♪ (HBO INTRO PLAYS) ♪ ♪ ("BAND OF BROTHERS"
THEME PLAYING) ♪ ROGER BENNETT: Welcome back to HBO's official<i>
Band of Brothers Podcast.</i> I'm your host, Roger Bennett. "I say 'flash',
you say 'thunder'." Episode three: "Carentan". One of the most
action-packed installments of the entire series,
if episode two opened our eyes to the mortal danger
Easy Company is exposed to
in France... episode three delves
into the mental traumas
they suffered. It does so through
the terror-filled blue eyes of Private Albert Blithe,
whom the men first discover staring into the sky
on June 8th, 1944, D-Day plus two. You're the first
familiar faces I've seen. I ain't surprised,
they dropped us all over the continental peninsula. ROGER: Within ten minutes
of that meeting, our men plummet into battle, tasked with taking the town
of Carentan, France. The only place
where the Allied Armor from Utah and Omaha Beaches can link up and head inland to full-frontal assault,
right into the teeth of the German machine guns. (RAPID GUNFIRE) Do something! Go! ROGER: The Easy Company
take heavy fire and suffer instant casualties. Even those unscathed by bullets
are not immune to damage. Things... they just
kind of went black on me. You can't see? Not a thing, sir. I can't see a thing. ROGER: Hysterical blindness,
the result of fear, which is really the central
theme at the heart
of "Carentan". Woven throughout the episode,
from the Battle of Bloody Gulch where Private Blithe
does ultimately raise that M1 after some encouragement
from Lieutenant Winters. LIEUTENANT WINTERS:
Pour it on them, Blithe! ROGER: All the way back
to England. A place of respite,
where Easy Company has returned only to find out
they won't be staying long. All passes are hereby revoked. We're heading back to France.
So, pack up all your gear. We will not be returning
to England, boys. Anyone who has not made out
a will, go to the supply office. The trucks depart for Membury
at 07:00. ROGER: My first guest today is a man who is a legend
to the<i> Band of Brothers</i> cast and a cult hero
to all who love the series. You may recognize him
from his role as Colonel Sink, but in real life he was
a decorated marine himself, a man who survived
31 major combat operations during three tours in Vietnam. He was shot three times
in 22 years of service. He retired from military life
to found Warriors, Inc., a warfare consultants
to the entertainment industry, establishing himself
as a world's leading expert on making actors appear
as close to true soldiers
as is humanly possible. And making television battles
resemble the real thing. So, he will have had his hands
full during the creation of episode three, "Carentan".
It's magnificent to welcome a gent whom<i>
The Atlantic</i> called, "The man who brought war
to Hollywood," Captain Dale Dye. DALE DYE: Roger, how are you? Thanks very much for having me
and giving a little time to join with my brothers
in<i> Band of Brothers</i> and talk about that
extraordinary series. ROGER: It's a joy and an honor
to speak to such a legend,
Captain Dye. But first question up top,
can we just explain simply to our audience what you do
on films and shows like<i> Band of Brothers.</i>
Would it be true to say actors are meant
to be chameleons who can adapt to any surrounding,
but when it comes to
impersonating a soldier, it's you who's needed
to make that impersonation
authentic? DALE: My belief,
garnered through experience over about 30 years,
is that good actors are like
a dry sponge. And the idea is to pour
on the liquid knowledge and let them swell with that
and let them inhabit the part in a credible
and believable manner. The problem with that is that
the actual military experience, and in particular
combat experience, is so far removed
from most people's experience that you've got to find a way
to acquaint them with the unique aspects of that,
and I do it through
full emersion. And prior to my method
being adopted by Hollywood, if you will, there was
a business of teaching them how to physically handle
a weapon, how to walk, how to talk, that sort of thing.
That's just too thin for me. What I wanted to do,
and what I thought was crucial to making a really good
depiction of military men
in extremis, what I felt was necessary
was that you needed to get
to more than just their body. You needed to get
into their mind, you needed to get
into their heart, you needed to get
into their guts. And in order to do that,
you have to have an understanding of
human psychology, in particular men who are living in a unit
and who must rely on each other
for survival. That's not something
the average actor does
every day. And so my thought was, look,
if I expect them to shine the proper, long-overdue light
on America's men and women
in uniform, they have to understand it. And to the extent that
I can do it, I put them in that place
and I explain it to them. ROGER: We're gonna delve
into your methodology
in a moment, but I want to first relive
your pathway to this unique yet transformative role
in Hollywood. 'Cause you signed up
to become a marine aged 17, drawn to service
I believe at the outset because of the war films
you watched as a child, you were "enticed by John Wayne
and World War II movies." Was that the driver? DALE: That enticed me,
I absolutely admit. But I lost a lot of that
once I began to experience it
in person, and I said, "you know,
as much as I love John, as much as I love the Duke,
that's all bullshit." I mean it's not right,
it's not what happened. God bless John
and a lot of the other folks who made those films,
but they're not the kind
of films I think should be made. ROGER: I used to go and watch<i>
Where Eagles Dare,</i> <i> The Guns of Navarone,
The Dirty Dozen</i> with my grandfather who served
in Tobruk and when we'd leave the cinema I'd always say,
"Is that what war's like,
Grandfather?" and he'd be like, "No, it's
what Hollywood war is like." DALE: I agree with your grandad
a hundred percent. My idea was, well why?
That's nonsense! Fix it! Unscrew it,
they've screwed it up, I'm gonna unscrew it. ROGER: In the military
you made a professional pivot. You became
a combat correspondent, switching from someone
whose job it is to carry a rifle and kill an enemy, to someone
who documents all war from its banalities
to its atrocities-- More than that,
you spent years almost
beginning to hone your sense of narrative and storytelling. DALE: I wanted to experience
it all, and not just
from a superficial level. I wanted to try
to understand this-- I mean, Hemmingway was right,
war is man's greatest adventure. And I wanted to be part
of that adventure, but I didn't want to be
just a superficial part of it, I wanted to understand it
in depth, being able to accompany
riflemen, which I had been, and to be another rifle
with them but also understand their story and try
to tell their story, was something that fit me. I mean, maybe
it's my Irish heritage, I don't know. I've always
been the storyteller. I've always been the guy
around the campfire that'll tell you
a shaggy dog story and make it go on
for 45 minutes... -(ROGER LAUGHS)
-I mean, I heard Ron Nixon say
in the podcast-- -Ron Livingston, sorry.
-ROGER: I love that you called
him Ron Nixon. DALE: I always think of them
in their cast names because I demanded
that they do that throughout
the year-long production. Ron said Dale Dye
is just a natural storyteller and keeps you entertained and,
I guess that's true. But I try to do them
as an element of teaching. I always find a way
to bring it back around to what I'm trying to tell them.
