





* AdamWesting: In ''Saving Silverman''.
** Also, his Geico commercial.
* BigOlEyebrows: Just look at 'em!
* CastTheExpert: How he got his most famous role.
* {{Defictionalization}}: Being cast as a Gunnery Sergeant (E-7) in his iconic role despite having retired as a Staff Sergeant (E-6) always caused a bit of awkwardness when people would inevitably refer to him as the former. 15 years later the Marine Corps graciously offered to remedy the situation with an unprecedented post-retirement promotion to Gunnery Sergeant due to his continued service promoting the Corps and its values.
* DrillSergeantNasty: He is the consummate master of this trope.
** To the point of TypeCasting.
** Ironically, despite the TypeCasting as a DrillSergeantNasty, he's actually a NiceGuy in RealLife, and can be very approachable, and conversational. However, this is usually the case with most Drill Sergeants, as explained in the trope page.
* LargeHam: Screaming profanities is practically his trademark.
* RealLife/MeanCharacterNiceActor: He can be downright mellow and soft-spoken when he's not in DrillSergeantNasty mode. Stanley Kubrick initially thought Ermey was too nice to play Hartman in ''Full Metal Jacket'', prior to his aforementioned audition. For that matter, in the bloopers that showed after ''Mail Call'', he often came across as a [[BumblingDad bumbling old dad type]] when he flubbed his lines, albeit a bumbling old dad with a ''very'' salty mouth.
** Incidentally, this is fairly typical of mainy DrillSergeantNasty types in RealLife. The military typically tries to find well-balanced soldiers who can ''pretend'' to be deranged sadists in order to properly motivate and train recruits without actually harming them. It can be disconcerting to meet an instructor after training and find that they're actually a bubbly and cheerful person when not wearing the campaign hat.
* NoIndoorVoice: His roles tend to run on this.
* ThrowItIn: A good bit of the lines from Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, in ''Full Metal Jacket'', were adlibbed by Ermey, who was one of the few actors that Kubrick allowed to go off-script when shooting scenes.
** Note: He had to explain what a "reach around" was to Kubrick, who stopped filming the scene early to ask what it was, after Ermey ad-libbed the line. After it was explained, Kubrick laughed and said that he was going to keep it in the movie.
* TypeCasting: Perhaps the UrExample. Seriously, if he's not playing a drill instructor, he's playing someone who ''acts'' like a drill instructor.
** A minor Against Type role was that of a phony televangelist in Fletch Lives.

