In what seems to be a combination of Due to the Dead, The Dead Have Names, Never Speak Ill of the Dead, Shrine to the Fallen, and other remembrance tropes, cable networks show the series without any edits to or censorship of the graphic nature of war or the horrors of the concentration camps.
- Ability over Appearance:
- Damian Lewis said as much in an interview. He talked about going to the audition and how the actor in front of him looked so much like the real Dick Winters. He said he felt for sure that guy was going to get the part. For the record, the real Winters was blond and Lewis is redhead - and he received near universal critical acclaim. Malarkey received a similar Adaptation Dye-Job, being blonde in real life and played by redhead Scott Grimes.
- As noted under Dawson Casting below, a couple of the actors were notably different ages from their characters in real life. Liebgott was around thirty when the war ended, and Ross McCall was twenty four during filming. The reverse is the case for Buck Compton - where he was twenty three in real life and Neal McDonough was a full ten years older than him. Ditto for Bull Randleman, who was the same age as Compton and played by the thirty five year old Michael Cudlitz. It's widely agreed that all the casting choices were spot-on regardless.
- Robin Laing (Babe Heffron) described this when talking about Frank John Hughes' performance as Guarnere. He said that normally he looked nothing like him, but was able to immediately become him by changing his attitude (and apparently extending his lower jaw a little). The age issue mentioned above also factors in: Hughes was thirty three playing Guarnere at twenty one.
- Actor-Inspired Element: Sort of. The directors of the episodes were told by Tom Hanks to listen to anything the actors said if they were relaying information from the real veterans. For example if they were scripted to appear in one place that the real veterans said they weren't there for, they'd go to the director and get themselves removed from the scene.
- Originally, the "Bastogne" script had no mention of Doc Roe and Renee talking to each other in French. However, Shane Taylor (Roe) had the idea of having Lucie Jeanne (Renee) translate a few lines, in order to give their characters more of a connection while bringing the doc's half-Cajun heritage to light. The director loved the idea and let them do as they pleased.
- Actor-Shared Background:
- Colonel Robert F. Sink's actor, Captain Dale Dye, is a retired US Marine who fought in the Vietnam War.
- Ron Livingston is a Yale graduate just like his character, Captain Nixon.
- A retroactively hilarious one. Ross McCall is not Jewish. Although his character Liebgott is Jewish on the show, he wasn't in real life.
- By contrast David Schwimmer is Jewish, like Herbert Sobel.
- Peter Youngblood Hills is part Cherokee, just like the real Shifty Powers. He was also from the same area of Virginia as the real Shifty, with his mother living just a few hours away from the Powers' household.
- Approval of God: Stephen Ambrose, writer of the book, was not involved in production but was hugely impressed with the miniseries. The majority of veterans represented (or the families thereof) also applauded it. Many of the actors remained on good terms with the families of the veterans they portrayed.
- Awesome, Dear Boy: Nearly all of the cast members jumped at the chance to play World War II veterans, enduring the grueling ten-day boot camp and (for the Americans) relocating to England for nine months - just to work with Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. Most of them list it as one of their favourite roles.
- Beam Me Up, Scotty!:
- Neal McDonough is frequently asked by fans to say "I'm Buck Compton, baby" - something Buck never says during the miniseries. Neal himself says it during the Ron Livingston Video Diaries while they're stitching him up and after returning from the hospital.
- The "company of heroes" quote is sometimes wrongly attributed to Dick Winters. While he's the one who delivers it in the ending interviews, he's actually quoting his friend, Mike Ranney. It's Ranney who had the conversation with his grandson, not Winters.
- California Doubling: Most of the series was filmed in Hertfordshire, England, with production building a town used to portray Bastogne, Eindhoven, Landsburg, and Carentan from scratch in an abandoned airfield. If you watch closely you can see some of the same buildings being used for multiple scenes in different towns. The scenes that took place in Austria and Berchtesgarten, Germany were filmed in Switzerland.
- Cast the Expert:
- Dale Dye is an actual retired military man who specializes in training actors for war movies.
- Freddie Joe Farnsworth, one of Dye's cadre, made an appearance in the third episode on horseback. He says they needed someone who could both ride a horse and do an American accent, so they just asked him.
- Lucie Jeanne is bilingual, speaking both English and French to Doc Roe in her episode.
- Cast the Runner-Up: The actors all read for many different parts and did a mix and match audition to see who they would play. For example, Matthew Settle auditioned for Nixon, James Madio auditioned for Guarnere, Donnie Wahlberg auditioned for Speirs, Richard Speight Jr auditioned for Malarkey etc.
- Creator Breakdown:
- Rick Warden (Harry Welsh) said he found the boot camp especially tough and so grueling that he nearly walked out.