And what I've found, and I think almost every
human being that has undergone the educational experience
understands, is that the teachers you remember
and the teachers you absorb
things from are teachers who entertain you,
I guess in some ways I turned out to be a natural
entertainer as well as
a teacher. ROGER: 1985, you left
the service and moved to LA thinking you could take
the skills you'd learnt as a combat correspondent
and apply them to the art
of making movies. You've said as a Vietnam
veteran the thing that really drove you was that
you were bristling at the constant Hollywood
portrayal of Vietnam's
"psycho vet as villain" in movie after movie
after movie, was that really
the first motivator to fix that? DALE: Yeah,
I was a little sick of that as were I think
most Vietnam veterans. And I said,
"what's the scoop here?" And the more I looked at it,
the more I said, "Well you know who's driving
this train, is popular media,
is Hollywood." I said, "Well, if I'm gonna
derail that damn train and fix it and present some
sort of real look at the how's and the whys and the wherefores
about that war, then I'd better find my place
in the popular media
and get that done." And that's what I went out
to do. ROGER: You discovered that
movie's had military advisors, but these were mostly there
to make sure the uniforms looked right,
the rifles were held correctly, what you wanted to do
was to infuse movies with an understanding
of the military culture, the mentality, the emotions.
You wanted to teach Hollywood "how soldiers look, think,
walk, talk, and fight
in the real world." DALE: I needed to teach them
how the military feels. I wanted to get
inside the uniform. And up to that point,
most people had said, "Well, if the uniform is right,
and he's an actor,
he'll say whatever's--" Nonsense.
He doesn't understand it, so he cannot conceivably
convey it. And I knew that. I inherently knew that.
They had people long before me that did the business of
"Here's how you wear your
uniform and here's how you carry your rifle
and here's how you reload it." (IN DEEP VOICE)
"And here's how you growl if you're gonna be this guy,
you know, you gotta talk
this way here." I said, you know,
that's so much absolute
steaming horse crap. We need to find a way
to get inside their minds. We need to get
inside their hearts, we need to get
inside their guts. And to do that,
I've got to own them. And I've got to put them
in those situations
so they have no escape. Mentally, physically,
emotionally, they have no escape,
they've got to deal with those things
that are so strange to them. ROGER: You wanted to make sure
that never again would Rambo shoot a rocket propelled
grenade out of a helicopter. DALE: Well that certainly
pissed me off, because anybody who's ever
ridden in a helicopter and who has ever fired an RPG,
or any other sort of recoilless rocket launcher
knows that the first thing that would happen is
you'd blow your own helicopter
right out of the air. So, it was those kind
of mistakes-- But again,
those were physical mistakes. And that can be fixed.
I wanted to get inside Rambo's dark, horrible mind
and fix that-- (ROGER LAUGHING) DALE: Thank God I never had
that opportunity, 'cause I don't know
what I would've done then. ROGER: Even for you,
Captain Dye, that would be
a mission of no return. But you'd heard that
Oliver Stone was making <i> Platoon</i> and
"like a marine on a mission, you found a way
of button-holing him." Tell us how that went down--
Stone, a former Vietnam vet ultimately did bring you on
for<i> Platoon,</i> and the films realism empowered
it to win four Academy Awards. DALE: I was about to give up. I really hadn't scored
any success with anybody out here, you know,
they threw me off
a lot of movie lots. And very few people
would give me the time of day to try to explain why I was--
I should be allowed to mistreat the hell out of their actors,
you know, they just said, "Look kid, we've been making
military movies for 30 years without you
and we've done real well, we've made a pot full of money,
why do we need your ass? Why do we want you
to help us out?" And I was
about to give up. And then I had learned
to read the trade papers, you know<i> Daily Variety</i>
and<i> Hollywood Reporter.</i> And I saw an article,
I think it was<i> Daily Variety</i> that said a relatively
heretofore unknown
writer-director by the name of Oliver Stone was gonna
do a movie about his experience
in Vietnam, he was a combat infantryman. And I said, "You know,
if I can get to this guy, if I can just in two minutes
explain to him why I think
we should train these guys in what we went through
and give them that experience, that his movie will sing."
There were some things that went on that I'm not gonna
tell you about because the statute
of limitations may not
have run out yet. But I did get a two-minute
meeting with Oliver Stone, and we sniffed each other
like a couple of strange dogs who decided that he had
the bona fides and I had the bona fides.
And I explained to him what I thought, I said, "Look, nobody who hasn't
been there will understand the experience that we had.
If you will let me give them that experience you will have
a platoon of actors that will be us,
that will tell the story from the inside
because they understand it." And he bought it. He said,
you know, I think you're right. And the next thing you know
he gave me 33 actors including Johnny Depp
and Tom Berenger, and Willem Dafoe
and Forest Whitaker,
and on and on and on, to take into the mountains--
the jungle mountains
of the Philippines for three weeks, and they lived
exactly like we lived when we were in Vietnam.
I made it as tough and as hard on them as I could,
and when I brought them down out of the mountains
of the Philippines
after three weeks, they were us. They were me
and they were Oliver, and we went on and made that
little five-million-dollar film, brought her home,
won four Academy Awards. Oliver was very kind
to recognize my role in it at the Academy Awards.
At that point, my phone never stopped ringing.
Nothing succeeds like success
in Hollywood. That was the beginning
of the whole Captain Dye
methodology. ROGER: And it set you up
for all that's followed. You worked again with Stone
on<i> Born on the Fourth of July,</i> that led to<i> Saving Private Ryan</i>
which led to<i> Band of Brothers.</i> And you've said, "I believe
sincerely that the reason that war stories keep getting
made into films is because you can run
the gamut of human emotions." DALE: Yeah. ROGER: And I'm fascinated,
you're a man of authenticity, but in becoming
a Hollywood storyteller, how did you have to tone down
or re-calibrate
your own knowledge of war, and move away at times
from verisimilitude in the name of Hollywood's dramatic arc? DALE: Well,
I think the key to that, Roger, is that you have to understand
what's important to a story. There are departures
that you'll have to make
for dramatic purposes, I understand that now.
Perhaps I didn't understand it
early on, but I certainly understand
it now. My feeling about it all is--
Look, very often, in fact most often,
the truth is much more dramatic and interesting than something
Wee Willie Winkie the writer comes up with
because he's had a bad night. And so, what I try to do
is understand the communication
that's intended. What is the image
that's intended? If that image is true,
if that image is part
of history, then no problem. If it's something somebody
is making up, the idea is to say, look,
I understand where you're going with this, I know what you're
trying to communicate. Here's an option.
This is the reality of it, if you do it this way,
it'll communicate exactly the same thing,
only it will be accurate. I try to reach
that middle-ground. ROGER: You've said
that death scenes are what trouble you the most
because Hollywood requires dramatic deaths
for their lead characters. You even have names for them.
"The Funky Chicken",
"The Screaming Mama". Can you just describe
what they are, Captain Dye? DALE: I mean, I've seen
way too many men actually killed in combat. It's a strange experience.
It's nothing like what you see in the movies
for the most part. If a man is killed
by high explosives, he usually just shreds
and drops. If a man's killed
by gunshot wounds, it's like watching a puppet
or a marionette, and you just cut the strings
and he drops. And to me,
that real image conveys the fine line between
life and death and how quickly that line
can be crossed. And you see a guy hit, and blood
spurts everywhere, and he waves his arms
and does a little pee-pee dance, that doesn't happen. And the problem is, filmmakers
may think, "Oh, well that's explanatory,
or expository of the horror of war." No, what's expository
of the horror of war is how easy it is to die, and how simple that death is, and therefore,
how dramatic it is. ROGER: That conversation really
leads us to your methodology, that authenticity, that attempt
to capture human truth from combat, on film. And first
of all, what's the secret of taking, in your words,
a bunch of, "Weenie actors who think the sun
rises and sets on their asinine selves," and a I love that quote,
and until we started to speak
together, you know, now I can truly
imagine it coming from
your mouth, Captain Dye. -(DALE CHUCKLES)
-ROGER: But how do you
transform them into a similar ballpark,
I'd say, of true, bonafide, warrior, American fighting men? DALE: Well, you can never
completely do it. But I can get as close
as I think anybody has. And it comes from understanding
the psychology
of the military unit. It comes from understanding
what's going on in hearts
and minds. It comes from understanding
the relationship, the intertwined relationship
between men who are in combat or who are serving
in a military unit, how they rely on each other. Actors, by the nature
of what they do, tend to be self-focused.
