this, cut to Lipton
in the tree, shooting." All of that stuff was laid out in the script
in the right order, because I was the one
who did the interviewing, and had to thread
these seven or eight, nine different memories
of the same event. In a very Kurosawa,<i>
Rashoman,</i> way. And just take it
piece by piece by piece. And you have to compress time. It was really like
a five or six hour battle. And, again, to step out
of the way of the truth. Toye really did
get almost killed by two different hand grenades. Compton really did... throw a grenade like a baseball
because he was a baseball player and it exploded on impact. And Malarkey did
go after a Luger
in the middle of the battle. These things happened. It was literally just staying
the fuck out of the way. Laying it out in a way that
was cohesive and understandable. So you'd have the big picture,
the little picture, you know that it
would all make sense. The geography. ROGER: You're a very
humble bloke, John Orloff, but that is the brilliance
of this set piece, that you made something
that was in real life
incredibly chaotic, but you gave it an order
amongst the chaos. What's the secret... to writing
great battle sequences? JOHN: Thank you.
I really, actually enjoy
writing battle sequences. And I do think in all my work,
in stuff that's been produced, and unproduced
and to-be-produced, I know how to write
a battle sequence. And I think it stems
from actually this episode, and laying it out in my head,
and visualizing it. Almost storyboarding it. Because I knew it was such
a big chunk of the episode, I knew it would be compared
to<i> Saving Private Ryan.</i> I knew what it meant,
most importantly, to Dick Winters,
this moment in his life. And then we had
to get it right, and it had to be cohesive. And you had
to be able to follow it, but in narrative structure,
you know, gun-by-gun. The secret sauce,
if I knew that, I guess I could give it
to somebody else. It's just what I do.
It's chessboard, I don't know, I just love it. ROGER: When you look
at it now, is there anything you would
have done differently? JOHN: Maybe written
a little bit more, so it would be a little
longer. It's the shortest episode
of the show at only 45 minutes,
maybe even less. But that's really about it. We got so fortunate
with everything. Richard Longcraine
was amazing, the editor was amazing.
The sound effects were amazing. The actors were just
beyond amazing. The set decorating, my God! I went to the shoot
of that episode and they had
reproduced it so well. It was awe-inspiring. And then all of a sudden
you see all these extras in their M42 jackets
and walking around. And then you see, "Oh, wait,
there are those other guys, and they're walking around
in their Barabak outfits,
with MG42s." A callback that I used
to dress up in those uniforms. I would buy those uniforms
when I was ten or nine, from the Army Surplus store,
which they had in the '70s. And I would pretend
I was one of those guys. So now I'm on a set
watching one of those guys. It was pretty amazing.
It was pretty amazing. ROGER: The episode ends,
Dick Winters in voiceover... WINTERS:<i> That night,
I took time to thank God</i> <i> for seeing me through
that day of days.</i> <i>And prayed I would make it
through D plus one.</i> <i> And if, somehow,
I managed to get home again,</i> <i>I promised God and myself
that I would find</i> <i> a quiet piece of land
someplace</i> <i>and spend the rest of my life
in peace.</i> ROGER: Where'd you get
this from? Is this something you wrote,
or was it a real letter? JOHN: I knew that I was
gonna end with the words that he speaks at the end
of the episode from the second I knew
I was gonna write this episode. And did any research at all.
If I remember correctly, it was from a letter
that Dick Winters wrote his girlfriend,
right after D-Day. Those were not his exact words,
verbatim, in the beginning.
It ends with his exact words, "the rest of my life
in peace." And he wrote that,
and wrote kind of the same idea in the preceding sentences.
But I wrote that out, I don't know, 60 different ways. That final few sentences. Always ending with the way
Dick ended it, but different ways in,
and different ways to try to conclude the day.
'Cause it's voiceover, that was really re-written
all through post-production, that soliloquy.
It's not really a soliloquy, it's so short.
