Warfare is shaping up to be a first-rate showcase of brotherly love — and we don’t mean the White Lotus kind.
No, we mean the bond between the upcoming movie’s co-stars, including Heartstopper star Kit Connor, along with other Hollywood it-boys like D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Joseph Quinn, and Noah Centineo. Their friendship is deep enough that they all got matching tattoos in honor of the movie’s opening scene — and as Connor recalled at a recent Q&A, that was only the tip of the iceberg.
Warfare is based on a real-life incident director Ray Mendoza experienced while deployed as a Navy Seal in Iraq. To get into character, the cast endured a three-week boot camp — and on their first night together, as Connor explained, he and his co-stars kickstarted their bonding with an extra special ritual.
“I know that we all wanted to create this brotherhood and create this bond because that would make our jobs a lot easier,” Connor said, as reported by IndieWire. “So the first thing that we did on our first night was shave each other’s heads, which was something that excited us all and it felt slightly ritualistic. We suddenly felt like we were immediately vulnerable with each other and it just felt like we had each other’s backs. And yeah, we trained. We ate together. We would do everything together. We practically lived in each other’s pockets for about two months. I think it really does come across in the film. There’s a real love between us all.”
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Connor also commented on the head-shaving in a video circulating on social media, where he added that the full cast was “slightly terrified, as vain actors. That was the point where we set our egos aside in a way.”
The cast’s preparation included getting physically fit enough to execute the action, not least of which meant being buff enough to haul around military-grade weapons.
“Often when you train for a film, it’s to have a six-pack or to look a certain type of way,” Connor explained at the Q&A. “There was no aspect in this film that we do that. We were training to be able to do the job. That was really refreshing.”
Warfare comes to theaters on April 11. Check out the first look below.
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