"How many lines do I have?" "How's my hair?" And I get that, but it's not at all
how military people think. That's the antithesis
of how military people think. And so you've got to put 'em
in a situation that they understand
that "the sun does not rise and set on my glowing ass, it rises and sets on this unit,
and this unit is me. This unit is what embodies me,
and what embodies the story, and what embodies the mission." And that takes some doing.
You got to unplug yourself. And in order to unplug yourself,
I mean, the easiest way is to just reduce everybody
to a common denominator, and make them all suffer
in the same fashion, and then suddenly, they begin
to understand that they must rely on the guy
next to 'em. That it doesn't make
any difference if he's a background extra,
or he only has one line, or whatever the deal is,
he's part of the unit, and therefore, "I have to have
a close and intimate
relationship with him, an understanding of him,
and he has to have the same
with me." ROGER: But is it really possible
to teach some fear, which is the central thrust
of this episode, "Carentan", episode three? You know, I think of
that Churchill quote, that "Nothing in life
is so exhilarating as to be shot at
without result." And these men have never been
shot at. DALE: They haven't been shot at
with anything that's gonna penetrate them
and hurt, but I've shot at them a lot,
and I intend to. I give them a taste,
and so much of fear in combat is uncertainty. "What's gonna happen next?
Will we spring an ambush? Will we hit a mine?" And it's that uncertainty
that's the well of fear. If you knew
what was gonna happen, you could deal with yourself
and get it done. But you don't know that.
You never will know that. And so, part of my training
is to not let them know what's gonna happen. Not let
them know whether it's gonna hurt,
whether it's gonna not hurt, and it unsettles them
and gives them a taste of that uncertainty
from which fear springs. ROGER: Another Dale Dye quote: "I have to pull out
all the civilian crapola. I wear their ass out through PT,
digging their own holes, sleeping two hours a day,
they get two meals a--" I love this line, "They get
two meals a day, unless they piss me off."
Your conclusion is you want to make them
blank slates, and boot camp breaks soldiers
down, but Captain Dye, when I read
your work, I have to keep reminding myself these are Hollywood
bloody actors! As you say,
full of self-importance, they think about chewing up
the scenery, about stealing scenes,
about the number of lines, the allure of the spotlight. Do any of them push back?
They must do. Tell us how that occurs
and what you do. DALE: There is some push back.
I've been fortunate at this point in my career
where the actors who are going into training
with me know what's coming. They say, "O-oh. This is that
old, white-haired hard ass
bastard, here we go." And I get that. But I think
part of... the success in this training
evolution that I do is to convince them
that it's not about you personally. I do that
by putting them in situations where an individual
can't survive, an individual can't succeed. He needs those around him,
and that tends to defocus their concern with themselves,
their absolute tight focus on themselves. And that needs
to be done, and it's an amazing transition.
You see it. You actually see it happen.
You see them say, "I could do this, and that would
make me look cool, but it would hurt this guy,
and this guy, and this guy, so I won't do that." When you begin to see
that happen, you know that you're getting
to the right place with 'em. ROGER: 'Cause you've also
promised them, and a number of them have talked
about how this happened through your process,
you promised them, "You are going to hit walls,
and breaking through those walls will change your life." There is something powerful
at the individual level. DALE: Well, that's true.
It applies, almost throughout any endeavor
that human beings make, you're gonna come up against
psychological walls. Things that just seem too hard.
"I can't do this. I don't want to do this."
All of that is neither here
nor there. The fact of the matter is
you must do it, and I'll put you in a situation
where you must do it or not survive. And by survive,
I mean you won't get this job, you won't perform properly. But you're gonna hit those
physical and psychological
walls, and I explain that to them. I say, "Don't be afraid
of the walls. The walls are there to be
destroyed. The walls are there to be
knocked down," and when you do that,
suddenly, you get an insight, suddenly, you get
an understanding that you're stronger,
and smarter, and more rugged than you think
you are. And once you get to that point,
your life changes. There were hundreds of moments
on<i> Band of Brothers</i> that illustrated that
with several of the guys
in training. David Schwimmer, I was a little
worried about that going in, because David Schwimmer was only
one "movie star" that we had really, at that point. I told my cadre staff,
I said, "I do not want him treated
any differently. Absolutely, he does everything
that everybody else does." And David did. He put himself
into a lone wolf situation, but he's a smart guy,
and he understood the group psychology, understood
what was going on. But he got hurt. Probably
the infiltration course or the obstacle course,
David hurt a knee. Hurt to the extent that I had
to evacuate him and get it treated.
And this was, like, two days before I was gonna take the unit
to the number one RAF parachute school
at Brize Norton to run them through
ground parachute training. And I said, "Well, I guess
we've lost him. I probably won't see
Captain Sobel again." But we went on
with the training, and I explained to the guys,
"Look, it's like losing a man in combat, or losing
a man injured. You just have to ignore it
and move on. We'll think about it later,
we can't think about it now." And lo and behold,
we were getting packed up to go to parachute school
at Brize Norton, and David Schwimmer shows up.
And he's got his knee wrapped and everything else, and I went,
and I said, "Sobel, what's the story here?
You know, we're gonna be jumping
from towers, we're gonna be doing parachute
landing falls, hanging landings. Is your knee
gonna take that?" And he said, "Captain,
I have braced this bastard with everything except
an erector set, and I am going
to parachute school." And I said, "Sobel,
get aboard the bus," because I knew right then
he had got it. That was that transformative
moment. He was not going to miss this. And not because it was cool
for Captain Sobel the role, or David Schwimmer the actor, it was cool because he wanted
to be with that unit. He did not wanna miss
the pinnacle of that unit's training. -(ROGER SIGHS)
-DALE: And that's
a transformative moment. ROGER: David Schwimmer,
the underrated tenacity of Schwimmer's will-ish read
at the garden moment. The other part of the story
that's fascinating is the way you forced the actors
to stop using their real names, address themselves to each other
as their characters. You stopped calling Schwimmer
Schwimmer, he became Sobel. Once you see when that happens, did you witness Damian Lewis
become Dick Winters? Matthew Settle become Spiers? DALE: Absolutely. Look,
I have to get to three places. I have to get in their mind,
their heart, and in their guts, and part of getting
in their mind is removing David Schwimmer
from the equation, and bringing
Captain Herbert Sobel into the equation. Removing Damian Lewis
from the equation, and bringing in
Captain Dick Winters. It puts them in the right
mindset to accept the fact that they are going to be
this person, and I am going to show you
how to be that person, and I'm gonna show you
in such detail that you'll understand not only
who that person is, how he looked, how he wore
his uniform, how he carried his weapon,
but you'll understand a bit of how he felt, how he related to the guy
next to him. ROGER: Who of the cast
would have made the most natural soldier
and why? DALE: Damian Lewis would have
made a good soldier. He's a thinking guy.
