The ‘Saving Private Ryan’ star Steven Spielberg threatened to fire: “On the spot”
Making Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan was never going to be easy. The filmmaker set out to realise the horrors of World War II in the most visceral, eardrum-shattering, and awe-inspiring fashion possible, something he pulled off with aplomb.
Every scene presented its challenges: for the unforgettable opening sequence at Omaha Beach, Spielberg needed hundreds of crew members and just as many extras working in perfect synchronicity to pull off one of the defining scenes of his career, which was shot over the course of almost a month.
Despite the technical mastery on display, the D-Day landings pushed the director outside of his comfort zone after Spielberg decided the best way to approach the scene wasn’t with a curated list of shots he needed to capture but a looser and more improvisational style that saw him make things up as he went along.
The cast auditioned for their roles without a screenplay, and even when they were hired, tensions rose so high during the boot camp they attended to prepare them for Saving Private Ryan that they were ready to quit until Tom Hanks stepped in to smooth things over and prevent a mutiny.
However, even at that, there were still issues. Tom Sizemore gave one of his best performances as Mike Horvath, the right hand of Hanks’ John Miller. It was hardly an industry secret that the actor was constantly battling addiction and substance abuse issues, but Spielberg trusted him enough to hire him for a demanding and exacting part that required him to relocate to the other side of the world.
To ensure Sizemore’s cooperation, Spielberg issued an ultimatum. The star would be tested regularly for drugs, and if any of the results came back positive, even on the final day of principal photography, “he would fire me on the spot and shoot all 58 days that I’d worked over again with someone else.”
Sizemore had already turned down Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line to prioritise one World War II movie over another, but he would have ended up with neither had his demons got the better of him during the taxing monthslong shoot of Saving Private Ryan.
The actor knew that he had to stay on the straight and narrow to avoid letting himself, his director, his castmates, and the studio that had paid for the production down. Meanwhile, Spielberg knew that he needed to take a tough stance with Sizemore to prevent him from succumbing to the issues that had already affected his career and position within the business as a viable commodity.
It worked out in the best interest of both, with Sizemore, a consummate professional for the duration of the shoot, never having to face Spielberg’s non-negotiable scenario.
