Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From The Making Of 'Full Metal Jacket' (13 items)

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  (#11) R. Lee Ermey, A Former Drill Instructor In Vietnam, Improvised His Boot Camp Insults

  R. Lee Ermey was a former Marine Corps drill instructor and Vietnam veteran. He was so experienced that he could make up his own clever, rapid-fire, devastating, boot-camp training put-downs. Kubrick said that about 50% of Ermey's improvisational dialogue worked its way into the final script. 

  Kubrick added that Ermey came up with about 150 pages of insults. However, the veteran was just repeating the things he learned during his time in the military.

  "My main objective was basically to just play the drill instructor the way the drill instructor was and let the chips fall where they may," Ermey said. "You can ask any drill instructor who was down there in 1965 or 1966, that's exactly how the drill instructor's demeanor was. There were no punches pulled."

  Even more impressive was that the green actor was an immediate natural. He usually only needed a few takes to get through each of his scenes, which was rare for a Kubrick actor.

  "Lee Ermey, for instance, would spend every spare second with the dialogue coach, and he always knew his lines," said Kubrick. "I suppose Lee averaged eight or nine takes. He sometimes did it in three. Because he was prepared."

  Ermey earned rave reviews for his work as the cruel drill instructor. He also received a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor. Ermey went on to have an impressive career as a character actor in Hollywood, amassing over 120 credits on his filmography.
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  (#6) The Film Was Shot In Reverse Order: Vietnam First, Boot Camp Second

  Full Metal Jacket is divided into two very distinct parts. The first half of the movie features the Marine platoon as they go through the rigorous boot camp training under Hartman. The second half of the movie is the platoon stationed in Vietnam. However, Kubrick decided to film the Vietnam scenes first.

  Modine, who played Private Joker, isn't exactly sure why Kubrick opted to film the Vietnam scenes first. He thinks it most likely had something to do with the timing of the Beckton gasworks demolition:

  I was never certain why we shot the film backwards, but I knew we had to be out of Beckton gasworks by a certain date because it was scheduled for demolition. It would have been a completely different film if we'd gone to the jungles and shot Vietnam that way. The street fighting, I think, is one of the things that makes the film timeless. It looks like Afghanistan or Iraq today.
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  (#13) Kubrick Flew In 200 Palm Trees From Spain To Help Him Create Vietnam In England

  Kubrick didn't really believe he needed to travel to make a movie. For one thing, he did not like to fly. Beginning in the early 1960s, the American expatriate made all of his movies in England, where he lived.

  Not one frame of Full Metal Jacket was filmed in Vietnam - or anywhere near it. The film was made entirely in England. All Kubrick had to do was figure out how to make the UK look like Vietnam.

  Vietnam has a tropical and humid climate. It is home to 113 different species of palm trees. The detail-oriented Kubrick needed to have authentic-looking palms in the movie. In order to create the lush tropical forests of the Southeast Asian region, Kubrick flew in around 200 actual palms trees from Spain. He also brought in 100,000 plastic tropical plants from Hong Kong.
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  (#9) Production Was Shut Down For Three Months After Ermey Broke His Ribs In A Car Accident

  Right in the middle of shooting Full Metal Jacket, Ermey suffered severe injuries from an automobile accident. According to Kubrick, the actor's car skidded off the road at 1 o'clock in the morning. 

  The director talked about how the Vietnam veteran managed to survive:

  He broke all his ribs on one side, just tremendous injuries, and he probably would have died, except he was conscious and kept flashing his lights. A motorist stopped. It was in a place called Epping Forest, where the police are always finding bodies. Not the sort of place you get out of your car at 1:30 in the morning and go see why someone's flashing their lights.  

  The cast and crew were forced to shut down production entirely for three months. Ermey was out of commission for over four months.
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  (#10) The Actors Threatened A Mutiny 

  Modine's Full Metal Jacket Diary gives readers true insight on what occurred on a day-to-day basis on the set of the famed Vietnam epic. The summary of the actor's accounts was that it was a pretty "miserable" experience for most of the cast and crew.

  Kubrick's hyper-meticulous nature, infamous propensity to require multiple takes, and lack of a consistent shooting schedule led to universal hardship. At one point, the actors were so upset with Kubrick's regular violation of union rules, like working overtime, that they threatened a mutiny.
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  (#4) Kubrick Couldn't Figure Out The Ending, And Ended Up Going With A Suggestion By Modine

  According to Modine, the original ending of Full Metal Jacket featured the demise of his character, Private Joker. The actor and director often discussed the film's ending, which Kubrick thought was actually too predictable. 

  Modine suggested that Joker should survive Vietnam, which would actually be a worse fate for a man than perishing in war. Modine explained the emotional pain his character would have to deal with for the rest of his life: 

  Joker should live because that is the real horror of war - spending the rest of your life with that experience of his drill inspector getting shot and killed in a toilet, that the guy he was helping get through boot camp would put an M14 in his mouth and blow his brains out, that the guy that he went through boot camp with would die in his arms, and that he would come to Vietnam and stand over this young Vietnamese girl begging him to end her life - I knew that it was the right ending.

  You never escape that. That's something you carry with you the rest of your life. I meet Marines and Army soldiers that were in Vietnam and they tell me how much they love Full Metal Jacket and that we got it right. It wasn't the jungle fighting. What Stanley was able to get from his actors was that emotional reality of having to stand over a young girl and take her life. That’s what we got right. That there's nothing fun or romantic about it. That it's horrible.

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