He's physically tough. Ron Livingston would probably
say he would have never made
a soldier, yes he would. And he probably
would have made a good one. Frank John Hughes
would've made a good soldier. Jimmy Madio would've made
a good soldier. There are a number of them
who could've done just fine in a military environment. ROGER: You said the actors
who could've made the most
natural soldiers are the ones who listen
more than they talk. DALE: It's clear to me
that that applies pretty well across the board.
The less you talk, -the more you can listen.
-(ROGER CHUCKLES) ROGER: One gent who was clearly
listening, Matthew Settle, Lieutenant Ronald Spiers. He came to you shortly,
I believe, before shooting
began, and told you he was having
a crisis of confidence
as an actor, and your advice to him,
he told us, two words: "Just soldier." What does that mean? DALE: Well, it was interesting
that Matthew was having that sort of crisis in putting
his performance out because he'd been good
in training, but he'd been unsure of himself. He over-compensated
in certain ways. He would do things that
were more actor-ish than they were soldier-ish.
And I noticed that. While we were training,
I talked to him, and I said, "You need to focus.
You need to understand what you're doing and forget
about how it looks, and how it feels
or anything else, you just need to understand
what you're doing." I thought that was the end
of it, it wasn't. Matthew was still unsure. And so, I said, "Look, let me
meet him off duty, if you will, and we'll talk to him."
And he poured his heart out
to me. And it's very rewarding
when one of the people
you're training does that. At that moment,
I was kind of Uncle Captain. And he was saying to me,
you know, "I'm just not sure. I-- I don't know what to do.
I-- I don't--" And I said, "Listen,
you have to reach down and remember those things
in training. You have to remember
those feelings, the way you felt when certain
things happened, the way you felt when we put you
in charge of certain people." And I said, "That is called
soldiering. And what I want you to do
is forget everything and just soldier." And for some reason,
as simplistic as that sounds, as difficult it is for someone
to understand who hasn't really
been through it, that did it for Matthew.
He said, "I think I've got it." And I said, "Just soldier." And he did, and he produced
a brilliant performance. ROGER: (CHUCKLING) We'll hear
Matthew's version of that story, Captain Dye, coming up
a little later in this very podcast. But the other transformative
moment for so many of these actors
was when they met the real heroes
that they were depicting. -DALE: Oh, yeah.
-ROGER: You're a military man. These heroes are military men. What did you see happen
in those encounters? Can you take us there
and describe what happens
in those moments? DALE: I see the veterans,
to some extent, looking into a mirror. I recall watching Wild Bill
and Babe Heffron talking to the guys
who were playing them, and I backed away a few steps
to see what was going on here. And of course, you know,
Wild Bill is Wild Bill, they're both South Philly
guys... (IN PHILADELPHIAN ACCENT)
...and they're talkin' like this
here, and tellin' ya you should
listen. And while both actors
were standing there nodding, and their eyes were wide,
and they were in the presence
of genuine heroes, and the people that they were
portraying on screen, what I was seeing in Babe
and Wild Bill, for instance, was they were looking
into a mirror. They were seeing themselves
in those days. I said, "If they are looking
into a mirror here, then we have accomplished
what we were trying to do, we're going to represent them
in the way that not only
they want," because they're very humble
guys. You wouldn't believe it
sometimes to hear them talk over a beer,
but they're very humble guys. To see them light up like that, to see them looking at younger
them that is now going to be
presented to the world at large was a tremendously rewarding
experience. ROGER: What about Dick Winters
and your encounters with him? DALE: Major Dick Winters
is an extraordinary human being. Very self-effacing,
and very professional in a soldierly manner. When I met him, I'd shown him
my training schedule, and I said "Sir, can you take
a look? Can you suggest anything
that I might do differently?" And he had read it. He'd read it
the night before. And he said, "You know, Captain,
I think this'd be adequate. Of course, it's not really
the aspect of the training, it's the quality
of the training, it's the leadership."
And I said, "Yes, sir,
I understand that full well." And he said, "I don't have
anything particular to add except do it well,
and hang tough." And I said, "Yes, sir,
I absolutely will do that." And I wanted him to come
and observe, and in the moment, he said "No,
I don't think I will," what I sensed was not that
Dick Winters wasn't interested, Lord knows he was,
but he trusted me as his subordinate,
as a fellow officer. He trusted me to do it right.
And to me, that was the world's greatest
compliment, that he would say, "No,
I don't wanna come out and monitor what you're doing,
I trust you to do it. You are the young
company commander, I am the old
battalion commander." I was fired up because nothing
inspires a leader more than being given
a basic mission and no further guidance. "This is what I want you to do. It is up to you
as a professional to get it done," and that's what
Dick Winters did with me. He left before we finished
training, and I never really had a chance
to say, "Well, what do you think?
Will you come and see 'em?" Or-- And while I was securing
from the training evolution, one of the assistant directors
came by and handed me a copy of<i> Band of Brothers,</i>
Stephen Ambrose's book. And, hell, I had three or four
copies, all annotated with notes
and everything else, so I said, "Well, that's nice,
but Major Winters should know that I've read this book."
And he said, "No, no, no, look inside it."
And I opened it up, and he had written inside it,
"Captain Dye, I think you would have made
Colonel Sink proud. Dick Winters, hang tough." To me, that was
the Academy Award. (CHUCKLES) That was the Emmy of my life
right there, that Dick Winters thought
that Colonel Sink
would've been proud of the way I trained that unit. Those are moments that are,
you know, locked in your heart and in your mind,
and will always be there. ROGER: The other part
of your job is ensuring each scene
feels authentic, and episode three, "Carentan",
is one of the most action-packed of the series, filled with fire fights,
tank battles, storming of villages... How's your role
in episodes like this different from some of the more
subtle, quieter<i> Band of Brothers</i>
episodes? DALE: Well, the combat episodes
are the most fun for all of us,
as a matter of fact, but we approached "Carentan",
when we began to shoot it, I went up with the director
and we looked over the terrain and the set, and I was casting
a soldier's eye on it. I was saying, "All right,
this would be
a base of fire here, and we'll make this approach
over here, and second platoon will take
that line of buildings
over there, and..." The director said to me,
"Look, what do you think? Camera here, camera there,
and your guys are coming here." I said, "Listen, honestly,
here's what I would do." I said, "Let me talk to
the guys. Let me issue a field order. Let me issue an order
for this attack, and let's see what they do,
because I think what they do is gonna absolutely fit
the image you're trying
to convey here." But he said,
"Can we rehearse it?" and I said, "Sure we can,
watch this." And I went up, and I got with
Lieutenant Winters
at that point. I got with
the platoon commanders, and I said, "Gents,
we're gonna conduct a single envelopment
with a base of fire here. Armor will be on our right,
we'll be on the left. This is our access road,
this is our route of attack. Once you're inside,
I want you to split to the left. First platoon will take
that building, second platoon will take
that building, third platoon come in
with the tanks." And everybody said,
"Got it, sir. I know how to do that.