But that idea of Winter's last thoughts
that day. ROGER: Critics are split
as to whether this is the second ending,
the tanks rolling through the horse blood
is so symbolically powerful, or whether there's a true
beauty and poetry in it. I actually am in the latter
camp. To me, these lines
are really bloody important. And would set a foundation
for the rest of the series. JOHN: Well, first I'd have
to ask, "Who are these heathens
that think it shouldn't be in the episode? I'd like to have
a few words with them." But I guess
this is my opportunity. (CHUCKLES) I didn't know there were
such people. ROGER: Just stay off Reddit,
John Orloff. (BOTH CHUCKLING) JOHN: This was always
about Dick Winters, this day. And that was my original idea
from the beginning, was let's follow Dick Winters
through this day. Not just through the battle,
through this 24 hours. It starts before the battle
and it ends on the end of the day.
It's day of days. I think it's one of the things
that makes the episode special. And a little bit of a standout
in the show. You know, it's only 24 hours. Maybe even less.
But it's post-midnight when they come over,
and it's before midnight when they're in the Jeeps,
in the trucks. So it was always,
"What did this day mean for Dick Winters?"
It means nothing if it doesn't mean something
to him. He's talking to Nixon
about losing Hall. WINTERS:<i> I lost a man today.
Hall.</i> <i> Thanks.
A John Halls, New Yorker.</i> <i> Got killed today
at Brécourt.</i> LEWIS NIXON:<i> I never knew him.</i> WINTERS:<i> Yeah, you did.
Radio op, five-on-six</i> <i> basketball team,
Able Company.</i> <i> He was a good man.</i> NIXON:<i> Man... Not even
old enough to buy a beer.</i> JOHN: There are real costs
of leadership. And Dick found that out. It was, in some ways,
the greatest day of his life, because he accomplished what
so few human beings could do. And it was the worst day
possible because he had lost-- A young man
with a future was gone. It was because Dick ordered him
to go somewhere. He learned what this
was going to be about. It was going to be about death,
and telling people to go die. When he makes that run, that charge on Brécourt Manor,
that's why he has to say... WINTERS:<i> Follow me!</i> JOHN: I wish that were
the subtitle of the episode in some ways, you know,
where he says, "Follow me!" He wasn't gonna order his men
into a place he wouldn't go himself. And he was prepared to die. That said, having somebody
die under your command is a very sobering experience. So, that last scene with Nixon, where we're expressing
the cost of this war and leading in it, and then him realizing
all of this and that, "You know what,
I want to be done as soon
as humanly possible. And then I don't want
to ever do this again." ROGER: John Orloff,
for a first script made, "Day of Days"
is truly unbelievable. As is the story of your
creative process writing it. It's a genuine honor
to hear you sharing it with us, thank you. JOHN: Well, thank you,
it's been my pleasure. ♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪ ROGER: For<i> Band of Brothers'</i>
episode two, "Day of Days," to be the first piece of work
you ever have produced is just remarkable. And our next guest... is a gent who helped
John Orloff's vision of D-Day leap off the page and onto
our television screens. A singularly creative man
who cut his teeth developing a cinematic eye
in the commercial industry, before directing a
critically revered version of
Shakespeare's<i> Richard III,</i> featuring one of the best
Ian McKellen performances
of all time. I have to say, I also loved
his movie,<i> Wimbledon.</i> And the fact, my guest
is a true creative's creative, the sculptor of the first ever
modern Newton's cradle. Google it, listeners.
It's so soothing. And also, an Oscar winner, for the invention
of the remote camera head. It's an honor to interview the
man who essentially directed
the Allied invasion of Europe, Mr. Richard Loncraine. RICHARD LONCRAINE: Hi, Roger,
nice to meet you. Thank you
for having me on the show. It's much appreciated.
And thank you for making up
all those lies about me. -It's very generous.
-(ROGER LAUGHING) ROGER:
Unbelievably, they're all true.
