Interview: The Cast of ‘WARFARE’
Warfare marks the directorial debut of Ray Mendoza, who co-directs alongside Ex Machina and Annihilation director Alex Garland. The two previously collaborated on Garland’s previous film Civil War, which was released in 2024 and quickly became the highest grossing film from Garland and also the second-highest grossing for distributor A24.
Mendoza, a former navy seal, served as the military supervisor for Civil War, and the two got along so well that they decided to co-direct a film together based on Mendoza’s experiences during the Iraq War. Warfare follows, in real-time, a platoon of Navy SEALs on a mission through insurgent territory in November 2006 during the final stages of the Battle of Ramadi.
Warfare stars a who’s who of young actors in Hollywood, including D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, who plays Mendoza himself, Cosmo Jarvis, who plays Mendoza’s best friend Elliot, Will Poulter, Kit Connor, Charles Melton, Joseph Quinn, Finn Bennett, Noah Centineo, Michael Gandolfini and much, much more. Did Woon-A-Tai feel any pressure playing not only a real person, but also his director?
“It was a lot of pressure,” says the actor, who recently received an Emmy nomination for his acclaimed performance in FX series Reservation Dogs. “For Ray Mendoza, this probably one of the most traumatic experiences of his career. He definitely has experienced similar combat before but never on the scale as what happened. So to tell such a personal story like his, such a traumatic one, we wanted to it do right. I wanted to give him his justice that he deserved. It’s been a while since he was there that day, and so to have all of that in him for almost 20 years, it’s a lot. I can’t speak for him but I hope that this process was a sense of a therapy for him. I hope [this movie does the same] for a lot of veterans who were there that day, but also veterans, no matter what war they were a part of, I feel like they can relate to this.”
Mendoza wasn’t the only person depicted in the film who was constantly on set. Elliot Miller, Mendoza’s best friend who was with him during his tour of Iraq, also frequently made trips to the set of the film, which Mendoza partly wanted to make as a tribute to Miller. “He was present for a good deal of filming,” says Jarvis, who plays Miller in the film. “We all hung out with him and got to know him pretty well. He’s a great guy to be around. He’s very funny. It was just a very unique experience to have somebody whose representation you are responsible for be present, and be encouraging you to do your best work in order to complete that objective. So yeah, it was great for him to be around.”
Warfare also stars Joseph Quinn, who turned in an acclaimed performance in Luna Carmoon‘s festival darling Hoard and can next be seen in Fantastic Four and The Beatles. Quinn plays Sam, a leading Petty Officer who gets injured early on and has to – quite literally – lean on his fellow soldiers to make it through their journey.
“That’s very accurate,” says Quinn of the description of his character’s journey. “There was a lot of leaning on people in the filming of this film. It was a really magical thing [to develop a dynamic with my co-stars]. I think sometimes you don’t really know how the logistics of filming a film will play out. Sometimes, you join something that’s been filming for three months that you have two days on, or you can be there three weeks later. But it’s very rare to be in something where you’re there from the entirety of the project, where you all go in at the same time and you all finish at the same time. We were all staying in the same hotel and created this culture together. That was invaluable on days where we were shooting more complicated things. I can only speak for myself [but] I never felt alone. I think that we were all there for each other, in a similar kind of way that the ethos of the SEAL teams work. We were there for each other, needless to say, in far less perilous circumstances but the ethos remain the same.”
Warfare marks a change of pace for Charles Melton, mostly known for his performance in beloved series Riverdale, and his acclaimed performance in Todd Haynes‘ May December opposite Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, the latter of which earned him both a Golden Globe nomination and an Independent Spirit Awards nomination. “I was really excited when I met with Alex and Ray, and they told me about the script before I even read it,” he explains of his decision to sign on.
“They told me the kind of requirement and the commitment that I was going to take,” he continues. “And when I found out I was doing it with all the guys that we did it with, I was just so excited. We had a three-week, boot camp in London before we filmed for five weeks. There’s personal reasons to why everyone does a specific project and there were so many reasons to do this. Honoring Ray, and sharing his story so his best friend could see what happened to him, with Alex Garland and with the incredible cast. But for me personally, my dad was in the army for 24 years. He did five tours. [I wanted to be] a part of something that could maybe make him feel seen. But it was just the best experience being with these guys, and getting close and staying close, really.”
While Warfare may be new territory for Melton, it is definitely unlike anything Kit Connor has ever done before. The actor first made a splash with his layered performance in the highly-successful Netflix series Heartstopper, which has amassed him an incredibly loyal fanbase throughout its run so far. Was it challenging for him to go from a show like Heartstopper to something more action-packed like Warfare?
“As an actor, you want to try and stretch yourself in as many directions as possible,” says Connor. “Go in different directions, try different things, challenge yourself. This is very far from anything I’ve done before which is very much the direction that I want to go in. I saw it as an amazing opportunity to work with with incredible filmmakers and work with some unbelievably talented actors. As an actor, I like to think every job that you do improves you, makes you better and teaches you lessons. But I don’t think I’ve ever learned quite so much as I did on this job because I was surrounded by so many fantastic actors that you’re forced to raise yourself up, and rise to that challenge and meet them there. [Cosmo and Joseph] in particular are actors that I really looked up to on set and was keen to keep up with, basically. So yeah, I feel like I’ve learned a lot.”
Someone who has done a war film before is Will Poulter, who plays Officer in Charge Erik in Warfare. Poulter previously appeared in a supporting role in David Michôd‘s War Machine, a satirical comedy that tells a fictionalized version of the war on Afghanistan.
“I was really lucky to be part of War Machine,” says Poulter. “[That film] is probably more of a satire, more political and certainly critiques the politics of war. What’s interesting about Warfare is that it’s about as apolitical as you can get. There’s no dramatization or fictionalized elements, no romanticization. Warfare is about as objective as you can be, and it was about recreating the real life events of that day. I really relished that challenge. It’s within the war film genre, if I can use that term, that was sort of missing, I think. And hopefully Warfare will fill that void, both for veterans and for civilians, in terms of bettering the perspective on war so that whatever your personal perspective is, it’s at least based in something that is a faithful reflection of what warfare environments are like.”
WARFARE is now playing in cinemas in the US via A24.