Trivia / An Officer and a Gentleman

• Ability over Appearance: Sgt. Foley was originally written as a short white Southerner.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: "Up Where We Belong" written by Jack Nitzsche, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Will Jennings, and performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes.
• Breakthrough Hit: For Taylor Hackford.
• Creator Backlash: Although she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her role in this film, and it remains her biggest commercial success to date, Debra Winger despises the movie, and has said she likes to deny that she ever had any involvement in it to begin with.
• Enforced Method Acting: Director Taylor Hackford purposely kept Louis Gossett Jr. living in separate quarters from the rest of the movie's cast to further his character's intimidating presence as a drill sergeant.
• Hostility on the Set: Richard Gere and Debra Winger didn't get along during filming, and would distance themselves from each other significantly while the camera wasn't rolling. Publicly, she called him a "brick wall" while he admitted there was "tension" between them. Even though, Gere was playing the title role and had top billing and more screen time, he reacted badly when he realized that Winger had the acting chops and charisma to steal every scene she was in, resulting in an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress. Thirty years later, Gere was complimentary towards Winger when he said that she was much more open to the camera than he was, and he appreciated the fact that she presented him with an award at the Rome Film Festival.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Casey Seeger, the sole female recruit who struggles with the obstacle course was played by Lisa Eilbacher, an amateur bodybuilder, who said that the hardest part of filming was pretending she was out of shape. In fact, reports were that she was in the best physical condition out of all the actors playing the recruits.
• Money, Dear Boy: Richard Gere told Barbara Walters that he only did the film for the money.
• Promoted Fangirl: Relating to "Up Where We Belong", Jennifer Warnes was a huge fan of Joe Cocker since her teens.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In the original script, Mayo's Dad visited his son during training and had a much bigger role.
  • John Travolta turned down the lead role on the advice of his agent. The director wanted Jeff Bridges, but he was unavailable. Eric Roberts was seriously considered for the lead role, but his manager, Bill Treusch, attended the meetings between Eric and director, Taylor Hackford, which led Hackford to finally have reservations that Treusch would not allow for a vital director/actor relationship to develop between Taylor and Eric. Kurt Russell also passed on it, while Kevin Costner and Christopher Reeve were also considered and Dennis Quaid auditioned.
  • The role of Paula was originally given to Sigourney Weaver, then to Anjelica Huston and later to Jennifer Jason Leigh, who dropped out to do Fast Times at Ridgemont High instead. Rebecca De Mornay, Meg Ryan, and Geena Davis auditioned for the role and Kim Basinger was also considered.
  • R. Lee Ermey was cast as Gunnery Sgt. Foley, but was replaced with Louis Gossett, Jr. and became an advisor instead (the "steers and queers" line was originated by Ermey, who would later say it in the opening of Full Metal Jacket). Scott Glenn, Jack Nicholson, Mandy Patinkin and James Woods turned down the role of Sgt. Foley.
• Write Who You Know: Writer Douglas Day Stewart based Sgt. Foley on his own drill instructor.

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