In some ways, the cast of M*A*S*H was closer than family
The cast of M*A*S*H had the best friendship.
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Just like the characters on the show, the cast of M*A*S*H were thick as thieves, which is something that we can all celebrate. Much like the members of the 4077th were brought together by chance, so were the cast members of M*A*S*H, who used their time together to forge friendships behind the scenes.
In an interview between David Ogden Stiers and the Chicago Tribune, the actor said that during the filming of the show, more often than not, the cast was together. "We've been together twelve hours a day! It's rather like being on a Greyhound bus tour for ten years," he said. "You check into the same motel, go to the same restaurant, get drunk with each other, then pack your bag and climb back on the bus with the same people."
All the proximity allowed for the costars to get to know each other very, very well. "I know things about Alan's and Mike's personal attitudes and cares and character that I wouldn't feel free asking about if they were members of my own family," Stiers said. "And I know things of them I wouldn't want to know about a family member."
While the friendships of the M*A*S*H cast seemed inevitable, Stiers was aware of the rarity of such a relationship. "Something like M*A*S*H might happen," he said. "I'm not closing the door on the possibility. But the odds against it are pretty high. Ballplayers say that everything in life is seven-to-five against. That's about what we're fighting in whatever circumstance we go to when this is over."
Despite the show's extended lifetime, Stiers seemed confident that with M*A*S*H, there was always another leaf to turn over. "You're playing a person who is a doctor, a soldier, a king — whatever. So it isn't so much a matter of professions, although a profession can guide the way someone's character forms," he said. "But the person who's brought to it, that's what intrigues me — peeling away the onion-skin layers of that person. We'll never get to the bottom of any of these people. We may be stretching, but I don't think we will ever explore as fully as humanly possible every facet of all the seven regulars."
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