Director Taylor Hackford purposely kept Louis Gossett Jr. living in separate quarters from the rest of the cast to further his character's intimidating presence as a drill instructor.
Lisa Eilbacher said the hardest part about doing her obstacle course scenes was pretending she was out of shape. In fact, reports were that she was in the best physical condition of all the actors.
Mayo does the same moves to the bar patron, Troy, that the muggers did to him in the beginning when he was a child.
Debra Winger negotiated her own contract (no agent) before she had seen the revised script, and was not happy when she found out that she would be doing a nude scene. She asked to be covered up for the scene, but was told that since she hadn't thought to ask for a "no nudity" clause in her contract, she would have to do the scene as written.
Casting the role of Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley was very difficult. None of the A-list actors approached for the part were interested. The producers loved Mandy Patinkin's audition, but director Taylor Hackford felt the actor was "too ethnic" to play a drill instructor. Finally, the producers did research in Pensacola, Florida and learned that all of the top drill instructors there were African-Americans. This led to Louis Gossett Jr. being cast.