Tom Cruise
Cruise was always director Rob Reiner's first choice for the movie, having watched his breakout performance in the military movie Top Gun and becoming convinced that putting Cruise on the screen in a Navy uniform was guaranteed box office gold. The inspiration for his character was an amalgamation of a number of real-life JAG officers including former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias and Walter Barnsley III, although Sorkin maintained that Kaffee was completely fictional and not based on anyone living at all.
This movie put Cruise and castmate Cuba Gooding Jr together on the screen for the first time; they would reprise their partnership four years later in the romantic blockbuster Jerry Maguire, for which Cruise won a Golden Globe Award in the Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy category.
Jack Nicholson
Nicholson received five million dollars for his performance as Colonel Jessup, observing that, for once, he was money well spent. Nicholson's role might have been considered a supporting one, but his performance was the most memorable, and as Jessup he speaks the lines that became almost bigger than the film itself; challenged by Kaffee to tell the truth, he almost spits out the words "you can't handle the truth!". The courtroom scenes between the two were in large part the reason for Nicholson's Academy and Golden Globe award nominations for his performance.
Nicholson's nomination for an Academy Award for the role of Colonel Jessup helped make him the most nominated actor in history; only he and Michael Caine have been nominated over five difference decades from the 1960s onwards.
Demi Moore
In 1992, when she was cast in A Few Good Men, Moore was the highest paid woman in Hollywood and also considered to be the actress most guaranteed to make a movie a box office hit. Two years earlier she had earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in the highest grossing film of the year, Ghost, opposite Patrick Swayze.
In 1997 she returned to the military theme, starring in G.I. Jane, which became controversial for the scene in which Moore shaves her head in preparation for becoming a soldier.
Kevin Bacon
Bacon is almost more famous for being a college party game in the 1990s than for any of his movie roles; the game "Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon" gathered popular steam during the nineties and enabled players to connect themselves to Kevin Bacon in just three easy steps, proving that we are all more connected than we think we are.
The year before A Few Good Men, Bacon had appeared in the very controversial film JFK.
Kiefer Sutherland
Like castmate Demi Moore, Sutherland had grown up on screen as a member of the Brat Pack, catching the eye of Rob Reiner in 1992 starring in the movie Flatliners alongside Julia Roberts. Ultimately becoming better known as a television actor rather than a big screen one, Sutherland is best known for the role of Jack Bauer in the groundbreaking real-time series 24.
Wolfgang Bodison
Bodison was not an actor before appearing in A Few Good Men; he was actually a film location scout, and busy looking for the ideal locations for the film when Reiner asked him to audition for the role of Dawson. Although he went on to appear in many other films, the majority of which saw him cast as a member of the military, this remains Bodison's highest profile role.
Noah Wyle
Wyle is best known for playing the role of Dr John Carter on the television series E.R., a role for which he was nominated for five Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globes. The role of Corporal Barnes is his best known movie role.
Cuba Gooding Jr
Gooding had enjoyed his breakout role just one year before being cast as Corporal Hammaker; playing Tre Stylez in Boyz in da Hood brought him to the attention of Rob Reiner, for whom he was the first choice to play Hammaker. Four years after A Few Good Men he was reunited with castmate Tom Cruise in the unexpected blockbuster Jerry Maguire, for which he received an Academy Award n the Best Actor category.
