R. Lee Ermey

Ermey delivers a threat so quickly that there is barely time to take in its inventiveness before the next one arrives. As Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket (1987), he gives the drill instructor's abuse a practised rhythm that makes it sound routine to the speaker. He improvised much of the dialogue for Stanley Kubrick. His own experience as a Marine drill instructor explains the ease, but the speed and timing explain why we keep listening.

That part became a casting habit. After early work as a performer and technical adviser on Apocalypse Now (1979), Full Metal Jacket brought the breakthrough, followed by repeated assignments as officers, sheriffs and captains. The police captain in Se7en (1995) belongs to that pattern. There is skill in establishing who expects obedience without making a scene labour over it, but repeated casting gave him fewer chances to do anything else.

Toy Story (1995) makes the repetition useful. As the voice of the Sergeant in John Lasseter's film, Ermey brings the familiar gruffness into a comedy where taking oneself too seriously is part of the fun. We laughed at the seriousness of that voice in a family comedy; he sounds quite unwilling to make allowances for the change of audience. Alongside the quarrelling voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, his brisk certainty is funny in its own right. Lasseter makes room for the familiar voice without allowing recognition to become the whole joke.

Then there is Dead Man Walking (1995), directed by Tim Robbins, with Ermey as Clyde Percy, a victim's father. The role gives his severity a source in personal hurt, and it is worth remembering beside the uniforms. Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn carry the difficult encounters that make the film so affecting; Ermey is part of that ensemble, not its centre. We have reservations about how carefully the debate is arranged, but the performances justify our warm recommendation. Try Dead Man Walking before deciding that the drill instructor tells us everything about him.