Let's do it!" And so we got up and instead of saying action,
I said "Execute." And, vroom, they went. And the director was watching it
and he said, "Whoa!" and he moved a couple
of camera positions and a number of others--
He said, "Yeah, that's it. That's the master.
We'll shoot that, and then we'll cover it." It worked out just--
just as though we were doing a documentary coverage
of an actual assault. And that's how "Carentan" began. ROGER: How about
in post-production and editing? What insight are you giving
in those situations as the story is being
pieced together? DALE: They'll pull us
into editing, into Foley Stages,
where we want the specific sounds
that we may not have captured. A magazine change
on an automatic weapon, or we missed the sound
of the feed cover slamming down
on a machine gun, because something else
covered it. Or there wasn't a mic
close enough,
and we missed it. And so, I'd say,
"You know, there, as he loaded that machine gun, if he slams
that feed cover down, you know right away
that he's ready to go back
into action. We need that sound." And, well, how do we get that? Well, in many cases, we go in
and we slam a feed cover on a 1919 A4
or .30 caliber machine gun. We've gone so far sometimes
as to hang microphones in a side of beef, and fire actual live rounds
into it to pick up the smack
of rounds hitting flesh. ROGER: This is why
the authenticity to which you've given
the second phase of your career is, to me, so crucial. You grew up mesmerized
by the John Wayne movies. The epics that heroicize war
and warriors. You know, Tom Hanks told me
that he wants people to look at<i> Band of Brothers</i>
and say, "This is not a celebration
of nostalgia. This is actually an examination
of the very human condition." What message do you believe
is at the heart
of<i> Band of Brothers?</i> DALE: I think Tom's right. It is not an examination
of nostalgia, nor is it, by any stretch
of the imagination, an in-depth examination of war. It is an examination
of the human condition. It is an examination
of a certain amount of human beings,
a certain type of human being, that is willing to
see something larger
and more important than himself. That there was something
worth sacrificing for, that there was something
worth suffering for. That there was an injustice
in the world that needed... correcting. And they were willing
to serve and sacrifice in order to try and help correct
that injustice. ROGER: A message that
has never been more poignant, perhaps, than in our time, and it's a recurring message
in the body of work you've done. Last question for you,
Captain Dye. The storytelling that you have
your fingerprints all over, starting with<i> Platoon,
Born on the Fourth of July,</i> <i> Saving Private Ryan,
Band of Brothers.</i> These... These are some of
the most definitive devices that've explained war
to generations of Americans, and you, Captain Dye, have played such
a major part in that. Are you aware
of the significance of your life's work? DALE: Well, I like to think--
(CLEARS THROAT) I like to think
I can be relatively humble -and self-effacing about this.
-(ROGER LAUGHS) DALE: It does make me proud.
I mean I think I've helped, I think I've contributed,
but I think... less than bringing
an understanding of war... to the nation, or to the world,
through my work, what I've really brought... is an examination
and an explanation of soldiers. The soldier's heart. Who we are, how we react. What things we think
are important, and what things we're willing
to sacrifice for, and how much sacrifice
we're willing to make. If I've brought something,
I hope it's that understanding. And through
that understanding, an appreciation of what
our men and women in uniform have given to us,
all throughout the history
of our country. And to the extent
that I have helped
in that regard, I'm happy with it. And if something like that
is all there is on my tombstone besides "born", "died",
that'll do. ROGER: (LAUGHS) Oh,
Captain Dye. Thank you for your service,
and thank you -for your storytelling.
-DALE: Thank you, Roger. Thank you, I appreciate it. ♪ (INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYS,
FADES) ♪ ROGER: One of my favorite parts
of that conversation? Captain Dye on his advice
to Matthew Settle, "Just soldier." And I love it
because it clearly resonated. Here to talk with us now
is the man who played one of the most lionized,
enigmatic characters in the entire<i> Band of Brothers</i>
series, Captain Speirs. A complex gent.
In Stephen Ambrose's words, "An officer
with a mythical reputation." He became the last commander
of Easy Company. Actually lead them longer
than the great Dick Winters
himself. The two were two
very different leaders. Spiers, both fearless
and feared. A truly intimidating figure. Let's just say,
he was the kind of guy you should never accept
a cigarette off. It's a joy to welcome the man who brought the man
and the myth alive, Mr. Matthew Settle. MATTHEW: Hi, Rog. Thank you
for having me. It's great to be here. ROGER: Oh, Matthew,
it's a joy to be with you. A gent who has done two
of the most fearless things I've ever seen
on the television screen. Running through
the German lines at Foy, and as Rufus in<i> Gossip Girl</i>
going head-to-head with Billy Baldwin
to protect the honor of Lily van der Woodsen. -(MATTHEW CHUCKLES)
-ROGER:<i> Band of Brothers</i>
began casting in the early days
of your career. You'd been working
in TV movies, just gotten your first feature,
the magnificent <i>I Still Know What You Did
Last Summer,</i> when you heard about Hank's
and Spielberg's miniseries. And I know you originally read
for the part of Winters
and Nixon. I believe you stayed up
all night before the audition working on your character. Tell us what happened
when you walked into that room. MATTHEW: The group of people,
several producers including Tony To and Meg Liberman
and Tom Hanks, and Spielberg's running
around the room
with a camera in your face, and I was delighted to be there
and just observing. I would say I, uh,
perhaps fearless. I didn't have anything to lose,
I was game to just try anything. They asked me to read
for Winters, I read that. I read it with a couple
of different actors, then I came back to read
for Nixon a separate time. You would be given
enormous numbers of sides to make sure you could
carry it off, and you didn't have
a lot of time to prepare, so it's going to require working all night
to get it done. So when I came in
to do Nixon and Winters
in Bastogne, as Nixon, we started to read the role
and Tom just said, "No, no, no, you're not Nixon.
You're not." I said, "Well, can you
at least let me get this off
my chest? I mean, I stayed up all night
working it. Just-- You know, you're an actor,
you know how it is.
You just want to let it go." So he's like, "Oh, you're going
to show us how well you do the cold of Bastogne." And I said, "Well,
if you're so good at it, just get up here
and do it with me." -(ROGER LAUGHS)
-MATTHEW: Hilariously, he did. He got up
and we auditioned together and we got halfway through it
and he said, "Get out of here. Go read this. Go read Spiers." So he sent me out, he basically
wanted me to do it cold. I had about 20 minutes
to become familiar with it, they were all waiting. And I came back in the room
and he said, "This is the one. This is the character. Go home,
stay up all night again, memorize it,
and be here tomorrow with bells on." So that was it. ROGER: You had created
that opportunity with your<i> hutzpah</i> to Hanks.
Hanks saw something in you. MATTHEW: That feeling I got
from the idea of the character of Spiers, what he represented. A fortitude of resolve
and acceptance in him, to where it pushes you
past the fear of anything in life
and you observe almost the absurdities
of the hell, purgatory, whatever situation we're in,
and then you say, "Well, I'll make the most of it.
I'll enjoy being shot at
by a howitzer, or by an .88.
