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Irish weather was glorious for the filming of Saving Private Ryan and Spielberg wasn't happy

He was a big fan of the army reserve soldiers who worked as extras in the film though.

DFMagazine / YouTube

YESTERDAY WE SHOWED you a little of what it was like behind the scenes of the filming of Saving Private Ryan in Wexford.

Hundreds of young army reserves worked as extras on the film and the Defence Forces have released two videos this weekend giving a taste of what it was like to be on set with director Stephen Spielberg and the movie’s star Tom Hanks.

In the second part, we hear from Spielberg himself, who says he thinks the Irish army is “wonderful”.

“Your men are just doing a brilliant, brilliant job. They’re just fantastic,” he tells the Defence Forces camera crew.

He then goes onto ask them to pray for the weather to be overcast. He had been hoping for typically (miserable) Irish weather for the grim scenes but that summer the sun was shining away and making life difficult for the Hollywood crew. They resorted to setting fires on the beach so the smoke would make the sky look more grey and murky.

It meant a lot of waiting around for the extras, now Commandant Shane Keogh, featured in the above video told us.

“It was frustrating for them because they were thinking the weather was going to be terrible and it was beautiful. It meant we were sitting on the beach a lot waiting for the right weather to come,” he said.

So when the chance came to get off the beach and do something a bit different, Keogh, then a teenage cadet, was not going to say no.

He was one of four soldiers picked out of the crowd to have a real (albeit small) part in the movie.

Keogh laughed as he recounted how it all played out:

They didn’t say what they wanted us for – I thought they were picking me out because my hair wasn’t short enough. So one of the helpers said they wanted two of us inside this tent and they said you’re going to be in this scene and this is what you have to do and they sent us off to get more detailed uniforms which looked better than the ones we had as extras. It was only at this stage we figured out what was really going on, that was the beauty of it really, they just told us to do things and we did it without question.

Over the next few hours, Keogh was forced to go over and over his small part, which basically involved sitting at a table in a tent, standing up at one stage and picking up a map.

After running through it all multiple times with people who were focusing on getting lighting and camera angles right, all of a sudden, Steven Spielberg arrived on the set and Keogh was “completely awestruck”.

“We had been quite distant from him at that point, I wouldn’t have had interaction with him as an extra and he introduced himself. Anyway, after a few takes he yelled “Stop, stop stop” and came down to give out to us. He said he wanted us to put it in context and that we had to take it seriously even though it only looks like I’m russling maps. The problem is, I was more overawed after that.”

Soon after, the actors themselves came on and Tom Hanks nailed the scene in just three takes.

“He was a really nice fella, a gentleman. My lasting impression of him was that he was so professional. When he came on set he was just so slick and smooth and so professional, so courteous to everybody, not just the director,” Keogh said.

For him, it was a great experience to have at such a young age and it’s now his claim to fame.

Every so often people I haven’t seen in ages say “oh I saw you on the telly the other day” and I get a good giggle out of it.

Don’t forget to watch the video above, which also shows the troops being shown how to properly run with their rifles. Their instructor did not seem too impressed, exclaiming “Holy Jesus” as they crawled through the sand.

WATCH: Behind the scenes of Saving Private Ryan filmed on a Wexford beach>

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12 Comments
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    Mute David Lee
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:09 PM

    Someone forward this link onto Holohans email and Cc it to the rest of NPHET

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    Mute GrumpyAulFella
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:18 PM

    @David Lee: why? The call here is for funding. I don’t see anything in the article that criticises NPHET or lockdowns or affirmative action to help control the virus spread. How do you think that not having a lock down, flooding our hospital with cases, overrunning our testing facilities, clogging up our GP services is going to help mental health treatment in this country?

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    Mute David Lee
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:32 PM

    @GrumpyAulFella: And how do we fund mental health with the economy in constant lockdown? Do you have a money tree?

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    Mute Fr. Fintan Stack
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:35 PM

    @David Lee: Do you have that same opinion about cancer treatment or any other type of “physical” ailment?

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    Mute David Lee
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:38 PM

    @Fr. Fintan Stack: Yes I absolutely do & I’ve lost people due to lack of cancer diagnosis from initial lockdown who would have probably survived, but this article is solely about mental health.

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    Mute Ciaran Burke
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:40 PM

    @David Lee: You borrow that’s how, they borrow for teachers, nurses and gardai they can borrow for mental health who’s budget is already measly. I work in mental health private sector so public funding doesnt influence me. I am taking calls and the stories I hear when I’m in work of increased self harm ideation, anxiety through the roof substance abuse on the rise. The government needs to get real and seriously tackle mental health.

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    Mute GrumpyAulFella
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:48 PM

    @David Lee: the tax take is holding up, apart from VAT. We’re €9bn overspend at the moment and we’ll borrow more, just like every other country, if we have to. For starters I for one would freeze all public sector pay increases and divert this money to health. This is no time for pay increases when private sector workers are losing jobs and being put on short time. This would see substantial savings that could be diverted to mental health. Look to freeze other high spending non-essential projects e.g. public transport and divert the money to health and so on.

