Home / Saving Private Ryan / Jeremy Davies
- Actor
- Jeremy Davies
- Character
- Corporal Upham
- Watch
- Unidentified watch
- Status
- Unidentified
Corporal Upham is the most hated character in Saving Private Ryan, and Jeremy Davies plays him that way on purpose. Upham is a translator pulled from a desk job to join the squad searching for Private Ryan, and he spends the film visibly terrified — unable to fire his weapon when it matters, paralyzed on a staircase while a fellow soldier is killed in the next room. Spielberg uses him as the audience stand-in, the person who has never seen combat and cannot function when it arrives.
His watch hasn't been identified. A corporal working as a translator in 1944 would likely be wearing standard military-issue, same as the rest of the squad, though Upham's desk background might mean he's wearing something personal rather than Army-supplied. The character's function in the film is to represent inadequacy surrounded by competence, and whatever is on his wrist, it's not doing him any good on that staircase.
Evidence
1 frame on file
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