World War II Vet Helped Prep Brad Pitt and His 'Fury' Tank Crew
George Smilanich, his wife Mary Smilanich, and Brad Pitt
If the world’s most famous movie star called you up and wanted to pick your brain, you’d probably faint or think it was a prank.
George Smilanich just shrugged and asked, “Who the hell is Brad Pitt?”
The 92-year-old World War II veteran found out soon enough, when he flew with his wife from his home in Minnesota to Hollywood last year, where he joined with three other vets to educate Pitt and his Fury co-stars about life on the front lines of tank warfare.
“They asked what life was like on a tank, what we did for excitement, what we were eating,” Smilanich told KARE, Minneapolis’ local NBC affiliate. “I wouldn’t give up my experiences if I had for a million dollars, but I wouldn’t take five cents to go through it again.”
Smilanich served in the Battle of the Bulge as a member of the 67th Armored Regiment of the 2nd Armored Division, which was known as Hell on Wheels. Some of the brutal experiences were difficult for him to talk about, like pulling his commander from a burning tank, an act of heroism that earned him a Bronze Star.
But Pitt and his co-stars, along with director David Ayer, wanted to know everything, as they sought to re-create, with as much accuracy as possible, the brutal conditions of the European theater.
Ayer is a veteran himself, and put his stars through an extensive boot camp. Pitt, at age 50, had no problem putting up with the miserable preparation.
“At the end of the day, he was there to act, he was there to be immersive, he really wanted an experience where he could disappear into the world, and he really kind of did,” Ayer told Yahoo Movies. “It was kind of miserable conditions, and yet there he was, he was in the cold, in the mud, enduring these really crap conditions, not only without complaint, but I think he really just enjoyed it and pulled it into his performance of what he was doing.”
Smilanich — who joked to KARE that the last movie he saw was The Glenn Miller Story — will attend the U.S. premiere of Fury in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday night, where he will walk the red carpet as the biggest hero of all.
Watch the trailer for Fury below:
Photo credit: George Smilanich/KARE, AP Photo/Sony Pictures Entertainment, Giles Keyte
