Leadership Lessons from Tom Hanks

Spielberg required the principal cast of Saving Private Ryan to participate in a seven-day boot camp in order to get a true taste for the hardship of military life. Despite what you might think, the actors were not given preferential treatment. The boot camp leader, Captain Dale Dye (a military advisor and Marine veteran of the Vietnam War), pushed the actors to the limits of their physical endurance.

Their days were filled with push-ups, constantly getting screamed at, six-mile runs, and scarce food supplies. This left many of the actors vomiting from exhaustion, shivering from the cold, and on the edge of a mental breakdown. Dye's company Warriors Incorporated also worked on Platoon, Outbreak, and Forrest Gump, in an effort to remove "the phoniness" from war movies. 

The actors who took part in the boot camp included: Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Jeremy Davies, Vin Diesel, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg and Giovanni Ribisi. Ed Burns, who called boot camp the worst experience of his life, described the training environment. "We get there, we set up our tents, and it starts raining and it doesn't stop raining for seven days. It is 30 degrees at night and you are in a soaking wet tent, a soaking wet uniform, with a soaking wet blanket wrapped around you."

The actors wanted to leave boot camp. They felt that if they continued with the rigorous training, they would not be healthy enough for the actual filming. They wanted to check into a nice hotel and maybe get some room service, instead of suffering in the elements, rain-soaked, exhausted, and starving. They took a vote, and all the actors voted to leave boot camp. Well, except for Tom Hanks. Once Hanks voted against leaving, all the other actors fell into place.

"I loved it!" said the two-time Oscar winner. "They all wanted to quit and I said, 'No'.' The actual boot camp was very cold and it was very miserable and it was very humiliating. It was exhausting, we didn't get much sleep. We worried about getting sick and we worried about getting hurt, but we were never worried about those being the six most worthwhile days that we could have."

Vin Diesel immediately gained a ton of respect for Hanks. "We were all exhausted, we all wanted to leave, and here was this guy who was a superstar, who doesn't have to be here, voting to stay. That's when we adopted him as our captain. He said, 'Guys, 20 years from now, you'll look back on this and wished to God you had finished it.' To this day, we are all extremely grateful that we did."

The above is an excerpt from an article on Ranker about Saving Private Ryan:

The whole movie, Saving Private Ryan, is filled with leadership lessons. If you haven't watched it you are missing out.