I'll find that amusing if I've given up my moral right
when I've signed in." There's a spiritual depth
to that, or an acceptance
of fate. That's the sense I got from him,
so when I went into the audition I kind of had
that sensibility anyway. ROGER: Once you won the part,
how did you go about
preparing for it? Because, in an interview,
you once said, having grown up
in North Carolina, you were, in your family,
and in your church, around so many people
who had reverence for war, for heroism, for selflessness. MATTHEW: My dad was a marine,
he was the chief swimming
instructor at Parris Island. He was too young
for World War Two, but all of his brothers
were there. You know, I spent quite a bit
of time with them and each had a different way
of dealing with their memories, and they were all very proud
when I won this role. ROGER: One person
you were not able to tap into was Spiers
and Spiers was still alive, he'd retired from a long
and successful army career, ultimately becoming
a lieutenant colonel, settled in California,
and then Montana. But he didn't sit
with Stephen Ambrose
for the book, and you didn't meet with him
ahead of filming. Why was that? MATTHEW: Well, I would
be speculating but it seems like some of
the stories I've heard is that Spiers didn't like
the way the book talked about
his first wife. MATTHEW: Ambrose's book claims
that Spier's wife in England
left him because her first husband,
this is complicated, whom they thought
had been killed in action, was actually still alive. But in a later letter
to Major Winters, Spiers explained
that she wasn't a widow and had never been married
before, she just didn't want to leave
her own family in England and move to America with him. MATTHEW: There was
a characterization in the book that he felt was incorrect. Called her a widow
and she wasn't a widow. He had a son by this woman
named Robert. Perhaps the other thing
is the ideas of war crimes that were being thrown around. ROGER: The very notion
of some of the acts that he did,
that made him fearful. MATTHEW: Why would you want
your kids to know that part
of your dark history? So, don't interview. When he sent his son, Robert,
the book, he said take these with a pinch of salt,
there's gonna be stories
in there. ROGER: And that obviously
takes us to boot camp, the fabled pre-production
experience, in which most of the cast
were put through their paces to prepare for the rigors
and mindset of the shoot ahead. You really developed a sense
of the Spiers character
in bootcamp. MATTHEW: Yeah, it was easy
to fall into the role. Constantly being in uniform,
we did live fire fights, right, where we had rounds
and we went out and we were attacked
by role-players and it was cold and noisy and... One of the nights
when it kind of dropped in, we had stayed up all night
and the officers got together and got our maps out,
and we started... plotting a position
to find something that Captain Dye had put on
a map for us, so we had to learn
due north versus north. So as we're doing that,
I'm watching Nixon
and Winters, and quietly withdrew
from the rest of them, and just started
observing them. And at some point
I was able to just simply offer
a suggestion, it turned out to be
absolutely correct, when we were
a little bit lost. And it was just a random event, but the way it fell out,
it helped me really feel, at that moment,
that I was playing this role. ROGER: The other person
who gave you a true sense of the character
was Dale Dye. Can you take us into
those conversations? The trainer who eventually
ended up playing Sink in the series<i>
Band of Brothers.</i> What did he teach you? MATTHEW: Well, I had
this wonderful occasion. I called up Dale right before
we started shooting, and I said, "Dale,
can I have a beer with you
at the pub? And he's like, "Yeah." And so he met me and I said,
"How am I going to do this?" I started having doubts
and he said, "You've already done it.
You're already there. Just soldier." He's like, "You are
the essence. Just don't doubt it,
and then you won't lose
the essence. Just remember your training." And that was
incredibly helpful, so anytime I had a doubt,
I had somewhere to put it. And it was in the hands
of this form of Dale Dye and that conversation we had
over a pint. ROGER: So, in the words
of the great Dale Dye, as he told you,
"You are not an actor weinie
anymore." And I believe you still have
a hernia from the atomic sit-ups.
Is that true? MATTHEW: I think
it's pretty healed by now. -(ROGER LAUGHS)
-MATTHEW: But I did
for a long time. I did for a long time. As far as preparing
for the role, I had the luxury,
after we did our boot camp, the first episode I was not in. ROGER: Because Spiers
was originally in Dog Company and didn't join Easy
until after the chaos of the drop in Normandy. So you were not in episode one,
"Currahee." And you took the opportunity
to do what? MATTHEW: I decided to retrace
as many of his steps as I could. To go to Mourmelon,
to the Ardennes, and went to Foy and ending up at the Eagle's Nest,
the Adlerhorst. I went all the way.
I wanted to see the fireplace that had been chipped off, where all the soldiers
had used the butt of their M1s to take a piece of the fireplace at the octagon
of the Adlerhorst. It was fascinating to go
to all the museums, to see the multiple faiths
and nationalities of people that were joined in memoriam. The cemeteries that stretched
from Brécourt Manor, to Bastogne, to Foy,
to Noville. Yeah, it's incredibly moving.
And then you go and you see, obviously,
what we're fighting for. You see some of the museums
that were about the Holocaust and the great evil
that was thrust upon mankind. A lot of gruesome stuff,
a lot of gruesome pictures. So that helped, I think,
with that bottom quality. ROGER: When you look
at Spiers, how you portray him, he had
a mysterious, scary quality. He's almost a spectral figure,
Matthew, throughout the series. He just seems to keep appearing
out of nowhere. MATTHEW: Another thing
about Spiers that points to him being sort of
an interested observer of the situation he was in
and which was, "Hey, here's a candelabra,
here's a, uh..." (LAUGHS) I was just reading,
uh, recently, there was some bodies,
and they were frozen
in Bastogne, an ADA observation team,
and there was a very nice pair of binoculars,
so, well, "He doesn't need them anymore.
I'll take those." MATTHEW: There was
a great interview on the podcast<i> History Hacks,</i>
and you said, "Rick Gomez," who plays Luz, "can tell a joke
and everyone laughs, but if I tell
the exact same joke, there's just an eerie silence." MATTHEW: (LAUGHS) Yeah,
isn't that brilliant though? ROGER: Let's talk about
this episode, "Carentan." First of all,
this one hour five minutes packs in so many
incredible action scenes. Truly brutal, truly horrific,
confusing, terrifying. What were they like to shoot? MATTHEW: You feel like
you're there. You're transported in time. The only thing
that breaks that up
is seeing, uh, someone say action,
or seeing a crew. What's it like?
The set-builders, the designers, those people who are
so meticulous about every detail, the thread on fabric,
on clothing, you know. They create this world
that easily transports. It makes your job so easy. And then all you have to do
is empathize and have respect
for every aspect of why your characters does
what they do. So you've got to develop
a system of believing why they believe
what they believe. ROGER: I mean I assume
this was take after take, attack after attack. Did you adrenaline burn off
and it became exhausting, or was it just full-on mania
every time? MATTHEW: Oh no, its--
every time it's emotional. Every time it's exciting.
You never know
what's gonna happen. An adrenaline rush
the whole time. ROGER: This is an episode
that's filled with machine guns, with explosions, with action, but your scenes are often
the quietest. And yet somehow, always, the most intense.
More than any shootout. None more than
your night-time encounter
with Blithe. SPEIRS:<i> You know why you hid
in that ditch, Blithe?</i> -BLITHE:<i> I was scared.</i>
-SPEIRS:<i> We're all scared.</i> <i> You hid in that ditch
because you think</i> <i> there's still hope.
But, Blithe,</i> <i> the only hope you have
is to accept the fact</i> <i>that you're already dead.
