Joseph Quinn, Stranger Things’s dearly departed, long-haired rocker Eddie Munson. May December star Charles Melton. The Bear’s diligent chef Will Poulter. Shōgun’s rugged Cosmo Jarvis. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’s resident dreamboat Noah Centineo. Heartstopper’s loveable Kit Connor. Daisy Edgar-Jones’s wholesome love interest from Where the Crawdads Sing, Taylor John Smith. Finn Bennett, the baby-faced cop and foil to Jodie Foster in True Detective: Night Country. Teen Wolf’s Henrique Zaga. Reservation Dogs’s D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai. Adain Bradley, who played Harper’s hot brother in Industry Season 2. They all have one thing in common: they’re among the jaw-dropping cast of Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s forthcoming war film. When I first read the list—a literal roll call of current internet boyfriends—I assumed it was fan casting rather than actual, real news. But no, I was stunned to discover, it is real—and, as a result, anticipation for the film is sky high.
Titled Warfare, the A24 release will tell the story of a Navy Seal team in mid-’00s Iraq whose latest mission goes terribly wrong. Although the exact roles this formidable cast will play remain under wraps, it’s been confirmed via GQ that Poulter will take the lead as their captain, while Woon-A-Tai, per Deadline, will play Mendoza himself. Garland’s co-writer and -director for Warfare served as a member of Seal Team 5 for over 16 years, and this is the pair’s second collaboration, with Mendoza having acted as the military advisor for Garland’s last hit, the explosive Civil War. (Garland had previously said that he’d be taking a step back from directing for the foreseeable future, but clarified that his participation in this project was more about supporting Mendoza than furthering his own vision.)
The logline reads: “Warfare embeds audiences with a platoon of American Navy Seals in the home of an Iraqi family, watching over the movement of US forces through insurgent territory. A visceral, boots-on-the-ground story of modern warfare, told like never before: in real time and based on the memory of the people who lived it.”
According to an interview Quinn gave to GQ last summer, this set of rising stars were all put “through the wringer” while filming at a 19th-century manor house 50 miles north of London, waking up at 6 a.m. every day to head to a muddy boot camp where they learned to “fire weapons, [run] with heavy things [and lift] heavy things.”