Including the Newton's cradle. RICHARD: Afraid they are, yeah. ROGER: Richard, Let's start with
how you got this incredible role of<i> Band of Brothers'</i> director
in the first place. It's late 90s, you're a London-based
commercial director, about when commercials
were really commercials. And your agent raises the idea
of this project to you. Take us back to that meeting,
and what went through your head. RICHARD:
I was probably a bit snotty
about television at that time. We didn't have HBO in England, so I didn't know
how good it was. And the idea of doing
a television show... the small screen,
'cause the small screen was
a small screen really, then. It wasn't
the 52-inch screen now. So I was probably
a bit snotty about it. And then I heard that it's
with Spielberg and Hanks. So I thought, "Well,
I shouldn't be so stupid." ROGER: Those were the words
that sealed the deal for you, "Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg." Fresh off<i> Saving Private Ryan.</i> Was that really
what you needed to hear? RICHARD:
I needed to hear it then. I'm not sure I need to hear it
quite as much on the first day
of principal photography, with Steven and Tom sitting
about three feet behind me,
going, "I'm not sure if that's
the right move, Dick. I don't know
if I'd do it that way." It was quite
an intimidating start. Steven had broken new cinematic
ground with<i> Saving Private Ryan,</i> and the opening sequence
on the beachheads
that we all remember. We all did want to make it
as exciting, as action-packed, and as creatively clever
as Steven's work. ROGER:
Having Steven Spielberg sitting
in the chair next to you... What emotions did you have? 'Cause I'm gonna be candid,
Richard. It would make me crap my pants. RICHARD: Yeah, I didn't do that.
Probably close at times. Steven had set
a couple of rules. Well, one I remember, which--
should be no cranes in the film, which I think everybody
promptly ignored. 'Cause I think he was wrong. And I think he would probably
admit he was wrong, but he was right, in essence. He wanted it to be visceral and
to be down there amongst them. I think there are exceptions. I think the crane
is a wonderful tool, and if it's used properly,
it should be invisible. And if it's invisible,
it doesn't matter
that you've used it, because the audience
isn't gonna go, "Oh, look at
that lovely craning shot." Do I think Spielberg knows
an awful lot about filmmaking?
Yeah. But we don't always
have to agree. He's a very polite man,
same with Hanks. He wasn't in any way a bully.
He was very helpful. They were very generous
in their support when we were making the film. You have a lot of help
making movies. Dale Dye, who was in
charge of training the guys, they'd been off the boot camp
for a couple of weeks before, and I think that had been
an amazing bonding period for actors who
don't normally throw themselves over ten-foot fences,
and crawl under barbed wire
in a foot of mud. So I think the fact that
they did this together meant that by the time
I got them, I was the outsider. I had to earn their respect
as fast as I could. ROGER:
Your episode opens with one of
the most anxiety-filled scenes in the whole series. We are up in the clouds, there's
the engine roar of C-47s... (C-47 ENGINES ROARING) Cut to a close-up of a rosary, into benches of men, nervous men, praying,
smoking, avoiding eye contact. Easy Company are about to jump
into the Normandy countryside
in the murky darkness. A pre-dawn D-Day. It was these men's
first-ever combat jump, their first experience of war. Also your first-ever huge scale,
high production value
action work. Indeed.
Not only had you never done
anything like this before, most of the actors had never
done anything like this before. What was
the learning curve like? RICHARD:
Well, it was quite steep. Well, they didn't really
have to do much acting
in that particular instance, because we cut the wings
off a real C-47, and the effects department
stuck it on four enormous
hydraulic rams. I sat in the chair, and I was able to control
the pitch and angle of that. So you could shake it
and vibrate it and twist it. It would've been the same
effect that flack would have had
on the fuselage, so they were
being thrown around. There was no acting involved. -(TURBULENCE)
-(SOLDIERS SHOUTING) They were on wires.
