Charles Melton and his fellow Warfare castmembers found memorable ways to connect while filming the A24 movie that is based on a real-life Navy SEALs mission during the Iraq War.
The film’s first screening event took place Wednesday at the Hollywood Legion Theater in Los Angeles, providing a chance for military veterans to be among the first to watch the feature before it hits theaters April 11. After the screening, co-directors Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland were joined onstage by Melton, co-star D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai and several vets who were part of the actual events that took place in 2006.
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Melton explained that the cast went through a three-month “immersive boot camp” to help understand the mindset of a Navy SEAL. “We learned how to move like the SEALs do, the terminology, military tactics, comms — 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day,” he said. In addition to all of the stars getting buzzcuts together, Melton added, “We all bonded, got matching tattoos.”
Woon-A-Tai confirmed that he was among those to get the tattoo that reads “Call on Me.” The Reservation Dogs alum quipped, “I got it right under my underwear because I think I’m never going to do a sex scene. So it’s fine. I’ll be able be to hide it right there.” Woon-A-Tai continued, “Sometimes I’ll wake up naked, and I’ll see it. I’m like, ‘I miss these guys.’”
D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (left) and Charles Melton attend the Warfare event.
More sincerely, Woon-A-Tai said, “I really built a brotherhood with these guys in the very small span of a few months.” Rounding out the film’s ensemble cast are Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor, Michael Gandolfini, Noah Centineo and Joseph Quinn.
Mendoza and Garland co-wrote Warfare based on the former’s experience in the Iraq War, with the script informed by interviews with the real members of Mendoza’s platoon. The two filmmakers went on to direct the movie together after getting to know each other while working on Garland’s most recent feature, Civil War, which counted Mendoza as a military advisor.
“More than anything, this film is the product of honesty,” Garland said of Warfare. “That’s why it represents something in the way it does, is because it’s unfiltered, and it’s unflinching, and it’s just truthful.”
Mendoza explained that his goal as a filmmaker was to eventually find a way to tell this story, given that it can be challenging for vets to describe their wartime memories to civilians: “One day, I wanted to do my own film and also be responsible for those elements and to convey those little things, so that it can be a voice for somebody, whether it’s a vet trying to figure out how to describe something.”
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