When the cast of the film Warfare was announced, people were confused — what were so many of the internet’s boyfriends doing in a gritty, realistic movie about the perils of war?
The film stars heartthrobs from several projects beloved by young people, like Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things), Kit Connor (Heartstopper), Charles Melton (Riverdale), D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (Reservation Dogs) and Noah Centineo (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before). Standouts from prestigious projects also star, like Will Poulter (The Bear), Michael Gandolfini (The Many Saints of Newark) and Cosmo Jarvis (Shōgun).
Civil War writer-director Alex Garland wrote and directed the movie with Ray Mendoza based on Mendoza’s memories of a mission gone awry during the Iraq War as a former U.S. Navy SEAL.
After the casting was announced, people began to question if it was all a stunt. Was A24 trying to capitalize on the parasocial relationships that so many young people have with this cast to come to see a brutal film? Were these actors out to prove that they could do so much more than what their audience has come to expect of them?
Because most of the film unfolds in real-time, characters aren’t given backstories. The audience’s first impression of the Navy SEALs comes from what they already know about the actors who play them.
Quinn told Yahoo Entertainment that he didn’t think of how the audience might be perceiving him as himself in the film because “that’s a very fast route to madness.”
“A very interesting aspect of the film was the fact that it doesn’t patronize the audience or spoon-feed them any kind of particular agenda or backstory about any of these characters,” he said. “It’s very brave in the fact that it just presents these people in the situation and lets the film unfold from there. I would say if you’re starting a film and thinking, ‘They’re going to think Kit Connor is in this,’ you’re on the high road to nothing.”
Connor told Yahoo Entertainment that he “sincerely hopes” that the status of the actors in the cast “doesn’t infringe on the immersive nature of the film.”
“I certainly hope that if that is the case, then that runs out quite quickly,” he added.
Kit Connor in Warfare. (A24/Courtesy of Everett Collection)
Garland told the Cut that casting someone in the “age at which men are sent to combat” was crucial, but he didn’t cast Connor because of his teen idol image or because he wanted to subvert it.
“There was no issue of escaping his heartthrob perception because I didn’t know about it!” Garland said.
Footage of the opening scene of Warfare has been released, and without context, it’s misleading. It shows the cast gathered around a computer, guns in hand, to watch the music video for Eric Prydz’s “Call On Me,” in which leotard-clad dancers perform a workout routine. That’s the last upbeat moment of the film.
Connor said the idea of that scene came “halfway through the filming process.” He said it’s not meant to give any “preconceptions” about the characters but an idea “of how they all sit in the sort of ecosystem of that platoon.”
Poulter told Yahoo Entertainment that the cast never thought about how the audience might react to the film parasocially, but they all came together “irrespective of what we’d all done before or ages or level of experience” to go to boot camp, which was a “great equalizer.”
“Once everyone shaves their heads and gets down to day one of boot camp, we’re all starting from zero,” he said. “In the respect of representing Navy SEALs, we’re all very aware of just how limited our skill sets were by comparison. The parasocial thing didn’t really play a part.”
Woon-A-Tai told Yahoo Entertainment that as soon as the cast got to boot camp, Mendoza “made sure that our egos were left at the door.”
“First and foremost, none of us brought it in the first place, but … we 110% gave it our all like this was our only job for the whole year. We gave it all of our dedication,” Woon-A-Tai, who had the added pressure of playing writer-director Mendoza himself, explained.
Jarvis plays Elliott Miller — a Navy SEAL who suffered a traumatic brain injury on the mission depicted in Warfare. The film is dedicated to him. The rest of the cast plays other members of the mission, but they go by aliases because their real-life counterparts decided not to go public with their identities.
Charles Melton (middle) in Warfare. (A24/Courtesy of Everett Collection)
Melton told Yahoo Entertainment that the project “required an absolute, full commitment … because it’s a very personal story” to Mendoza, “in part for the veterans and for his best friend, [Miller], to see what happened to him on that specific day.”
The cast isn’t thinking about how their stardom might attract audiences. They just hope people come see the film.
Warfare is in theaters April 11.
