In 1985, 25-year-old Hollywood actor Matthew Modine travelled to the UK to begin a job like no other: a year-long shoot on Full Metal Jacket, a Vietnam War movie from master filmmaker Stanley Kubrick in which Modine was to play the lead, Private J. T. “Joker” Davis. Throughout production, Modine took photographs with a Rolleiflex camera and kept a daily diary, of which this is a single entry. Following a falling out over the film’s ending that Modine explains here, it seemed Kubrick had given him a new nickname.

The Diary Entry

January 10, 1986

Stanley keeps calling me a “cunt.” This is a charming English expression that he’s adopted. A prehistoric, early man, guttural grunt. The sound a Cro-Magnon would make before he took a big bone and beat your head in. I think he’s calling me a cunt because I broke “the rule.” Because I insulted him. Worse, I did it in his Winnebago.

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Further Reading

In 2005, Modine’s diary entries were reprinted in his book, Full Metal Jacket Diary, alongside many of the photographs he took during filming. That book was a limited edition, so the only way to get your hands on a physical copy right now is to find it secondhand. However, there are other options: there is the Full Metal Jacket Diary iPad app, and the audiobook narrated by Modine himself. Both are great and can be found here.

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Reprinted with the kind permission of Matthew Modine and Adam Rackoff. FULL METAL JACKET DIARY (ISBN 1590710479), page 175, Rugged Land, September 2005.

www.fullmetaljacketdiary.com | Twitter: @FMJDiary