Here’s What It Took To Authentically Recreate The Horrors Of ‘Warfare’

“To be honest, being part of a war film that used Hollywood grammar to tell the story and potentially romanticized or glorified this kind of thing didn’t appeal,” explains Will Poulter as we discuss his latest film, Warfare, in Los Angeles.

Directed by Civil War helmer Alex Garland and filmmaker and former Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza, A24’s Warfare is a hyperreal recreation of Mendoza’s experience during a mission through Ramadi, Iraq, in 2006. It is based entirely on the photographic evidence and the memories of the men who were there. R-rated Warfare lands in theaters on Friday, April 11, 2025.

“I leaped at the opportunity to do something that sought to retell a real-life situation as accurately as possible, and even at the expense of entertainment at times, because truth prevailed over everything regarding how we told the story, Poulter continues. “It was singular in the experience in so many different ways, and that’s exactly what attracted me to the project. It stands to reason, not only because Ray Mendoza lived the event and co-directed it, but his background is in documentary recreations, and he did some brilliant ones in his TV show The Warfighters.”

Revisiting the events in Ramadi was not easy for Mendoza, but he knew it would be a necessary challenge.

“It required a lot of support,” he reveals as we chat in a suite at the Four Seasons Beverly Hills. “That came from friends that were there who I’ve stayed in touch with, the trust with Alex that was built on Civil War, knowing that I would be able to tell the story that needed to be told for Elliot Miller and myself.” Warfare is dedicated to Miller, the lead sniper on the mission, who was severely injured during the battle.

Mendoza continues, “That’s not to say that it was easy. I had to ask myself some really hard questions because I thought I would start feeling things that I had avoided for a long time. I was ready, but it wasn’t easy.”

Alex Garland’s Role in ‘Warfare’ Was More Than Just Filmmaking

He was also impressed with the recreation of Ramadi, Iraq, from the ground up, just outside of London, England. Garland then filmed Warfare largely in sequence so that he could destroy it on camera.

“Listening made all sorts of things I needed to think about rather straightforward, like, ‘Don’t have a score, lose certain kinds of cinematic devices, and don’t invent stuff.’ For me, the complicated thing stemmed from the responsibility to real people, events, trauma, and being fair and accurate,” the Ex Machina director explains. “I started to feel amazed at the degrees and kinds of liberty that sometimes people feel that they have permission to take with other people’s incredibly traumatic stories, to sensationalize them or romanticize them or whatever. Working with Ray, day in and day out, hearing what he was talking about, and then adding to the other people involved, it would have felt strange to say,’ Yeah, it would just be cooler if you all did this.’ That would have felt like such an alien concept. Honestly, my job was listening.”

Does Garland consider Warfare a companion work to his 2024 film, and until now, his most recent film, Civil War?

“It’s an extension,” he says. “One flows from the other. It’s a sort of rolling thought process, a lived life.”

Accurately described as “a visceral, boots-on-the-ground story of modern warfare and brotherhood, told like never before.” It does that in real-time and based on the memory of the people who lived it. As well as Midsommar’s Poulter, the ensemble cast includes D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai as Mendoza, Cosmo Jarvis, Joseph Quinn, Kit Connor, Michael Gandolfini, and Noah Centineo.

‘Warfare’s Success Lay In Its Authenticity

The choice to embrace intense authenticity and accuracy over Hollywood corner-rounding showed a bravery and honesty that surprised Poulter.

“The script reads more like a transcript,” he says. “There’s nothing that the characters are saying or doing in an attempt to sort of endear you towards them before they suffer anything. I think that’s largely because nothing in the script wasn’t backed up and supported by the memory of the people there. I would also say it was a coalition of memories that kind of corroborated each other. I entirely agree. Another good example of how this film doesn’t seek to influence your perspective on this event is that there’s no score. Without it, you’re forced to pay attention to just this sequence of truths.”

A fake wall in a house the unit occupied during the operation was a subject of intense discussion. Every detail had to be checked and double-checked.

“It was of paramount importance,” Garland enthuses. “The only terms on which this film could exist would be by being as accurate as it was able to be to the memories of the people offering up their accounts. If Ray or I decided it would be better, for some editorial reason, that this wall did not exist, then we would have been interfering in a way that we had established right from the beginning that we were not going to do. We had a dogma-style principle, which is no inventions, and we followed that through. In some ways, that made decisions quite easy. If somebody said, ‘This is what happened,’ and somebody else corroborated it, then that’s what was going in.”