- Neal McDonough claims that he suffered it about three episodes in, when he realised the full extent of the project. He says that filming the seventh episode was almost too much for him. He says he hasn't re-watched the series because it's too emotional for him to deal with.
- Creator Cameo: Tom Hanks has a brief non-speaking cameo as one of the British paratroopers rescued during Operation Pegasus in "Crossroads".
- The Danza: Private James Miller is played by James McAvoy.
- Dawson Casting:
- Several early-twenties characters are played by actors in their early-to-mid thirties (e.g., Bull Randleman, Blithe, Buck Compton, John Martin, Guarnere). Col. Sink, in his late thirties, is played by Dale Dye in his late fifties. Most of the actors are older than their historical counterparts, many of whom turned twenty in 1942. The Dawson Casting even induces a bit of a Tear Jerker because some of the actors were older than the characters they played were when they died. It's also worth pointing out that war does age a person rather strongly.
- Inverted for Liebgott. Historically, he is supposed to be older than most of the others in Easy Company (he was thirty by the time he was discharged at the end of the war), but Ross McCall (twenty-four during filming) was one of the younger actors on set. Also inverted for Philip Barantini (Skinny) who was nineteen-to-twenty playing a twenty-one-year-old (he turned 20 on the set). Matt Hickey (O'Keefe) was only sixteen too.
- Dyeing for Your Art:
- Forty of the main cast members endured a ten-day boot camp to prepare them for their roles. During this time they had to refer to each other by their character names, as well as proper rank. For the non-American actors, they had to speak in American accents and slang words (and were punished for not doing so).
- Shane Taylor was also expected to act as a medic during the boot camp. While it was going on, Neal McDonough's weapon went off and a shard of it cut his chin. He went to Taylor, expecting him to patch it up since he was playing the medic.
- Frank John Hughes had just gained fifty-eight pounds in preparation for a film that was postponed. So he had two months to lose all the weight and get in shape. He was told afterwards by a doctor that he had done serious damage to his adrenal system.
- Enforced Method Acting:
- Nearly every actor who played one of the Toccoa mennote participated in a two-week boot camp where they underwent realistic military and paratrooper training.
- David Schwimmer was isolated from most of the other cast members during boot camp, to help generate a feeling of resentment among the men. Schwimmer joked that his only friend on set was Simon Pegg - who played Sobel's right hand man Evans. Capt Dale Dye also gave him preferential treatment - such as allowing him to go to a hospital when he was injured - to drum up even more resentment among the men.note
- Marc Warren did not participate in the boot camp in order to emphasize the isolation and reluctance to fight Blithe feels in episode three.
- Because Webster wasn't in episodes six and seven, Eion Bailey went on vacation to India while the rest of the cast was filming. The cast members used the jealousy and resentment they felt towards him when he came back to channel their characters' feelings towards Webster in episode eight.
- The actors playing the replacements didn't participate in the boot camp and were ostracized a little by the main actors to drum up the feelings of separation. The exception was Robin Laing who said that, once Frank John Hughes found out he was playing Babe Heffron, he took him under his wing and made friends with him - just as Guarnere had done to the real Babe. Matt Hickey (O'Keefe) additionally said that James Madio (Perconte) took him under his wing for his brief time on the show, which is reflected in Perconte's Tsundere relationship with O'Keefe.
- No one had seen the concentration camp set before they were to film there, and the reactions of most of the cast are genuine. Ross McCall said there were talks of bringing the actors to a camp to prepare them for the scene - but they ultimately decided not to, for the sake of this trope.
- Fake American: The list of British actors playing American characters includes: Damian Lewis (Winters), Ross McCall (Liebgott), Shane Taylor (Doc Roe), Dexter Fletcher (Martin), Marc Warren (Blithe), Matthew Leitch (Talbert), Rick Warden (Welsh), Robin Laing (Heffron), Stephen McCole (Heyliger), Tim Matthews (Penkala), Craig Heaney (Cobb), Tom Hardy (Janovec), James McAvoy (Miller), Simon Pegg (Evans), Andrew Lee Potts (Jackson) and a good few others - as this was filmed primarily in England. Non-Brits included Michael Fassbender (German-Irish) as Christensen, Andrew Scott (Irish) as Hall and Peter O'Meara (Irish) as Dike. Peter Youngblood Hills (Shifty Powers) is a complicated case because he was born in South Africa to an American mother and British father and grew up in both countries, but primarily Britain. In fact, it's actually easier to list the actors that aren't this trope. If you're curious
- Fan Community Nickname: The female fans call themselves the Band of Sisters.
