D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai on Redefining the War Film Genre With ‘Warfare’

Since opening last weekend, “Warfare” has drawn viewers to the theaters who are fans of the stacked cast, as well as diehards of codirector Alex Garland. But the opinions who matter most to star D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai are those of war veterans.

“The biggest thing that I know that Ray was writing this for was a lot of veterans, and so the nice thing our screenings is the veterans really liked it and they were very vocal about it,” Woon-A-Tai says. “That was the best opinion. Honestly, the most important opinion.”

“Warfare” tells the story of a group of U.S. Navy SEALs during the Iraq War. It was written and directed jointly by Garland, of “Ex Machina” and “Civil War” fame, and Mendoza, a former Navy SEAL. The movie depicts an encounter Mendoza’s platoon had following the Battle of Ramadi in the fall of 2006 in Iraq.

Woon-A-Tai was interested in the project from the moment he finished his first read of the script.

“I noticed very quickly that this is not a traditional war film that you typically see,” the 23-year-old says. “I saw within the script that it was going to be different, that it wasn’t glamorizing anything or romanticizing anything or didn’t make these men out to be superheroes. It really normalized it and really threw you in the situation, and I was fascinated by that.”

In the movie, Woon-A-Tai portrays Mendoza himself. He recalls first meeting the former SEAL to discuss both the film at large and what playing him would be like, and having some self-doubt about the undertaking.

“It was like, ‘Am I willing, am I able to, for this difficult task?’” Woon-A-Tai says. “The bootcamp that we did for a long time or the long shooting hours or just the intense scenes that we did — was I capable?”

“Warfare” is an ensemble cast that also stars Will Poulter, Kit Connor, Joseph Quinn, Charles Melton, Cosmo Jarvis and Michael Gandolfini. In promoting the movie these past few weeks, it’s been clear just how close the group became throughout the filming process, even all getting matching tattoos.

“We actively still talk to each other on a daily basis, whether that be group chats or FaceTime calls or just happen to be in the same city,” Woon-A-Tai says. “We hang out very often, so it’s amazing.”

Bonding began prior to filming with a bootcamp Mendoza arranged, before embarking on five weeks of shooting.

“The brotherhood that you see on screen was very much set up by Ray. He’s a former BUD/S instructor, and so he knows how to train guys, and so he set up this three-and-a-half-week bootcamp for us that we very much needed to rely on doing. We found out that we needed to rely on each other,” Woon-A-Tai says. “I found out that this was going to be something different among the cast the first night we all met up with each other, when we all shaved each other’s hair buzz. It made me feel like we were equal and we’re starting from scratch, all of us, and so that was beautiful.”

“Warfare” has been met with skepticism on social media from those who worry it’s a war propaganda film.

“I get it in the sense that we’ve seen so many films prior that may have made combat look cool, or had a Hollywood take on warfare,” Woon-A-Tai says. “The fact that this project was codirected and cowritten by a person who was there that day, it shows a different take to audiences and something that’s very new. It’s very much an anti-war because when you show the true realities of war — I mean, who can say that that’s good or that that’s cool. A film like this, I heard that people leave this audience and may not want to enlist because this is intense and it shows the true consequences of war, which other films don’t.”

Up next, Woon-A-Tai will be seen in the Darren Aronofsky movie “Caught Stealing” with Austin Butler, Regina King, Matt Smith and Zoe Kravtiz, and can also be seen in new slasher film “Hell of a Summer.”

“I like doing a bunch of different things. What I like doing, which ‘Warfare’ I think does, is when you leave the theater, you can have a conversation and you ask questions regarding certain situations, and that’s what I want to do,” Woon-A-Tai says. “I just want to make stories where you leave the theater questioning the decisions or the circumstances as a whole.”