He met me in person and said ‘I think I know you from somewhere,’ and I said ‘Well I did this movie called Courage Under Fire,’ and he goes ‘That’s the one, you know it’s funny, I said to my wife that’s the exact type of person I want to play Private Ryan, but he’s too thin.’ Because I’d lost 40 pounds, I was playing a heroin addict in Courage Under Fire.
I had put myself on tape and I had read for Private Ryan and I hadn’t been cast.
Robin took Ben and me to meet Steven [Spielberg] because he knew it was never a bad thing to meet the greatest filmmaker of all time and how much we’d appreciate that.
And so it was only because Robin introduced me to him that he went ‘Oh OK, no you’re the kind of guy I’m looking for for that job.’