While preparing to shoot Lone Survivor, the true story of four Navy SEALs trapped in a firefight against the Taliban, director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) mapped out 90 different mountain falls, part of his re-creation of the treacherous conditions under which three of the men lost their lives. It was ominous, then, when a stuntman was injured on the very first one. "He threw himself off a 10-foot cliff into a tree, and he was supposed to bounce off the tree," Berg says. "Instead, he wrapped his ribs around it and punctured his lung." Such was the dedication of all involved--including Mark Wahlberg, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster and Taylor Kitsch as the SEALs. Before the shoot, Berg visited the families of the dead. The father of Danny Dietz, played by Hirsch, read him an autopsy report detailing the 11 bullets that tore through his son. "He was reading that and crying," says Berg, "and then he said, 'That's who my son was. That's how hard he fought. Make sure you get that right.'"
--LARRY GETLEN