In 20 years time, film fans will watch Warfare and wonder: “How did they assemble that cast?”.
Alex Garland’s drama, which he co-wrote and directed with Ray Mendoza, features a who’s who of rising stars, ranging from Joseph Quinn, who’s just been cast as George Harrison in Sam Mendes’ four planned Beatles biopics, to Charles Melton, the Riverdale actor who won acclaim for his role in Todd Haynes drama May December.
Ahead of the film, which is a re-enactment of a 2006 incident that former US Navy SEAL Mendoza experienced in Iraq, The Independent spoke to the cast, who reflected on the breakout roles that put them on a path to Hollywood success.
Two years after playing a teenage version of Elton John in biopic Rocketman, Kit Connor, 21, was launched to fame with Heartstopper, the Netflix coming-of-age series he said he will be “forever thankful for”.
“It’s given me a lot of great friends and amazing opportunities and allowed me to meet a lot of really awesome people,” Connor said of the series that explores gay romance.
The series, based on Oseman’s webcomic and graphic novel of the same name, also stars Joe Locke, William Gao, Yasmin Finney and Olivia Colman in a cameo role.
The profile of Connor’s Warfare co-star Michael Gandolfini has risen considerably since 2021 when he starred as a young version of Tony Soprano in The Sopranos prequel film The Many Saints of Newark. This was the character memorably played by his father James Gandolfini in the acclaimed HBO series.
“I’d probably say The Many Saints of Newark was probably the first big thing I did,” the actor said, acknowledging that the role “was so tied up with The Sopranos and my dad, and a lot of stuff”.
Gandolfini said that while, on a global scale, The Many Saints of Newark put him on the Hollywood map, it was The Deuce, David Simon’s HBO series about the porn industry, that provided him with his first screen acting experience.
“The first show I ever had was The Deuce – David Simon’s unbelievable,” the actor said. “Being on that show and learning how to hit marks and that being my own thing was pretty incredible.”
Meanwhile, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai recalled his role in the comedy-drama series Reservation Dogs, which was the first American series to feature all Indigenous writers and directors.
Woon-A-Tai received an Emmy nomination for his role as guarded teenager Bear Smallhill – and he attributed his success to “luck”.
“I’m lucky Sterlin Harjo [who co-created the show with Taika Waititi] put his trust in me for telling such a personal story,” the actor said.
One Warfare actor who is past the “rising star” stage of his career is Will Poulter, who has amassed an impressive string of roles since his debut, when he was 14, in the comedy Son of Rambow. His credits include the comedy We’re the Millers, horror film Midsommar and Marvel sequel Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3.
But it’s Son of Rambow he considers his breakout, saying: “I got really lucky with that being my first job – not least in the sense that the director Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith, the producer, were the best film dads I could have wished for in a first-time experience.”
“It was a really wholesome, fun time with my good friend Bill Milner. We played best mates in that movie and had the summer of our lives – and 20 years later, we’re still friends.”
Warfare is in cinemas on Friday (18 April).