By the mid 1980s, Willem Dafoe had begun carving out a niche playing mainly villains in films like Streets of Fire and To Live and Die in L.A., due to his idiosyncratic looks and flat, drawling voice; he seemed well on his way to a life of typecasting.
Meanwhile, handsome Tom Berenger was best known as virile, affable TV star Sam Weber in The Big Chill and lyricist Frank Ridgeway in Eddie and The Cruisers.
Then came Platoon.
Oliver Stone made the brilliant decision to change things up by casting Dafoe as the kind, empathetic, fatherly Sgt. Elias, and Berenger as the hardened, battle-scarred, possibly psychotic Sgt. Barnes.

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