The cameraman was on a wire. Otherwise, he would've been
out of the door. They didn't have to pretend they
were in a dangerous situation. They were. ROGER: And then,
the light goes green, and it's time
for Easy Company to jump. Dick Winters does it in
inimitable Dick Winters style, amidst the flack-filled sky. I love the way you shot that, capturing a mixture
of dreaminess of the clouds, and the terrible roar
of war machinery
that's piercing it. RICHARD:
I remember shooting it with
Damian hanging on a crane. "Say, how long do I
have to be up here? It's very cold,
and I want to use the loo." So it's never quite
as glamorous or as frightening
as it is in the real world. ROGER: The first soldier
that Winters encounters, Private Hall from Able Company,
First Division. Private Hall,
the actor, Andrew Scott, obviously has rocketed
to stardom in the past
couple of years as the hot priest on<i> Fleabag.</i> RICHARD: Oh, that's
who it is, that him? (ROGER LAUGHING) I love that I'm breaking
news to you. Yes! RICHARD: No, I had no idea.
He's wonderful. There are so many great actors
in<i> Band of Brothers,</i> a lot of whom didn't achieve
real success until five, ten years
after the series aired. Did you have any sense
when you were directing
some of these guys-- As soon as the scene cut,
were you like, "Oh, that kid is gonna be big." RICHARD: Damian, he was
the one that stood out for me
as someone who had... that abstract quality,
which we call star quality. ROGER:
As Winters, such an intriguing,
calm, natural leader. He's remarkably--
He's almost a soothingly
calm presence amidst the chaos. There's a quote of yours about
how to glean great performances. You said,
"There's a lot of myth talked
about directing actors, but the secret
is to cast good ones and get good words
for them to say. Great actors, you nudge them. You don't direct them,
you just encourage them." Can you talk about
how you nudged Damian? Talk about leaders,
Damian is an old Etonian. Eton is a very, very famous
English private school. We call them public schools,
just to be difficult and confuse
our American colleagues. But they're private schools, and Eton is a very,
very expensive and classy one, and not easy to get into
unless you're very well-heeled. ROGER: It pumps out
prime minister after
prime minister, essentially. RICHARD: It does quite a lot. Damian, if you meet him,
he's a charming man, but he knows what he wants
and he knows how to get it. So, Damian would've been
an officer, without a doubt,
in the war. And to say Damian was playing
himself would be insulting,
because he wasn't. So, Damian would've
taken on that role. He could easily have been
Winters in real life,
to be honest, an English version of him. ROGER: A gent,
whose performances stand out
even in episodes like this, the first half of which
is shot entirely in the dark. It's night
in an unfamiliar forest. No one knows where they are,
or who they're with. It's chaotic and terrifying
and confusing. That's a really difficult thing
to pull off in just
the second episode, when we the audience are still
getting to know the characters, the faces,
trying to figure out who's who. Were you at all worried
about losing us, the audience? RICHARD: I had a big battle
with Mary Richards, a remarkable producer
and filmmaker, over the railway track. The railway track was expensive. Where we were shooting,
there was an old railway, but there were no railway lines
on it, or sleepers. So, we had to put those in,
and they had to be all made
out of plastic fake ones. But they didn't want to do it,
and Mary very kindly
said I could have it. And the reason
the railway track was there was exactly the question
you asked me, it was to help... give form to the narrative. Otherwise, at night and in
forests, it just becomes a blur. I think that helps for you
to know where you're going. Anything you can do to separate
out one scene from another
helps an audience. ROGER: Into our men's
first combat experience, the ambush
of a horse-drawn transport, the slaughter of the horses... -(HORSE NEIGHING)
-(GUNFIRE) RICHARD: In the research,
and I looked at lots of footage, one thing you never saw
in war movies was the thousands
of dead animals littered
all over the landscape, because cows don't know
how to dodge a bullet,
so they get killed. I managed to get them to make
four or five dead cows. We had the dead horses,
which was really part of it. There's been so many war films,
and we've seen, sadly, so much death on the screens
over the years. People are not used
to seeing dead animals. So I think it was a way of
making the audience shocked about seeing dead animals
with their guts hanging out, when actually
almost seeing a real human would have had less effect
after a while. It's a strange thing to say,
but I think it worked. I want to talk a little bit
if we can, about the major battle
sequence in this episode, because it's incredible. That assault on the guns
at Brécourt Manor. Winters and his squad
attacked at a regular field, seven acute angles
in the hedgerow,
the trees surrounding it, proceeding to hit the Germans
from different directions. Can you talk to us
about how you approached