And the sooner you accept that,</i> <i>the sooner you'll be able
to function</i> <i> as a soldier's supposed
to function.</i> <i> Without mercy,
without compassion,</i> <i> without remorse.
All war depends upon it.</i> MATTHEW: "All war depends
upon it," what a moment. That's a pinnacle scene.
That was really almost a point of focus
up until that point. I was focusing on that scene
for months until we shot it. Every day I was focused
on that scene. Because it's a pinnacle
element in the entire series. Whether it's Dike
or Blithe. You have the natural need
in us to run. Don't trust your fate, run.
Don't trust the Almighty, run. Get out of here, this is crazy,
this is madness. But here is this vision
walking out of the darkness saying, "accept it,
move through it. You're gonna be okay."
'Cause you're already dead, brother.
It just all lead up to that one moment,
and it was a moment that served the series, and I'm very happy
it served it in the way it did. And my family members
that were all in the service were proud of it. ROGER: Can you give us
an inner sense of how you thought through
how to deliver it with such incredible awe? MATTHEW: It's quite simple.
You just cut away all the fat, you just render it,
get rid of all the fat. So that's like every day
you run it through your mind, and you sit there, and you say,
"Get me out of the way, let me serve this character."
Only, you get to that point and there's nothing there
accept what is. Other times, your brain
comes in and says, "Let me be the hero.
Let me--" And you gotta get rid of that
crap. And then it's like, "Oh,
everybody agrees." So I got to be of service
to that. ROGER: That's incredible.
Because Speirs, I mean, he comes across as a character
where less is more, far more. MATTHEW: Yeah, sometimes
that's why I think he was a deeply spiritual man,
because when you get to the end of yourself
and know who you really are, there's not much to prove.
There's just do the job at hand. And serve others. ROGER: He's an incredible leader
in the crucible of pressure. And in this show,
there's Dick Winters, who's depicted as a hero.
At the other end of the spectrum,
there's David Schwimmer's Herbert Sobel.
How would you describe Speirs leadership?
Because it's somewhere in the grey zone
between the two. MATTHEW: I think that he knew
he had to be aloof with his men and not be buddies.
He had to maintain that space and that respect
because he knew, at any moment, he might have to order them
to their own demise. So, as a Commanding Officer,
you have to maintain that. I think he also knew
that the mystery is very powerful.
Like when he says... SPEIRS:<i> I bet if you went back
two-thousand years,</i> <i>you'd hear a couple centurions
standing around</i> <i>yacking about how Tertius
lopped off the heads</i> <i>of some Carthaginian prisoners.</i> CARWOOD LIPTON:<i> Well,
maybe they kept talking about it</i> <i> because they never heard
Tertius deny it.</i> SPEIRS:<i> Maybe that's because
Tertius knew</i> <i>there was some value to the men
thinking he was the meanest,</i> <i> toughest son of a bitch
in the whole Roman legion.</i> MATTHEW: So to maintain
the mystery, it's a natural energy
to help get the job done. So when the men are afraid
of you, he realized, "Oh,
I can use this and we can end the war
as quickly as possible. And I can do my part
in making that happen." ROGER: You talk about mystery. I mean he was, truly,
a larger-than-life figure for the men of Easy Company. You know, there were rumors
that he shot one of his own sergeants
between the eyes for getting drunk.
There was the gunning down of the German prisoners
after D-Day. And in episode three,
we got Muck and Carwood and Malarkey reliving
that story, clearly not for the first time. LIPTON:<i> Speirs comes across
this group of Kraut prisoners</i> <i>digging a hole or some such,
under guard and all.</i> <i>He breaks out a pack of smokes,
passes 'em out.</i> <i> Even gives 'em a light.</i> <i> Then all of a sudden,
he swings up his Thompson</i> <i>and</i> (IMITATES GUNSHOTS RATTLING)<i>
he hoses 'em.</i> <i> I mean God damn!
He gives 'em smokes first?</i> <i> You see, that's why
I don't believe</i> <i> -he really did it.</i>
-MUCK:<i> Oh, you don't believe it?</i> LIPTON:<i> I heard he didn't
do it.</i> (GUNSHOTS RATTLING) MALARKEY:<i> No,
it was him alright.</i> ROGER: What was it like
when you shot that Rashomon sequence?
Where you filmed, using your Tommy gun
to size down the German POW's?
That shot of the survivor with a cigarette burning
through his fingers, one of the most haunting
of the entire series. Was it tense on set that day? MATTHEW: Not for me.
(CHUCKLES) Not for me, no. I remember the cigarettes
being an act of mercy. It was like an act of grace. And so, for me,
it was like we gotta solve this situation here,
as I imagined what it would be like
for Speirs, had he actually done that. And so, giving the cigarettes
was a proper distraction from their fate.
So... For me, playing straight act of grace,
"Here, cigarette? Cigarette?" And then keeping it with
nothing on it was the way to approach it.
Did he do that? I don't know, I think
the series ultimately presented it correctly
where they leave it up to the observer,
and to the audience. ROGER: In between takes,
did everyone just chat and laugh and smoke
and hang out? Or was there a heaviness
on set? MATTHEW: There was so much
going on. There were dead horses
everywhere, all kinds of activity.
It was like a city of activity. So, in between takes,
the producers, they're already on
to the next scene. So, yeah, it wasn't like that
at all. So it's really within you.
The performance or what's gonna happen
is just within me, and then the camera's there
to capture it. As soon as that camera
stopped rolling, it's just madness, it's crazy. "Do we have this?
Are we gonna get this?" ROGER: Speirs bravery,
which borders on insanity, is on display again
in Episode Seven, after relieving Lieutenant
Norman Dike during the assault
on the town of Foy. Speirs realizes,
it's down to him to link up with I-Company,
which is on the other side of town. Our Ronald Speirs,
big Ronald Speirs, decides to make an exposed
sprint into the open, as narrated by the great
Donnie Wahlberg. NARRATOR:<i> At first,
the Germans didn't shoot.</i> <i>I think they couldn't quite
believe what they were seeing.</i> -(GERMAN SOLDIERS SCREAMING)
-NARRATOR:<i> But that wasn't</i> <i>the really astounding thing.
The astounding things was,</i> <i> that after he hooked up
with I-Company, he came back.</i> ROGER: Tom Hanks told us
there was some concerns about putting the run
between the lines in the show. Because people wouldn't
believe it, despite the fact
it actually happened. How did you understand
why Speirs did what he did? A number of historians
have wondered whether he actually had
a death wish. MATTHEW: I don't think
he had a death wish at all. I think he was just accepting
that he was already dead. It's very simple.
And getting the job done. When he had to run through
and connect with I-Company, it was a matter of necessity.
And so, to wait and hesitate would narrow your odds.
He was a numbers guy, he studied accounting.
And so he probably played the odds very quickly. "Hey, if I run straight
through the German line, they're not gonna be expecting
it, and that's my best chance
to reach I-Company. That's what's needed.
Don't hesitate, move." And suddenly you come back,
because they definitely won't expect you to come back.
(CHUCKLES) So it's that split moment
where you go, "I know human nature,
because humans are usually gonna slink down and see
if something else will save them and make it happen."
But when you let go of that and you say, "No, let's just do
what needs to be done," there you go.