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    Mute Isabel Oliveira
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:55 PM

    @Ciaran Burke: borrow more and pay for it with 10 years of austerity with cuts to public services ?

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    Mute David Corrigan
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:17 PM

    @Isabel Oliveira: Yep. We are good at that. There is never a peep out of our people when that solution is implemented.

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    Mute Seymour Cup
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:23 PM

    @Isabel Oliveira: Austerity is a political decision driven by a flawed economic theory, not a necessity.

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    Mute Tommy Roche
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:25 PM

    @David Lee: Yea, send this to Holohan and tell him not to bother with the article, just to read the headline and then the comments. He’ll see for himself the mental health impacts this pandemic is having. A growing percentage of our population doesn’t want to follow the science anymore, just their own ‘solutions’ dragged from some dark area within their minds. From “It’s a giant conspiracy and Covid19 doesn’t exist” to “OMG, we’re all going to die. Lock us in our homes now”. It’s one of the reasons I don’t want schools shut down again. Sitting at home all day listening to irrational nonsense from parents will have far greater long term mental health impacts on children than Covid ever will.

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    Mute Kavsie
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:40 PM

    @GrumpyAulFella: “How do you think that not having a lock down, flooding our hospital with cases, overrunning our testing facilities, clogging up our GP services services is going to help mental health treatment in this country?”

    we are currently not in lockdown, our hospitals are NOT flooded with cases, our tesing facilities are not achieveing their 100,000 target
    our GP services are quite far from clogged….
    so, you are saying we should have a lockdown just IN CASE of all of the above?

    just one big IF??

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    Mute GrumpyAulFella
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:51 PM

    @Kavsie: we’re testing at and above 88,000 per day at present. Our hospital admission rates are increasing and all of this while still keeping pubs closed and many people working from home and with L3 measures in Dublin. What do you think would happen if there were no measures in place, all pubs and restaurants were open, everyone back on public transport, attendance at sporting events etc? Use your loaf lad and look up exponential growth.

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    Mute Tommy Roche
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:56 PM

    @Kavsie: Forget for a moment the people commenting here. Can you explain why you think you are right, and highly trained epidemiologists who tell us we need to act now to prevent Covid from spiralling out of control, are wrong ? Actually a serious question. All NPHET do is offer health recommendations based on best available data. It’s up to Government to decide whether or not to accept those recommendations, either in whole or in part. Is it NPHETs expert opinions you don’t trust or the Government’s ability to weigh up the pros and cons of acting on those opinions ?

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    Mute Sean Oige
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:12 PM

    It’s not just mental health. Its everything else that has been put on the long finger like cancer services….

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    Mute Felicity Hensen
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:17 PM

    @Sean Oige: I booked my smear test this morning. My friend’s mother is receiving treatment for cancer. Would you care to provide a credible source to support your assertion that cancer services have “been put on the long finger”.

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    Mute Anna Anna
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:50 PM

    @Felicity Hensen: people had smears and breast checks cancelled and rescheduled when the first lockdown was implemented in March. A 6 month delay could make a big difference to some people.

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    Mute emilyclaire_olivia
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:51 PM

    @Felicity Hensen: well my smear was due in June and I only received my letter last Friday. When I rang up to enquire about it in August they told me it was delayed because of the covid restrictions and they were working through the back log in phases so I guess I should be lucky I have mine already.

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    Mute Anna Anna
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:52 PM

    @Felicity Hensen: follow up screening for prostate and thyroid cancer was cancelled also back in March as they were considered low risk. Services resumed in June, but again 3 month delays were experienced

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    Mute GrumpyAulFella
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:40 PM

    @Anna Anna: and will this improve without a lockdown as our GP services, clinics and hospitals start filling up with Covid and suspected Covid cases? You seem to be suggesting that our hospital services will improve with a deadly virus on the loose laying waste to our elderly and health compromised population.

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    Mute Anne Marie Devlin
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:42 PM

    @Felicity Hensen: it depends on what type of cancer treatment. Chemotherapy has been available all along. Other types of treatment were stopped. That includes ablations which is basically microwaving a lesion. It has started again, but for many people who were due to receive it, it’s too late. The lesion is either too big or they have died. Also ICU consultant on the radio this morning saying that large numbers of people aren’t attending for colonoscopies because they’re too afraid of catching covid.

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    Mute Marie Louise Ryan
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:19 PM

    They do not care about the repercussions due to all the pandemic restrictions.
    The mental health, business & financial implications are huge.

    Pawns in this game of chess we all are

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    Mute Honeybee
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:29 PM

    It is only in the years to come that the real impact of these decisions will be realised and it will not be confined to just mental health issues although these will be significant but to all aspects of health, well being and our physical, social, economic etc environment. We were told the plan was to develop a living alongside the virus plan but the response is just to keep locking us down and long-term that is not a workable solution, it now seems the same people occupy our dreams and nightmares but worse still is that the nightmare continues even after we wake.

