9 War Movie Tricks That Totally Fooled You
6. 14 Different Horses Played Joey - War Horse
The saying goes never to work with children or animals, as, particularly in the case of the latter, they can prove to be impossible to control. However, what Steven Spielberg and his team achieved with War Horse in 2011 confirmed that this rule could be broken.
There were reportedly over 100 horses used on this production, but what could have been make or break for the film is that the titular horse, Joey, acted as the protagonist for the entire story. He needed to bring emotion to proceedings, something that would seem an impossible task, but that Spielberg and the film's horse master, Bobby Lovgren made happen.
You'd be forgiven for thinking that Joey was portrayed by two horses throughout the film, one as a foal and one as an adult, however there were 14 animals utilised to portray this one character.
As explained by Lovgren himself, different horses brought different characteristics and subtleties that would suit some scenes better than others. In the same way that a movie needs to find the right actors to play the right parts, War Horse needed to find the right horses for the right scenes, and they did so with 14 of them.