Actor and former OU student’s role in bringing to life the D-Day landings

Posted on 7 June 2024 • Arts and social sciences, TV and radio

Actor and former Open University student Joshua Leese is reflecting on D-Day with a strong emotional appreciation of what the service personnel involved went through.

Joshua, 31, who comes from Bedford, plays a central role in the BBC’s D-Day: The Unheard Tapes, a three-part Open University/BBC co-production documentary TV series to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings in northern France.

The series, available on iPlayer, brings to life the words of former servicemen. Joshua, and other actors, are featured lip-syncing to soldiers’ audio recordings, many of whom are no longer with us, as they relay their experiences of the day that changed the Allies’ fortunes.

Joshua, who has an MA in English from the OU, was chosen to inhabit the world, briefly, of American serviceman Tom Porcella, from the 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82^nd Airborne Division, who featured in the rare, and previously unheard, tapes.

Of getting the job Joshua said:

“I was incredibly pleased but also it was a very daunting thing to do. It’s a job unlike any other I potentially would ever do in terms of the lip-syncing.”

He continued: “Acting and portraying an emotional narrative with something is very challenging. To spin those two plates, could I maintain every hesitation and pause with accuracy but also fill it with life.”

He concluded that while it was intimidating, he admitted he “loved a challenge”.

It took about a week to learn Tom’s words and his delivery had to be pitch perfect. While he knew his own voice would not be heard he had to master Tom’s New York accent to make the visual of him delivering the lines authentic.

Of the actors’ jobs he said:

“That was important for us to get right even though you wouldn’t hear us.”

We know Tom survived and made it to his checkpoint, after landing in darkness onto fields deliberately flooded by the enemy to slow down the Allies’ progress.

Eventually, he returned from the war, married an English woman and they lived together in the US. Yet many of the soldiers in his unit died where they landed as they perished in the water.

Picture credits: Tom Swindell (main image) and Hannah Mirsky for Wall to Wall Media