The training process for “Fury”, according to Pitt, involved multiple conversations with real veterans, getting intimately familiar with the tank and even getting into fights with his co-stars. The relationship between the soldiers of “Fury” is completely adversarial, and although they make sure to work together to accomplish any type of attack mission, they also keep their camaraderie low; the film is much too dirty and depressive to allow real warmth between the platoons. The first three months of production – a long time for any film – were spent training, fighting and a real boot camp. Pitt described the training camp thus:
“[B]oot camp looks like a gimmick for actors, but we got some of the SEALs best designs for us. And it was truly an incredible experience in the way it was structured to break us down, make us understand the difficulties, make us feel cold, get wet, get hungry, physically exhaust us, and then give us tasks that would bring us together, unite us , we would discover the weaknesses and strengths of others and establish a pecking order. It was really a profound experience.”
Profound, perhaps, but horrible. The actors could only bond over shared misery, perhaps authentic to the way soldiers must bond on the battlefield. When pushed so close to death, with your resolve already shattered, clinging to each other out of dark, violent need can perhaps feel like camaraderie.
And that was not the end. In fact, Ayer, in addition to pushing them to their physical limits, was also careful to get inside his actors’ heads.