- Friendship on the Set: The cast became just as close to each other during filming as the real men of Easy Company did during the war. They hold a cast reunion every year and frequently participate in USO tours and World War II historical events together.
- I Am Not Spock: The actors commented that after the series aired, numerous people (including actual war vets) would salute them in public. Shane Taylor in particular is still affectionately called 'Doc' by fans. Amusingly enough, all cast members had to call each other by their character names during boot camp and filming - something it took them a few years to shake off (Richard Speight Jr. mentioned in an interview that he still has trouble not calling Peter Youngblood Hills "Shifty").
- To this day, whenever they interact on social media, there's a high chance you can still see them referring to each other as their characters' names.
- Irony as She Is Cast:
- Michael Fassbender has a small role as a soldier who can't speak German when in real life he's half-German and fluent in the language.
- Peter O'Meara says he was a huge military fan and idolised many war movies growing up. Highly ironic that he then played the officer who was incompetent in combat.
- Life Imitates Art: The cast members became just as close to each other during filming as the real Easy Company did during the war. They even hold a reunion every year just like the real men did.
- Method Acting:
- Frank John Hughes was rather infamous for it. Robin Laing stated that as soon as he found out he was playing Babe Heffron, he took him under his wing just as Guarnere had done for the real Babe. Mark Huberman (Les Hashey) joked that when the real Guarnere visited the set, he asked him what he thought of the real Hashey. And that when Guarnere replied that he didn't like him, Hughes did not speak to him again for the rest of production (though he claims Hughes did assure him it was for the sake of method acting). He even carved 'Fran' into his weapon because that had been the name of Guarnere's wife.
- Michael Cudlitz chewed tobacco whenever Bull Randleman did on screen.
- Playing with Character Type: Captain Sobel is essentially Ross Geller's negative personality traits (pettiness, refusal to take responsibility for his actions, being a Know-Nothing Know-It-All) taken up to eleven with none of his positive traits.
- Referenced by...: For X-Men: First Class, the second chapter of the "Children of the Atom" documentary on the Blu-Ray/DVD release is called "Band of Brothers" because of Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy.
- Romance on the Set: Sort of. Neal McDonough's future wife, Ruve, was not attached to Band of Brothers, but she was in England at the same time as he was to film the series. They have been married since 2003 and have five children.
- Separated-at-Birth Casting: This was the intent of producers, casting most of the men based on their resemblances to their real-life counterparts. It's especially evident with Matthew Settle (Speirs), Frank John Hughes (Guarnere), Donnie Wahlberg (Lipton), Rick Gomez (Luz), Ross McCall (Liebgott), and Shane Taylor (Doc Roe).
- Don Malarkey wrote in his memoir that when he met the cast, he bonded immediately with Richard Speight Jr., who played Malarkey's close friend Warren "Skip" Muck, because Speight's physical, vocal, and personal resemblance to the real Skip Muck was downright uncanny. Became a bit of a tearjerker, however, when the cast went out drinking with the veterans, and a drunk Babe Heffron began to apologize to Richard-as-Muck for not being able to bring at least a piece of him home.
- Star-Making Role:
- For Damian Lewis. Put it this way - his most high profile job before this was as a telemarketer.
- Neal McDonough, Michael Cudlitz, Ross McCall, Donnie Wahlberg, Scott Grimes, and Eion Bailey also had their careers launched by appearing in the miniseries. Or 'acting career' in the case of Wahlberg at least, who was fairly well-known as a pop musician at this point.
- Stunt Casting: At the time, David Schwimmer and, to a lesser extent, Donnie Wahlberg (though he was still primarily known for his music career) were the only big names in the cast while everyone else was unknown.
- What Could Have Been:
- The script called for Lipton to be cold and hostile to Lt Jones when he first arrives. Donnie Wahlberg recalls going over the scene with the real Lipton, who said he actually got on very well with Jones in real life - and thus he adjusted the way he said his lines.
- Apparently, there was supposed to be a scene in Lipton's episode of the men creating a makeshift cross as a way to memorialize all the soldiers they'd lost during their month in Foy. When Donnie ran the scene with the real Lip, the veteran shot it down, saying that none of them had the time to do such things, even though they really wanted to. The scene was then appropriately scrapped.
- Malarkey was in the script to go on the eponymous "The Last Patrol" but the real one insisted that he wasn't on it.
- James Madio intended for Perconte's "Reason You Suck" Speech to O'Keefe to involve him physically attacking the young private. He said that the change was absolutely for the better.
- Originally, the casting for Major Winters was restricted to Americans only. When a suitable actor couldn't be found, they opened up the casting to actors of all national origins and Damian Lewis won the role. Mark Wahlberg was among the American actors who were considered for the part.
