Mirror, Mirror on the Wall Hailing from Toledo, Ohio, Benjamin L. Willard is a captain in the army, and we know he's performed a bunch of covert ops and assassinations. They've obviously taken thei...

Fictionally, Colonel Walter E. Kurtz is based on Kurtz (of "Mistah Kurtz—he dead" fame) in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, a Belgian ivory trader in the Congo Free State who's accused of bruta...

Surfin' Safari The free-wheelin' Lt. Col. William "Bill" Kilgore likes to surf and he likes to make war—and he does both with the same upbeat, pumped-up attitude. But instead of listening to Rage...

This is your brain on the Vietnam War [picture a scrambled egg].This nameless, scruffy photojournalist has had more than one mega-dose of war, and he's losing it. He's like a burnt-out drug case, a...

"Chief" George Phillips has his hands full. He's the man responsible for piloting the boat carrying Willard into Cambodia. He didn't realize he had to transport Willard beyond the legal borders of...

Jay "Chef" Hicks is probably the most talkative crewmember on the boat escorting Willard to Cambodia—you can't shut the dude up. He also loves to curse. Hailing originally from New Orleans, Chef'...

Lance is an archetypal carefree California druggie surfer dude, trapped in the hellhole of the Vietnam War. His surfing prowess is part of the reason Kilgore agrees to escort Willard and company to...

Not to be confused with the bald dude who cleans bathtubs, Tyrone "Mr. Clean" Miller is an African-American sailor from the South Bronx, another crewmember on the boat carrying Willard up the river...

This guy doesn't just have a license to kill: he gives them out. Lieutenant General Corman's the general who orders Willard to kill Kurtz. While we're not entirely sure whether Corman wants to kill...

No, your TV didn't just switch to Star Wars. That's Harrison Ford (a.k.a. Han Solo) on the screen. He's playing Col. Lucas, the officer under General Corman who helps assign Willard his mission to...

This mysterious guy has one menacing line in the whole movie. As Corman and Lucas assign Willard his mission to kill Kurtz, the civilian makes the nature of that mission totally clear, telling Will...

Pick a team, dude: Captain Richard M. Colby was originally sent to kill Kurtz, but when he reached Kurtz's camp, he switched sides. Whatever Kurtz was doing, it really struck a chord with him. Will...

The role of "Agent" defines "bit part." This guy introduces the soldiers to the Playboy Playmates who've arrived to entertain them at a USO show. And that's about it. That's really all he does. But...

The Playboy Playmates are the only female characters in the movie (aside from the occasional Vietnamese civilian woman we see running away from gunfire, or the woman who gets shot in the boat). The...

The director plays a director in this movie—very meta. Francis Ford Coppola has a brief cameo as the director on the beach. When Willard and his crew land in search of Col. Kilgore, the director...