the task of shooting this? RICHARD:
There was a lot of arguments about what the configuration
of the guns were, positioned, compared to the hedgerows. I obviously spoke to everyone
involved who actually was alive, who had been in my episode, and all the research
that John Orloff had done,
the writer. And I thought,
"We've got to get this right." So, we went
to the actual Brécourt Manor,
and we wandered around, and of course,
it was X number of years later,
and it didn't look very similar. So, I've always been a bit
of a techno nerd, and interested
in new technology. And I went online and found an
American satellite company, and I thought I'll ring 'em up. So I picked up the phone,
and it's about sort of
eight o'clock at night, and I think at 7:30,
no one will be there. The phone rings a long time. Then a voice picks it up and
it's the owner of the company, and he's the only guy left,
and he's just closing up shop, and he happened to be a fan
of World War II's history. So he said, "I'll switch on
the bird for you." So he switched on
"the bird," as he called it. And we looked down, and he
moved the satellite around till we were focused over
Brécourt Manor. And then he used,
I think it would've been
infrared photography, to look through
the surface of the earth to see where the actual trenches were dug around
the back of the guns. So we knew exactly where it was. So I was able to duplicate that
exactly in the film. ROGER: Oh, shout-out
to American small industry. RICHARD: Absolutely. ROGER:
After setting up a base of fire, it's Winters himself
that leads the charge. Over and over,
taking out gun after gun. I mean, that shot, with Winters
charging into the unknown, as bullets crackle
all around him... (GUNFIRE) The camera stays
so tight to his face. That claustrophobia, that fear. You get a sense of what
he must have been experiencing. How was it done?
Was it all handheld? RICHARD: This was quite
an interesting decision we made. We decided to have
three sorts of photography-- of camera work, I suppose, for scenes where people were
just talking and it was calm. We would track the camera, and we would be on tripods
or on dollies. So, it's absolutely steady. There's no movement
on the frame at all. We then had a second quality, which was when the tension
built up in a scene, but before the action started,
we would be handheld, so you would get
a little bit of movement, which made you
feel uncomfortable. And then the third style
was real handhold, where you were flying around
in the trenches, with a cameraman
holding the camera. We didn't use a Steadicam
at all, which is a device-- when a cameraman
is handholding a camera, makes it look
absolutely rock steady, so you can run
downstairs and<i> et cetera.</i> We didn't use
those tools at all. But we divided the photography
into three distinct styles, which I think helped to give
energy in some way. ROGER: And this was shot
in England, which of course, had just recorded
its wettest year in history. Your trenches were waterlogged. You had to keep
pumping them out. RICHARD:
You tend to forget the bad days. I think making movies
is a bit like having babies, not that I've had
that many personally, I've been around
a few being born, but I think if you
remember the pain,
you wouldn't do it again. And I think directing movies
is very similar. You only really remember
the good times. And the bad times,
and the flooded trenches. As far as I'm concerned,
it was sunny every day. Amazing sets all the way
through the series. That's all the same town
that the art department re-faced to be different countries
and different towns. It was the most
stupendous piece of organization
and production design. Fatigued, but relieved, Winters
jumps onto a Sherman tank, and the tanks roll right over
a road filled with blood. It's an incredible scene,
Richard. RICHARD: It was meant to be
the blood from the horses. There was a description
that I found out about, You take six or eight cart horse
and you shoot them, you get hundreds
of gallons of blood, and I think that was one
of the shocking things
I remember seeing. Because we did it on the set,
we poured down... tanks of blood,
and it was shocking. And I think that's why
I got the idea for the image. ROGER: You just rewatched
your episode, Richard, for the first time
in a long time. RICHARD: When I directed it,
I turned up and did the best
I could and took it seriously. To do your job properly
as the director, you just
have to give everything to it. And so it's your baby. So when the film comes out
and it's finished, you can't really see
the wood for the trees. It's interesting seeing
one's own work
years and years later, when it doesn't hurt as much. You can go,
"Well, actually, that bad review
I got was quite justified, 'cause I didn't get that right." We haven't had many bad reviews
for<i> Band of Brothers,</i> and I can see why
the whole series
has been so successful. And it's a real amalgam
of multiple talents. ROGER: One that I loved from our
preproduction conversation is, You asked, "How long ago did it
come out? Is it ten years?" And just how much time has flown
since you made it, Richard. RICHARD: Certainly has.
