A British Band of Brothers actor is hoping to honour the legacy of the soldier he played when he joins fellow cast members for a charity parachute jump over Normandy as part of June’s D-Day commemorations.
Alex Sabga-Brady, who played Corporal Frank Mellet in the series, is also producing a documentary following the group’s training for the jump, which saw them travel to the real location their characters trained in more than 80 years ago.
Any profits from the documentary titled The Jump: Currahee to Normandy will support veterans’ organisations and other associated charities.
The 2001 series Band of Brothers, which starred Damian Lewis and David Schwimmer, was created by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
It told the story of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division from 1942 until the end of the war in Europe, and marked Mr Sabga-Brady’s first acting job at the age of 22.
He said: “I wasn’t a trained actor. I’d come into it through a friend of mine who suggested I go for a casting for it as they wanted some guys that had military experience and guys that didn’t and I was in the cadets.
“I had a series of big auditions for it with Tom Hanks, which was terrifying and amazing at the same time.
“I didn’t recognise him at the time because he was doing Castaway so he was really tanned, very skinny and brown, huge beard, but I recognised the voice and that was the beginning of it for me, really.”
He spent 10 days in a 1940s-style military bootcamp with the cast, where they formed a bond that lasts to this day.
He said: “We were told we had to speak in character in American accents throughout this process.
“It was a group of guys who didn’t know anything about anything and then turned us into what effectively looked like a believable company of soldiers and still stands today within friendships and brotherhoods between us as a cast.”
His character, Cpl Mellet, was killed in action in 1945, but during preparation Mr Sabga-Brady did meet several surviving members of Easy Company to build a picture of the person he was playing.
He said: “Meeting the guys that he actually served with, that really gave me something tangible and all the cast something tangible to work with.
“And unfortunately, none of the guys from Easy Company are now surviving, which is leading us to what we are doing.
“A number of us work closely with veterans’ foundations, mainly in the US because of the series being a US show and the following that it still has today.
“Through this we get taken out to Normandy and we interact with everyone that’s out there, right from current serving troops through to veterans and the general public, and it’s such an amazing and humbling place.
“The idea [for a D-Day parachute jump to raise money for veteran charities] blossomed from our experiences over there.
“We thought what would be the ultimate way to really pay homage to who we portrayed and to also raise money and to create awareness of these men and these women that served throughout this period of time, to make sure that their legacy never dies?
“So we thought let’s try and jump out of a plane.”
He will be joined by cast members including George Calil, who played Sergeant Alley, Christian Black, who played Walter Hendrix, Mark Lawrence, who played William Dukeman, Rene Moreno, who played Joseph Ramirez and Nolan Hemmings, who played Chuck Grant, for two jumps, on 3 and 8 June.
They will jump from an original C-47 Dakota that was used during D-Day in Normandy for carrying paratroopers.
The group of actors trained at Camp Toccoa in Georgia, where the original Easy Company trained in 1942 and which is now a museum.
He said: “We trained with US paratroopers from an all-airborne battalion and these guys put us through our paces learning, basically, to keep yourself alive by jumping out of a plane and then do it as safely as possible.
“It’s a high-risk sport, it’s a high-risk activity, but to do it in such a way that we minimise the risk, it was an incredible experience.
“We had been to Toccoa on a set built in Hatfield Studios back in 2000, but to actually set foot on to the place where these guys really did train was a very humbling and very emotional experience for the cast.
“And it’s something that we’ll never forget.
“And then to start actually training as an airborne paratrooper to learn what these guys did on the same ground that these men did 82 years ago was again another incredible experience.
“I don’t think you can really bring the seven of us that did it down from cloud nine.”
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