To feel what his character would have felt in his case, actor Neal McDonough refused anesthesia while being treated for a facial injury while filming “Brothers in Arms.”
When it was released in 2001, Brothers in Arms was the most expensive series of its time and 22 years later, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ show remains an absolute masterpiece. But at the time, everything did not go very well during the production of the HBO series, in particular because of the numerous injuries suffered by the actors.
Brothers in arms follows a unit of American soldiers, the “Easy Company”, during World War II in 1942. The parachute regiment then witnesses important events of the war.
Thus, before filming the series led by Damian Lewis (Homeland) and for the sake of authenticity, all the actors involved were sent to a training camp in which they were addressed only by the names of their characters and trained to the point of exhaustion. And it was during this famous training that Neal McDonough (Lieutenant Lynn D. “Buck” Compton in the series) was hit in the face with a gun.
HBO
To treat the wound, the actor had to be rushed to the hospital overnight. But while he received stitches, he chose not to have anesthesia because soldiers in the 1940s didn’t receive them either. He wanted to feel the pain his character would have felt 60 years ago with a war injury. At three in the morning, he was back at camp for his next training, as reported by AdoroCinema.
HIDE YOUR IDENTITY TO SAVE THE SERIES
However, when Neil McDonough went to the hospital, he gave his character’s name, Lynn Compton, instead of his real name to protect the show, as explained by actor Ron Livingston, who plays Captain Lewis Nixon in fiction, in a video.
“Many participants were injured at the time. Knee injuries and things like that. Insurers began to worry. The production office told them, ‘If anyone else gets hurt, we’re going to stop everything.’ But we didn’t want that […].”
It is therefore in this context that Neil McDonough received his “war wound”.
Neal McDonough is a real GI Joe. Someone hit him in the mouth with the barrel of an M1 rifle. At that time, they feared that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. So they took him 90 miles out of town and took him to a small hospital named in honor of Buck Compton.
The dedicated actor did not receive anesthesia for his second procedure either. Ultimately, all’s well that ends well: HBO was able to finish producing Brothers in arms and the series became one of the best of all time.
Brothers in Arms can be seen streaming again on Amazon Prime Video via Le Pass Warner.