It's really frightening. "Don't waste a day, young man,"
would be my advice. I just can't believe it was 20
years ago. It seems implausible. But it is. There you go. ROGER: What is the life lesson that you take from it all, your<i>
Band of Brothers</i> experience? RICHARD: That really,
the series should be shown
to all young men and women. It should be shown
as an example. You know,
warfare is just insane. It's old men
sending young men off to die. Second World War was different,
one worth being attacked. <i> Band of Brothers</i>
should be shown to school kids, and they might realize
that it's not a glamorous,
exciting world out there. It's where you die. Hopefully when they watch it,
what they're not taking on
is thinking, "Wow,
I'd like to have been there." I hope that's not
what they take out of it. If they do, then we all failed. What I hope
they take out of it is... There but for the grace of God, I'm not going there and
my kids aren't going there. That's what I hope. ROGER:
Over here,<i> Band of Brothers</i>
is watched religiously by thousands of people
every single year. It's known as a show that gets
better with every viewing. RICHARD:
Well, it's good television. I just rewatched<i> Friends</i>
from the beginning to the end. ROGER: Richard,
you can't get enough
David Schwimmer, can you? RICHARD:
No, I think he's terrific.
Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, yeah. No, no. But he didn't have
any very good jokes
in<i> Band of Brothers,</i> sadly. It's the writing,
the performances,
everything about it. It's just a joy to watch things
done really well. ROGER: Richard Loncraine,
it's been a joy to speak to you, as much as it is a human wonder
to watch your episode. We wish you thanks and courage. RICHARD: It's
a real pleasure to talk to you.
Thank you for interviewing me. I've really enjoyed it. ♪ ("BAND OF BROTHERS"
THEME PLAYS) ♪ ROGER: What amazing insight
from both blokes. Richard and John, about the incredible lengths
they went to to reconstruct Easy Company's
D-Day experience. And coming up
on our next episode, we speak with one
of<i> Band of Brothers'</i>
most mythologized figures. RONALD SPEIRS:<i> You know why
you hid in that ditch, Blithe?</i> ALBERT BLITHE:<i> I was scared...</i> SPEIRS:<i> We're all scared.</i> <i>You hid in that ditch because
you think there's still hope.</i> <i> But Blithe,
the only hope you have</i> <i> is to accept the fact
that you're already dead.</i> <i>And the sooner you accept that,</i> <i>the sooner you'll be able
to function as a soldier's
supposed to function.</i> <i> Without mercy,
without compassion,
without remorse.</i> <i> All war depends upon it.</i> ROGER: The man
who played Captain Speirs, Mr. Matthew Settle. MATTHEW SETTLE:<i>
I was focusing on that scene
for months until we shot it.</i> <i> It's a pinnacle element
in the entire series.</i> <i> Every day,
you run it through your mind,</i> <i>and you sit there and you say,</i> <i> "Get me out of the way,
let me serve this character."</i> <i> Just render it.
You get rid of all the fat.</i> ROGER: Make sure to subscribe to HBO's official<i>
Band of Brothers Podcast</i> wherever you get your podcast. And please share, rate,
review, all that stuff. And a reminder,
as if you needed one, that you can watch "Day of Days" and every magnificent episode
of<i> Band of Brothers</i>
on HBO Max right now. Until next time. SPEAKER:<i> Currahee!</i> EASY COMPANY:<i> Currahee!</i> (CHEERING)
