When it came to writing about his experience as a gay man going through Marine Corps boot camp, Greg Cope White cites wisdom from late legendary TV producer Norman Lear: “Write the story you want to tell.”
The result was his 2015 memoir, “The Pink Marine.” White entered boot camp in 1979, when being gay in the military was illegal under United States law. The book opens with White at the end of his freshman year of college, learning that his best friend, Dale, was leaving the Air Force Academy for the Marine Corps, boot camp in Parris Island, South Carolina.
“I sat up. I liked boots. I loved the idea of summer camp,” White writes. “… I announced that I’d go with him.”
The new Netflix series “Boots,” which hit the platform Oct. 9, opens much the same way. Inspired by White’s memoir, “Boots” follows Cameron Cope (Miles Heizer) as he joins friend Ray (Liam Oh) at boot camp.
Like the memoir, the show chronicles the weekslong boot camp experience and the intense physical, emotional and mental development that comes with it. But from the jump, the TV adaptation — which was executive produced and in part written by White — has clear differences from the original work.
First: the title.
“I love ‘The Pink Marine.’ I mean, I remember the second that that came to me. It’s gorgeous,” White tells TODAY.com. “However, that’s my story and my memoir. And so while it’s a great title, our show is about an ensemble.”
Across the series’ eight episodes, “Boots” gives a spotlight to different members of Cameron and Ray’s group of recruits. Their camaraderie grows slowly from day one before culminating in “The Crucible,” one of the final tests of the recruits’ fitness to join the U.S. Marine Corps.
Some of those characters may feel familiar, White says.
“Look at all the characters that you may see a spark of from the book, but look what we built, look what we did in the writers room with these incredible backstories and characters,” he says. “We’ve created a show that everyone should find a way into, so we needed a title to represent that ensemble.”
‘I Owe Him the World’
After leaving the Marine Corps, White moved to New York to act and write. His credits in the entertainment industry include writing for the sitcoms “Dream On” and the “All in the Family” spinoff “704 Hauser.” He worked for Lear for more than a decade.
“Norman was always wanting to hear other stories,” White tells TODAY.com. “He knows his story. I know my story. We have to get those stories out of us so that other people can identify with, learn from, laugh at — all of that.”
Lear wrote a foreword for “The Pink Marine,” which first published in 2015, and wrote of White, “I’ve known Greg Cope White for some thirty years, relied on him for ten, and have admired him every minute throughout.”
“Boots” represents one of Lear’s last projects after his death in December 2023 at 101.
“Just even to be able to talk about him is something that little teenage me wouldn’t believe I would be doing,” White says now. “So I owe him just the world.”
Lear is credited as an executive producer of “Boots,” alongside White, who also wrote one of the eight episodes.
White says compared to writing the memoir, the making of the series felt like a perfectly synched group effort.
“It’s so fun to think about it this way: I’m sitting there alone at my desk writing my book, wondering … ‘Is it good? Is anybody going to read it? Should I look for another job?'” he recalls.
“Jump to this fantastic writers room … and instead of just having my singular story, we get all those brains and all those minds and all those creatives that are going to build out this world so incredibly,” he adds.
‘Here’s My Story’
Just like the title of the show is different from the memoir, so is the protagonist’s name.
“Cameron Cope. Greg Cope. People are going to see similarities. People may want to find the differences. But he honors my story, Cameron does, as well as has his own version of what he’s going through,” White says.
Cameron is brought to life by actor Miles Heizer, whose previous credits include “13 Reasons Why” and “Parenthood.”
Heizer tells TODAY.com he didn’t read White’s book until after he booked the part.
“I had a very long audition process, and it’s like, there’s this part of you that’s like, I don’t want to get too invested,” he says.
Once he did book the role though, White was the first person he met in person from the production, Heizer says. After a few Zoom calls, the pair happened to end up on the same flight to New Orleans.
“He very graciously took my Chihuahua for me, because I have two dogs, and I wasn’t allowed to fly with both of them,” Heizer says.
He also recalls their “wonderful conversation” about adapting White’s story. He says White made it a point to say: “This is Cameron’s story. It doesn’t need to be Greg’s story.”
“I think he allowed me a lot of comfort and freedom to be like, it’s inspired by his experience. But if there’s anything else I want to explore, he was more than open with that,” Heizer says.
“I’ve never played a real person,” he adds. “So I was scared, but it’s like, Greg’s the coolest, easiest-going person. So it was very, very easy.”
Watching the show back, Heizer cites specific moments where his personality and humor comes through. In the trailer, Cameron and Ray debrief after an intense start to boot camp. After Ray reminds him that it’s only day one, Heizer says, “We’ve only been here for one day?” before dramatically covering his mouth.
“Angus O’ Brien, who plays Hicks in the show, we’re like truly best, best friends,” Heizer says. “… He texted me, and he was like, I was just laughing because it was so you, like specifically you.”
There’s a throughline between Cameron and Greg’s story, White says.
“The angst of my fear of getting busted and caught and kicked out is throughout the story, through whichever version, and Cameron is going to live with that as well,” White says.
White says his message to Heizer after they first met was to make sure he didn’t feel a need to attempt an impression. Still, he says, “for lack of a better phrase, I’m trusting these people with my life.”
When White finally watched the final cut, knowing that it was locked and ready to broadcast, he says he got emotional.
“I’m a wet person. Norman always shared that there are two kinds of people, wet and dry, and he preferred wet because you might cut yourself on a dry person,” White says. “So even just trying to talk about it right now, I’m going to get emotional.
“To know that I had to serve in secret, yet, now here’s my story out loud and proud. … I’m just amazed that that’s what has happened,” he adds. “I never thought I’d get to see that, ever.”
What Happens Next?
🚨🚨🚨Warning: This section contains spoilers from the ending of Netflix’s “Boots.”
After boot camp, White served out a six-year commitment in the Marine Corps as an enlisted man, he writes at the end of “The Pink Marine.”
During that time, he went to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and Officer Candidates School and writes that he considered going to law school to serve in the Marine Judge Advocate General Corps.
But the ending of the Season One sets up a different path for Cameron.
While White entered boot camp in 1979, “Boots” takes place in 1990. Also, Season One notably ends with Cameron, Ray and the rest of the new Marines celebrating with karaoke. In the final moments of the show, as “Under Pressure” plays, a newscast playing on a TV over the bar reveals that Iraq had just invaded Kuwait. That event, which occurred in August 1990, marked the beginning of the Gulf War.
“Where the show goes, I hope the audience loves it as much as we do and likes it and thumbs ups it and shares it with friends,” White says, “so that we do get to come back and continue these stories and continue to follow these gorgeous lives that we’ve built so carefully in Season One.”