Series Description:

Band of Brothers was a World War II miniseries that appeared in ten 60 minute segments on HBO. It was about the men of "Easy Company", a U.S. Army Paratrooper division. It chronicled their experiences as they fight their way onto the beaches of German-held French territory and continues as they fight to bring freedom back to western europe.

Band Of Brothers Cast

Damian Lewis .... Major Richard D. Winters
Ron Livingston .... Captain Lewis Nixon
Matthew Settle .... Captain Ronald Speirs
Rick Warden .... 1st Lt. Harry Welsh
Neal McDonough .... 1st Lieutenant Lynn 'Buck' Compton
Donnie Wahlberg .... 2nd Lieutenant C. Carwood Lipton
Scott Grimes .... Technical Sergeant Donald Malarkey
Frank John Hughes .... Staff Sergeant William "Wild Bill" Guarnere
Kirk Acevedo .... Staff Sergeant Joseph Toye
Dexter Fletcher .... Staff Sergeant John Martin
James Madio .... Sergeant Frank Perconte
Rick Gomez .... Sergeant George Luz
Michael Cudlitz .... Sergeant Denver "Bull" Randleman
Richard Speight Jr. .... Sergeant Warren "Skip" Muck
Eion Bailey .... Private David Kenyon Webster

Band Of Brothers Trivia:

The title for the Band Of Brothers came from the Shakespearian play, "Henry V" from a line in Act 4, Scene 3: "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers". The total cost of this HBO production was $120,000,000!

Everything possible was done to make the Band of Brothers as authentic as possible. Several real-life members of Easy Company were asked to read the scripts and to make the writers aware of any discrepancies. Nearly all of the main Cast were chosen because they looked like the Easy Company soldiers they would portray. Approximately 700 World War II weapons were used during filming and four WWII tanks were built on top of modern day tank chasis. The main actors were sent to a two-week long boot camp with 16 hours per day of weapons, physical and other military training including paratrooper jumps. Fifty extras were also trained in the use of weapons. Five hundred pairs of WWII Army boots were manufactured. Two thousand American and German military uniforms were bought or manufactured and all twelve hundred civilian costumes were authentic vintage clothing. All military insignia used on the Band of Brothers were either originals or exact replicas with many replicas being cast from original molds. Special dummies were constructed with human-proportioned weight and size plus joints that worked exactly like human ones. Electromagnets were used to hold them in an upright position. When hit by enemy fire, power was cut to the electromagnet and the dummie would collapse to the ground in a very human manner.

If you thought that the Band Of Brothers contained a lot of gunfire, you're correct! Up to 14,000 rounds of ammunition were used during just one day of filming! By the third day, more pyrotechnics had been used than during the entire filming of movie, "Saving Private Ryan". And that's not taking into consideration the fact that Band of Brothers did not use pyrotechnics to simulate soldiers being shot. Instead, they came up with a new system that uses compressed air instead of explosives! That also allowed actors to be much closer to each other when one got shot than in any previous film! If you noticed the realism shown by some soldiers being hit several times in rapid sequence, that was another new development on this project! An actor could press a button in the sleeve of his uniform and set-off up to eight hits, appearing to have been hit by a machine gun.

Nearly 350,000 pounds of recycled paper was used to create artificial snow for the rough weather scenes!

Prime Minister Tony Blair actually asked Steven Spielberg to film Band of Brothers in the United Kingdom. Blair's son Euan Blair even worked as a "gopher" during filming. The main shooting location was the Hatfield Aerodrome in Hertfordshire, England. With over 1,000 acres of open land and several airplane hangers for indoor sets, it was the perfect location. Some scenes from "Saving Private Ryan" were also filmed there.

In total, over 2000 extras worked on Band of Brothers and many got to utter a line or two. Altogether, there were approximately 500 speaking roles! It took five kitchens going full blast to feed all the cast & crew!