No death wish. But you could die anyway,
so we gotta get the job done. ROGER: When you finish
shooting<i> Band of Brothers,</i> at the wrap,
you and Eion Bailey, who played Webster,
you burned your boots. Can you take us there?
What did that feel like? Was it relief,
was it joy? MATTHEW: It was a ritual
of closure. I suggested it and said,
"Why don't we do this, because I can't really
fill them? I can't fill the boots
of what these guys did." And he's like, "Done."
Grabbed the can of petrol and off we went. It was the sense that
having great respect for my uncles and other people
who actually did this, and realizing I'm an actor.
It wasn't a lack of respect from myself, or the job,
or what it represented. I wanted to make a statement
that I can't fill the boots. So for some reason,
at that point in my life, at that age,
I thought that was important to make that statement. ROGER: You eventually met
Speirs himself, after the shoot,
at the premiere in Normandy. And an amazing fact from Hanks,
currently the real Speirs has only agreed to go
to the series premiere after Winters called him up
and convinced him that he wouldn't be arrested
for war crimes. MATTHEW: I remember talking
to One Lung McClung, and Speirs together
at a hotel in Paris. And I think One Lung and Shifty
knew that Speirs was worried about that.
And so One Lung offered a story about him,
he shot down an aircraft and it turned out to be
a British aircraft. So if that's true,
there was One Lung willing to share that story
to maybe show camaraderie with Speirs.
He was trying to say, "You're not alone." ROGER: You sat next to him
and Winters during the screening. Can you take us there,
and tell us what you witnessed? MATTHEW: Okay, so, yes,
that was incredible. I was sat next to Speirs
and Winters and there was enough light
to just see their faces looking up at the screen
at the jump into Normandy. They were there again.
There was an intensity. It was almost like there
was this element of disbelief in them, seeing the screen.
And then a re-witness of what an amazing feat
they had been a part of. "Oh, my God,
we really did that." Yeah, it was incredible
to sit next to them in awe. Like a fly on the wall,
to be able to see their reckoning.
It's awe-inspiring. And that initial premiere
episode, there wasn't a lot of my work
there, but they showed some excerpts
from each episode, and one of them was Blithe
and myself. It made me feel humbled.
Speirs, was he over the moon with my performance?
I don't know. I know that when we saw them
a second time in Arizona, because Bull Randleman
and Muck wanted to go by his house,
we just kind of-- ROGER: You blow past this story,
but this is somewhat incredible. When you were on
an impromptu road trip with some of the cast,
and you guys took a diversion just so you could drop off
at his house and knock on his door, right? MATTHEW: That's exactly
what happened. Maybe it was my idea?
Like, "Hey, let's just go see him."
It was Muck, Randleman, and Malarkey,
it was the four of us. ROGER: All the cast wanted
to meet this legend, and they're like, "Sure."
How did he handle it? MATTHEW: He was gracious.
Opened the door, made us tea, you know?
We talked for a few minutes. Didn't talk about anything
in the war. We just talked about small talk.
A polite, random visit. But I think it was interesting
for him to see these young actors
in awe of him. "There are these random people
in my home, but that's okay. Let 'em in." ROGER: What kind of a man
had he become? MATTHEW: Quiet, gentle.
Nothing to prove. ROGER: You've said that
as you've become a man, you wake up to realities
you were not aware of as a youth,
and he was a man with a definite--
a definite awareness of those things. MATTHEW: And that will
quiet you down. That'll humble anyone.
You start realizing some of the things you didn't
know as a youth, and that settles you. ROGER: He was an accepting man,
you said, who tried to move on
with his life. MATTHEW: Accepting in the sense
that accepting your fate, and that carried all the way
through his life. So... That's the sense
that I got. Oscar Wilde used to say,
"You best know a person by the quality of feeling
you're left with after they've left
your presence." It's a vibration you get
from somebody, you know? ROGER: This show, 20 years old
now. You know, I have to say,
you have barely aged, Matthew Settle.
You have obviously gone on to savor a long
and joyous career and I loved your interview
when you said even at the height of your fame
as Rufus on<i> Gossip Girl,</i> you still got a ton of guys
coming up to you and saying, "What's Speirs doing
on<i> Gossip Girl?"</i> You've said<i> Band of Brothers</i>
is quote, "The shining star
of your career without a doubt." Why is that? MATTHEW: The nobility
of the cause. Because the representation
of selflessness in the face of the gravest
situation, it's a pinnacle of what man
can do for other men. And it's something
that we hopefully won't ever have to do again.
I don't want war to be a part of life,
but it is. And so, when it is,
you have to behave with grace. And I think graciousness
is bravery. It demonstrates you're not
relying on yourself. You have to believe,
you have to have faith that whatever happens
is meant to be. It's all part of the plan,
a divine plan. And I believe in the
divine plan. I'm a man of faith.
And so, I think these men, obviously, were men of faith. ROGER: What's the lesson
that you've taken out of life,
by living as and playing Captain Speirs? MATTHEW: I would say
the biggest lesson is learning to trust
how things are gonna go out, and not fear.
Trust yourself. You see that represented
in the character, as portrayed.
You see that in all the moves some might say,
"Oh, that's cowboy, that's garish,
that's thoughtless, or that's a death wish.
So if his faith, which may have seemed
reckless to others, was a matter of in the moment,
the spirit, moved and said, "Hey,
cross the town." Without thinking,
"Don't think about your own life, don't think about
your own risk." Get the job done,
go communicate with I-Company. And then come back,
without thinking, because you don't have time
to think, and if you take the time
to think, then it won't work.
Move. Look at the result,
look out the outcome. They won Foy.
They maintained Bastogne, they got the presidential
citation, and they won the war. ROGER: Matthew Settle,
thank you for talking with us. And thank you for bringing
such a remarkable, complicated American
back to life in honoring his legacy. MATTHEW: Thank you so much
for having me, I'm honored to be here.
Thank you, Rog. ♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS) ♪ ROGER: There's more,
much more, to come. Next podcast, we talk
Episode Four, "Replacements." In which Easy Company
jump into the Netherlands, as part of Operation
Market Garden. And we hear from one
of Easy's most indelible characters. BILL GUARNERE:<i> I don't know
whether to slap you,</i> <i> kiss you, or salute you.</i> ROGER: Yes, we will be joined
by Frank John Hughes. The actor who played
the one and only Wild Bill Guarnere.
A man with whom he formed a deep relationship
in real life, and spent several nights out
on the lash. FRANK JOHN HUGHES:<i> I had
an early call the next morning</i> <i>one night, after five nights
of drinking with them.</i> <i> I'm leaving, and I said,
"I gotta go, I have to shoot</i> <i> in two hours."
And Bill says,</i> <i>"I fought the fucking Germans
on no sleep."</i> <i> I said, "Bartender,
another round."</i> ROGER: Make sure to subscribe
to HBO's Official <i>Band of Brothers Podcast,</i>
wherever you get your podcasts. And please rate, review,
and share. Spread the word. And a reminder, as if
you needed one, that you can watch "Carentan"
and every episode of<i> Band of Brothers</i>
on HBO Max right now. Until next time... -SPEAKER:<i> Currahee!</i>
-SOLDIERS:<i> Currahee!</i> ♪ (DRAMATIC OUTRO MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
