IfKit Connor’sWarfarecastmates hadn’t already nicknamed him “Baby Face,” they could call him “Hype Man.
““Ohhhhh, stud!”
Give us a chance!”
‘Warfare’ stars Kit Connor, Charles Melton, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, and Joseph Quinn photographed exclusively for EW.Eric Ray Davidson
he shouts toCharles Melton, before cheekily givingWill Poultera “woof” when it’s his turn.
“But I had no idea what the combat was.
And Ray had this story he wanted to tell.
“This project is bigger than us.
The story’s bigger than us,” Melton says.
The small problem, they found, was that “sometimes those memories would clash with each other.
If we’d said ‘a true story,’ that would be slightly disingenuous.”
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The most important things Mendoza wanted them to learn?
“I didn’t need them to talk like my friends.
Still, it was an “incredibly trying” experience.
Holding ourselves to higher standards than maybe any of us ever held ourselves to before was really tough.”
You must be a beast,'” the Toronto native says in admiration and awe.
“They have to do underwater training, holding your breath, f—ing mimicking waterboarding.
And a lot of people break.
Those like Ray who don’t are one in a million.”
That grueling boot camp also included a BUD/S trainee tradition: shaving each other’s heads.
“We are all in this together.”
It holds you accountable in a way.
There is an elimination of any sort of ego in all of it.”
Training also included rehearsals, where Quinn says Garland would block out the action like a stage play.
‘Warfare’ stars Kit Connor, Charles Melton, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, and Joseph Quinn photographed exclusively for EW.Eric Ray Davidson
Still, it fostered a bonding experience they likely would not have had otherwise.
So there wasn’t really splinter groups or cliques or anything like that.
We really tried to do things as uniformly as possible."
Will Poulter photographed exclusively for EW.Eric Ray Davidson
This project is bigger than us.
The story’s bigger than us.
“We felt like we all had each other’s backs.
D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai photographed exclusively for EW.Eric Ray Davidson
We were all going to help each other through anything hard that came our way.
So it was a real blessing, I think.
“I was jealous because I knew what they were about to go through.
Joseph Quinn photographed exclusively for EW.Eric Ray Davidson
I could see it happening.
Even when they weren’t on camera, they were there supporting [each other].
They were always there.
Kit Connor photographed exclusively for EW.Eric Ray Davidson
They never left the set even when they weren’t on camera.”
The three even bought watches for everyone to ensure they were “always on time,” Melton says.
“We were in it, locked in.”
“We were building familiarities with each other that we brought into the work,” he says.
Garland and Mendoza don’t shy away from showing the physical horrors of the attack.
In the blink of an eye, the team’s mission shifts from surveillance to survival.
“But it was a form of therapy for me in a lot of ways.
There’s things that I had pushed down and tucked away.
I just didn’t have the tools to deal with that.”
Murray Close/A24
The fact that the real Elliott was on set added a whole other layer to the proceedings.
“It pulled on that nerve, that heartstring,” Mendoza recalls.
So I called cut, ran off set, and I cried for a good 10 minutes.
And at that point, Alex had to take over the rest of the day.”
Woon-A-Tai says that day “hit different” for him.
“That was extremely exhausting, and it was very tiring.
The man Quinn plays, Joe Hildebrand (renamed Sam for the film), also visited the set.
Quinn recalls the sensitivity exercised on those days, but also how important it was to decompress.
“It was sobering.
It was very necessary to try and have a laugh as much as possible.”
“We had something very concrete to build from.”
That extends to their families, who have had emotional reactions to the film at advance screenings.
D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai and co-director Ray Mendoza on the set of ‘Warfare’.Murray Close/A24
“That has been probably the most impactful thing I’ve heard so far.
“I was pretty shook, to be honest.
“And we found meaning within ourselves, and we found meaning with that title too.”
(Clockwise from top left) D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Charles Melton, Will Poulter, Kit Connor, and Joseph Quinn.Eric Ray Davidson
Charles Melton photographed exclusively for EW.Eric Ray Davidson
Kit Connor shows off his ‘Call on Me’ tattoo.Eric Ray Davidson
