Get the latest gossip
Remembering Louis Gossett Jr. in ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’: His Timeless Acting Elevated the Movie Drill Sergeant Into a Mythic Figure
In "An Officer and a Gentleman," his timeless acting elevated the movie drill sergeant into a mythic figure.
Yet if you say that Louis Gossett Jr. was and always will be the definitive movie drill sergeant, many would disagree with you, since he obviously has one serious competitor: R. Lee Ermey in “Full Metal Jacket.” I’m not here to referee a hindsight critical faceoff between these two immortal performances. Ermey brought a quality of roughneck realism to “Full Metal Jacket,” because at the time he wasn’t an actor; he was a real Marine drill sergeant who‘d been hired as a consultant. But here’s the thing: Ermey’s Gunnery Sergeant Hartman dominates the 47-minute opening sequence of “Full Metal Jacket,” and he’s then shot to death in what feels like Kubrick’s knowingly warped 1960s ideological version of a warmonger comeuppance.
Or read this on Variety
