Canadian 'Warfare' star D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai says film shows true cost of combat

“It’s often The Rock-type actors on the screen, and you don’t really realize that it’s very young people who are on the front lines. I didn’t realize that until doing this film, to be honest… We’re sending children to wars.”

“Warfare,” co-written and directed by Alex Garland and former U.S. Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza, is a harrowing recreation of a chaotic 2006 Iraq War mission, drawn from Mendoza’s own experience on the ground in Ramadi. He says the average age of his unit was 20.

Woon-A-Tai portrays the character that’s based on Mendoza, joining an ensemble of Hollywood “it” boys — including Kit Connor, Joseph Quinn, Will Poulter and Michael Gandolfini — as American soldiers.

In Toronto this week to promote the film, out Friday, Woon-A-Tai, Garland and Mendoza emphasized that “Warfare” is not a typical war drama — it’s a cinematic gut punch, meant to dismantle myths and glorified images of combat.

Woon-A-Tai broke out with his Emmy-nominated turn as Bear Smallhill in FX dramedy “Reservation Dogs,” which follows four Indigenous teens in Oklahoma trying to outrun grief and poverty. He sees similarities in the way that show and “Warfare” humanize groups Hollywood often oversimplifies.

“‘Reservation Dogs’ represented my community, Native Americans, and we broke down stereotypes within that show,” says Woon-A-Tai, who is of Oji-Cree, Anishinaabe and Guyanese descent.

“There’s a lot of stereotypes in war films about soldiers and this is a film that breaks those down.”

After leaving active duty, Mendoza forged a second career in film as a military consultant, advising on scenes such as the climactic White House battle in Garland’s 2024 film “Civil War.”

He says he’s read countless scripts where veterans are depicted as addicts who “at any moment, we can just snap.” Portrayals of combat equally frustrate him.

“A lot of times, there’s a score going over these glorious moments of this guy doing these heroic things. That’s just not how it feels,” Mendoza says.

“Especially when you’re running out to save your best friend.”

“Warfare” is dedicated to Elliott Miller, one of the SEALs severely injured in the Ramadi mission. As Miller has no memory of that day, Mendoza wanted to reconstruct it for him in precise, forensic detail. The film has no score, using only the raw sounds of battle — gunfire, explosions and soldiers’ screams — to create tension.

Garland believes audiences generally know most war films are sensationalized and they’re “complicit” in the fantasy.

“It is very typical of our world (that) we would know, watching a war movie, that it is misrepresenting war, but not really care… because it’s entertaining,” says the English director and author.

He wanted to make a film where veterans “didn’t have to tense up watching it, thinking how inaccurately they were being represented.”

Before shooting began, the cast underwent a gruelling three-week boot camp modelled on special forces training. Mendoza says Woon-A-Tai seemed a good fit to play him because of his “willingness” to embrace the film’s physical demands.

Woon-A-Tai says the camp – which included ritualistic head-shaving – broke the actors down but brought them closer together.

“We learned to rely on each other,” he says.

“A lot of the egos that some people in my industry may have went right out the door as soon as we shaved each other’s hair.”

The immersive preparation was meant to bring visceral realism to the screen. It’s something Garland hopes will leave viewers feeling the full weight of war.

“Civilians don’t go to war, the military go to war. But civilians make the decisions to go to war. They make the policies and they also elect the politicians that make the policy. War is about as serious as things get on this planet and so it’s incumbent on civilians to understand what those wars are,” he says.

“If we’re going to traumatize, kill and maim young people from one country and the citizens of another country, we ought to know what we’re doing when we do that.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 11, 2025.