The Picard ManeuverPerspectives keep rapidly changing
Coasting0942Remember when everybody got gaslit into thinking Gunny was great at his job
I know nothing about his actual military career, but he was great at his job of acting in the role of Drill Sergeant.
If I recall correctly, he got the job by scaring the shit out of Kubrick.
SneezycatNah, more like abusing his contact with him. If my memory doesn’t failed, he was hired as an instructor for the actors but he thought he could do it better, so he started sending audition tapes to Kubrick. Kubrick eventually got tired and watched the tapes and he loved it, so the guy got hired.
Or maybe I’m just misremembering 🤷🏻♀️
Hired to coach actors to act like drill instructors because he was a drill instructor. Turns out it was more effective to just have the former drill instructor act like a drill instructor. Turns out the drill instructor did do it better than the actors, and ended up being one of the most accurate portrayals ever put to film.
Except it’s not accurate. He played it as the worst example of an ineffective, sadistic drill sergeant. He has said that over half of that stuff wouldn’t fly even back when he was in boot. To make it realistic that Pyle would snap he had to be a truly horrible drill sergeant, so that’s how he played the role.
Having been through boot camp I can tell you there is a big over lap between what officially wouldn’t fly and what unofficially does happen. He became a spokesperson for The Corps, even getting promoted after leaving service, of course he wouldn’t sully the reputation of the Marine Corps on record.
That’s a pretty good reason to hire someone who’s supposed to be scary.
He rattled off a nonstop stream of profanity and insults for like 10 min straight as a way of training / demo-ing to the actor. Kubrick thought he did a far better job and left him in the role. Much of his dialog was ad-libed.
The original DI ended up as the crazy guy shooting civilians from the helicopter. “You guys oughta do a story about me!”