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These days, the studios usually do everything they can to keep movie stars like Milla Jovovich safe instead putting stunt doubles at risk of serious injury. In decades past, however, it was common for actors like Susan Sarandon to be put through a lot when they made movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Unfortunately for the celebrated actor Willem Dafoe, he went through something while filming Platoon that seemed to go almost entirely unnoticed by the media and fans.
What Happened To Willem Dafoe During The Filming Of Platoon?
During Willem Dafoe’s truly staggering career, he has remained extremely busy giving one stunning performance after another. Still, Dafoe’s performance in the 1986 movie Platoon remains one of the things he is best remembered for today.
While Dafoe almost certainly takes pleasure in the fact that Platoon is such an impactful film, it is very safe to say that he wasn’t happy during the making of the movie. At the very least, Dafoe had to be miserable at one point during Platoon’s production.
As anyone who has seen Platoon will already know, it wasn’t filmed in the comfort of a Hollywood soundstage. Instead, Platoon’s cast and crew put in long hours in the forests of an island in the Philippines.
Given the location of where Platoon was filmed, that meant that the movie’s stars had to make do with what they could get. As Dafoe explained during an interview for the behind-the-scenes documentary Making of Platoon: “A Tour Of The Inferno” that turned out to have a disastrous effect on his health.
One morning, Dafoe and his co-stars woke up to find a group of baboons had gone through their packs and taken off with what they wanted. Deciding he was thirsty, Dafoe opted to fill his canteen from a nearby stream, put a water purification pill in, and then had a drink.
Unfortunately for Dafoe, he got really unlucky when he collected that water as he got very sick because of it.
“I filled my canteen up and put these pills in that you know, purify the water, supposedly. Shook it up. We walk about 50 yards upstream from where we were. I collected the water downstream, remember? There was a big, fat, dead pig in the water, all bloated and, you know, really disgusting. I drank the water that just ran over that thing.”
After describing how he drank contaminated water, Dafoe explained what happened next. “We got back, I was delirious for like, 24 hours. I don’t remember it. I got a little taste of, like, jungle fever.”
As anyone who has been delirious will be able to attest, being sick the way that Dafoe was during the filming of Platoon is the kind of thing anyone should avoid. Still, being sick for 24 hours and then recovering may not sound like the kind of thing that is worthy of remembering more than 35 years later.
The reason why what Dafoe went through is so alarming is how serious his situation easily could have been. Based on Dafoe’s description of that event, many people believe he contracted something like cholera or typhoid fever.
In the past, actors have been accused of overstating their illnesses but what Dafoe went through was very serious if he did have cholera or typhoid fever.
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If that is accurate, Dafoe could have lost his life if the illness he suffered wasn’t treated. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “If left untreated, 25-50% of severe cholera cases can be fatal”.
How Crazy Was It Behind The Scenes Of Platoon?
Before Oliver Stone became a rich and famous filmmaker, he served in Vietnam where he saw action and was wounded twice. Given his background, Stone was the perfect person to make one of the definitive movies about the Vietnam War, Platoon.
Due to Stone’s real-life experience with what it was like to serve in Vietnam, he made sure to make Platoon an unflinching film that showed how horrific war actually is. From all accounts, Stone’s commitment to Platoon made the experience of making the movie extremely intense, to say the least.
Before the filming of Platoon began, the movie’s stars were put through a two-week boot camp. When people hear that, they may imagine the actors getting yelled at by an R. Lee Ermey type while playing war games.
In reality, throughout that boot camp and during the filming of Platoon, the film’s cast was put through a long list of mind-blowing experiences.
During the boot camp, Platoon’s stars spent that time in the Philippines’ jungles carrying heavy bags, digging holes they slept in, eating rations, and sleeping in shifts. As Making of Platoon: “A Tour Of The Inferno” reveals, that was only the beginning of what happened during the boot camp.
According to John C. McGinley, he fell asleep with his mouth agape while working on Platoon. McGinley then woke up because someone with the movie’s production put a pair of water bugs on his face and they wound up in his mouth.
Platoon’s technical advisor Dale Dye also revealed that he got a herd of goats and forced them to stampede toward Platoon’s actors, many of whom were sleeping. Understandably, that caused members of the film’s cast to panic.
At another point during the boot camp, Dye had Platoon’s special effects team put charges around where the movie’s stars were entrenched. Dye then waited for the perfect moment to blow the charges which he knew would terrify the movie’s stars. After the explosives detonated, Dye had prop weapons fire green pellets at the actors from the jungle.
Platoon star Tom Berenger revealed he lost 28 pounds during the boot camp. McGinley explained the actors spent the boot camp scared they would get bit by venomous snakes in the jungle. Charlie Sheen recalled that the insect bites were so bad that Depp had to physically restrain him from scratching.
After the boot camp was over, filming began and things still didn’t become anything like a normal film set. While speaking about making the movie, Depp remarked that he thought the director, Stone, was a “madman”.
According to Stone, himself, he got so exhausted during filming that he was overcome with paranoia and accused the film’s editor of hiding footage. Stone also described his work on the film as “method direction” because he wanted the film’s cast to know their lives were on the line.
At the end of the day, every aspect of the making of Platoon seemed to be wild and dangerous. Given all the mind-blowing stories about Platoon’s production, and there are many more that weren’t referenced here, Dafoe’s health scare didn’t stand out.
Once fans learn how traumatic it seems like filming Platoon was, the way Sheen behave later makes more sense. Considering what he put up with on the set of Platoon, the chaos Sheen caused on the set of Two and a Half Men doesn’t seem as bad.