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    Mute Anna Anna
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:47 PM

    True. But whenever that time comes NPHET members will not be held accountable as they will say it was just ‘advice’. It is the government who will decide to take that advice or not. Professor McConkey was on Primetime last week saying if we had a 3 month national lockdown we could eliminate the virus. It seems that the Zero Covid Professors are influencing NPHET behind the scenes. This level 5 lockdown (oreven level 4 which seems more likely) will not just be for 4 weeks. The cases will continue to rise in the Winter as the virus spreads easier in colder environments. As Prof Carl Heneghan said the virus can never be eliminated as it can survive in an animal host. The Zero Covid Professors had no response to this when he spoke at the Seanad Covid Committee. Lockdowns only delay the spread.

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    Mute Isabel Oliveira
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:01 PM

    @Anna Anna: and he was on RTE radio again this morning. Saying we should be like Asia . Like Australian and New Zealand where the infected are removed by the police or military to detention “ quarantine centres” & plan to live isolated from the world. The zero Covid fantasists are indeed influencing the government and public health policy and RTE are facilitating them.

    I’m not watching or listening to more RTE and their countless documentaries on Covid 19 and their biased interviews & zero Covid recurrent guests designed to spread panic for compliance.

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    Mute GrumpyAulFella
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:06 PM

    @Anna Anna: that’s exactly what we want to do, delay the spread, control admissions, save lives. Have NPHET ever stated that their objective was to eliminate the virus? What effect would giving this virus free rein have on our hospital services? Would cancer screening improve with hospitals flooded with increasing Covid cases? Would people’s mental health be better going out and about not knowing if the person beside them is carrying Covid and that there is an uncontrolled virus on the loose? What about our elderly and vulnerable population? How would their mental and physical health fair with an uncontrolled deadly, to them, virus on the loose? Protective immunity would require that 70%-80% of the population are immune and we have a vaccine.

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    Mute ihcalaM
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:20 PM

    @Anna Anna: It’s true that there are zero covid advocates on NPHET but senior members not in favour of the zero covid proposals as they don’t believe they are workable and are on record saying so.

    For example, Ronan Glynn:

    https://www.irishpost.com/news/not-possible-to-eliminate-covid-19-from-ireland-we-have-to-learn-to-live-with-the-threat-dr-ronan-glynn-191499

    Going to level 5 doesn’t mean they want zero covid. It means they want to aggressively tackle the spread for a time, before restrictions are relaxed again once the numbers stabilise. It’s all in the Govt. roadmap… which mentions nothing about a zero covid strategy.

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    Mute ihcalaM
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:28 PM

    @Anna Anna: Also, I’ve read Prof. Heneghan’s testimony to the Special Committee, and you’re misrepresenting it (as well as the responses to him).

    He did not say elimination wasn’t possible due to the animal host issue, but he flagged it as a problem. Some species can contract Covid-19 but don’t seem to be able to transmit the virus to humans, there has been research on this. It’s speculative to say the least, which is strange coming from a professor proclaiming himself to be so evidence-based in his thinking.

    To say the other members had no response is also false. Prof Susan Michie pointed out after he spoke that he was really talking about the possibility of eradication rather than elimination strategies, which he seems to have mixed up in his head.

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    Mute Anna Anna
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    Oct 5th 2020, 2:24 PM

    @Anna Anna: everyone should read the information directly themselves before they decide to agree with any journal commenter (and I include myself in that). There had been a couple of videos posted on YouTube with short clips from the Seanad Covid Committee with Prof Heneghan. I’ve included one below
    https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/special_committee_on_covid_19_response/2020-08-13/4/

    https://youtu.be/YtjY2N0I__0

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    Mute Isabel Oliveira
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    Oct 5th 2020, 7:02 PM

    @Isabel Oliveira: how democratic …

    “Faced with a new cluster this week after 102 days without a locally transmitted case, New Zealand has quickly enacted this strategy, placing around 30 people — including at least two children below the age of 10 — into centralized quarantine.”

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-13/forced-isolation-may-be-the-only-way-to-stop-resurgence-of-virus

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    Mute Isabel Oliveira
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:54 PM

    It’s not funding that is required it’s the suspension of excessive pandemic measures & restrictions that is required. That is what is causing increased mental health issues. No amount of funding will help until the cause is eradicated.

    To top it up not even statistical services are working to measure the impact of lockdown in Ireland.

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    Mute Johnny Sins
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:07 PM

    @Isabel Oliveira: please, just shut up Isabel you looney toon.

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    Mute Damo
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:23 PM

    @Isabel Oliveira: take a coffee Isabel

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    Mute Thisguy
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    Oct 5th 2020, 1:49 PM

    @Johnny Sins: I remember you, you were my wife’s personal trainer before covid.. What do you do for a living now?

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    Mute Garry Coll
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:47 PM

    No s##t, Sherlock.

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    Mute Nigel o'Neill
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    Oct 5th 2020, 12:44 PM

    Takes only basic logic to understand or even predict that.

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    Mute Lynn
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    Oct 5th 2020, 2:32 PM

    Services are providing counselling over the phone or online and many provided this for free during the first lockdown. Also low cost counseling is available for people.

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