The Omaha Beach scene cost $11 million to shoot, and involved up to 1,000 extras, some of whom were members of the Irish Army Reserve. Of those extras, 20-30 of them were amputees, issued with prosthetic limbs, to play soldiers who had their limbs blown off.
All the principal actors, except for Matt Damon, underwent several days of grueling army training. Damon was spared so that the other actors would resent him and would convey that feeling in their performances.
The two "German" soldiers who are shot trying to surrender were speaking Czech. They were saying, "Please don't shoot me, I am not German, I am Czech, I didn't kill anyone, I am Czech!" They were members of what the Germans called Ost [East] Battalions, men, mostly Czech and Polish, taken prisoner in eastern European countries invaded by Germany and forced into the German army. The closed captioning for the film on VHS and DVD/Blu-ray bears this out with the language being labeled as Czech.
Steven Spielberg cast Matt Damon as Private Ryan because he wanted an unknown actor with an All-American look. He did not know Damon would win an Oscar for Best Screenplay and be nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor for the hit Good Will Hunting (1997) 1998 and become an overnight star before the film was released.
Many veterans of D-Day congratulated director Steven Spielberg on the film's authenticity, as did James Doohan, who is best known for playing Scotty in Star Trek (1966). Doohan lost the middle finger of his right hand and was wounded in the leg during the war. Also, he participated in the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, at Juno Beach, where the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division led the attack. He commended Spielberg for not leaving out any gory details.
Ted Danson: This film resurrected Danson's career, as Cheers (1982) had been off the air for five years, but he had been in a number of commercial and critical flops since then. His short appearance proved he could do drama every bit as well as comedy and he's worked steadily ever since.
Steven Spielberg: [Fathers] In Neuville, a father pleads with the soldiers to take his kids with them. After being endangered by this, and then being reunited with her family, the daughter then slaps the father repeatedly for putting her at such risk.