“However, it is not an exercise in perfect recall or perfect recreation. If there happened to have been cameras dotted around this place, would you see an exact mirror in this film as those cameras recorded? The answer is definitely no. It’s absolutely, definitely no. However, that’s not the terms on which the film is setting itself. The terms the film is setting itself are, ‘What is the experience of the veteran we are speaking to? What is Ray’s experience? What did this feel like or sound like? What was the effect of concussion and confusion? What was the effect of training? What is the effect of the courage?’ and then recreate that as faithfully as we could.”

The Prep For ‘Warfare’ Was Intense

Part of the realism came from Mendoza’s Navy SEAL experience, and he intended to cut the cast zero slack.

“When it came to wearing the gear, all that was going to be done through repetition. The actors wouldn’t have to ask me, ‘What’s the fastest way to put this kit on?’ You’re going to learn that through trial and error, repetitions and exposure,” he says. “I’ve trained a lot of actors before. I trained SEALs as an instructor for a long time, so there are strategies and principles for building teams, and I applied many of those principles. I wanted them to use principles. I didn’t want them to memorize or standardize. I wanted a little bit of autonomy on their part, what we call Big Boy roles.”

“I was like, ‘I’m going to give you a task, I’m going to give you the tools to do those tasks, simple things like timelines and gear. No one’s going to make sure you have your kit. You’re responsible from head to toe, your helmet, all your props. Be ready to go at all times.’ There was this culture I was trying to create because we had a really tight schedule. It required them to take on a lot of ownership and responsibility for themselves to allow us to meet those deadlines and timelines.”

It’s something that Poulter found to be invaluable.

“We were afforded an amazing opportunity with the three-and-a-half week boot camp that we did leading into this, and that served two key functions,” the Dopesick actor reveals. “The first was to give us enough of a skill set to be able to give our best efforts in representing Navy SEALs. Obviously, as a group of actors with many limitations, we knew it would be a pretty mean feat. The second thing was that it allowed us to forge genuine and very strong bonds and appreciations for each other that served as the subliminal, emotional connections that you see on screen because there’s little to no dialog outside of what you hear over the radio, or what could be considered sort of military vernacular.”

“Because of that, the opportunities for characterization, or anything like that, play out nonverbally and in subtle ways. Both things were handled during and throughout the boot camp, and Ray was correcting us. He knew we would make many mistakes, and our boot camp training extended into the filmmaking process, whereby we continued to learn as we went. Ray was correcting us virtually at every turn, and if anything didn’t look right, he either corrected it or it didn’t make it in.”

Creating And Presenting The Visceral Vision of ‘Warfare’

Poulter was also impressed with the recreation of Ramadi, Iraq, from the ground up, just outside of London, England. Garland then filmed Warfare largely in sequence so that he could destroy it on camera.

“We were amazed by what the art department was able to execute,” The Bear’s Poulter enthuses. “The fact that they built such a convincing set that looked every bit like Ramadi, Iraq, just outside of North London, was unbelievable, but it was fully immersive. Hearing Alex talk about it is amazing because there was real methodology behind it. The idea was to have this fully practical set with little to no reminders of the fact that you were on a set, to the extent that it felt like they actually built a location if that makes any sense. You didn’t have so many signs of the fact that you were making a film, you really felt like you were wandering around in this very real environment, and it was so helpful to the process.”

One of the first screenings for Warfare was at the Hollywood American Legion Post 43, a location chosen carefully by Garland and Mendoza. The screening was packed.

“It was important because the Legion is a hub for veterans to go to for help and resources, and oftentimes we meet there a lot for different events and support each other,” Mendoza explains. “It’s my way to give back to the community. They’ve helped me get here. I use veterans a lot in movies, shows, and commercials. I wouldn’t be here without them, so I wanted to give back, and I wanted them to be some of the first to see it. Their feedback is the most important.”

“It was so appropriate,” Garland adds. “I’ve been working in film for quite a long time. I’ve done lots of screenings, but I’ve never worked on a film that has the intense weight of meaning that this film has. Then, it was about showing Warfare to the people it was attempting to speak to and directly represent. I’ve never been in a screening like that. It was in Hollywood, and it was the least Hollywood experience I’ve ever had there. It was remarkable, and I felt very lucky to have been able to work with Ray, to have been brought through this journey, and for it to lead there felt incredibly powerful and rewarding.”