Kit Connor, Michael Gandolfini and the stars of Alex Garland's new war drama shed light on becoming brothers in arms. Report by Nelsonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Not to get too sentimental, I was inadvertently enjoying a Gandolfini double bill the other day.
00:05Me and my missus have been watching Daredevil.
00:08Oh, wow.
00:08After I finished Aztocon, In The Loop, where your old man was being predictably great.
00:13And then watching this a couple of days later, it did get me thinking how chuffed I reckon your dad would have been
00:20to see how interesting and well-rounded an actor you've become.
00:24Because two very different sort of roles, two great performances.
00:28And like, yeah, definitely sort of like living up to the Gandolfini names.
00:32Thank you very much.
00:33That means a lot. Thank you.
00:34You've both been on the trajectory last couple of years.
00:37The internet very quickly becoming obsessed with all of you.
00:41How have you guys adjusted to life?
00:44Because I imagine the last kind of 18 months, the success of Heartstopper and Shogun, that's meant a few adjustments in a way.
00:51I think, you know, this job's been really brilliant in terms of being able to, you know, really focus, an opportunity to really focus in on the work.
01:03You know, there was never a feeling of sort of, it never felt like a sort of bringing together of a bunch of really sort of, you know, up and coming actors.
01:20It was, it was a, it was a, it felt like an experience of bringing together a cast.
01:27I certainly felt like I was surrounded by a cast of really, really talented people and up and coming in a sense that they were going to have long and really impactful careers, you know.
01:37So, so I felt like it was just a really great example of actors being able to sit down and knuckle down and kind of leave any kind of egos at the side, not thinking so much about the final product necessarily, but about the process of making it.
01:55So, yeah, I mean, that's kind of really what I'm trying to do in that regard, in regards to your question, you know, just sort of focus on, you know, doing, doing some good work.
02:08It was an incredible informing and life-changing experience.
02:14You know, we all really, truly fell in love with each other, but it was quite interesting.
02:19You know, we, to, the, the protocol that was taught, you know, everything from weapons training to comms training to, you know, just sort of, you know, we had a very condensed version of what these men and women sort of learn.
02:38But it did bond us quite, quite quickly, you know, teamwork.
02:41And when you work with such amazing people, like DP and Charles and Kit and Joe and Cosmo and on and on and on, you know, each person shows up and they're all so talented and they all work so hard that you want to raise the bar too.
02:57There's a level of responsibility, not only in the story that we were telling, the men we're playing, but also for your fellow actor.
03:05And Ray really enforced that teamwork that I think changed all of us.
03:09I mean, all that teamwork that you see on the screen and the love that you see on the screen really stems from, you know, our three and a half week boot camp.
03:16You know, our, our, our, our amazing director, the man I got the pleasure of playing, Mr. Ray Mendoza, as much as, you know, he's a former Navy SEAL and a veteran, he's also a, a former BUDS instructor.
03:25And if you're familiar with, you know, how to become a Navy SEAL, you have to, you know, you have to go through the BUDS program to be even considered in the sense.
03:31And so we were in great hands, you know, he knew how to, how to train guys.
03:34He knew how to also break them, you know, and he knew that, you know, when we all came in, we're civilians.
03:39And we came into this practice with a bunch of strengths and weaknesses.
03:42And he, and he knew that.
03:44And, and, and, and throughout our three week and three and a half week boot camp, we had to rely on each other.
03:49You know, what we all knew our certain areas were different and, and we were strong in certain areas and not, and, and we were there for each other.
03:55And that's because of Ray, our bond is because of him.
03:58Talk me through bringing these guys together.
04:00What were you looking for and how important was it to sort of bond them in the way that you did for this movie?
04:09Yeah, the youth was a huge component for that.
04:12I think oftentimes because of maybe an actor who's very marketable is portraying somebody who's oftentimes younger.
04:21So I think youth was a huge component, which is kind of contributes to the opening scene, the call on me video.
04:28Attitude, willingness.
04:31We're going to have a really fast shooting schedule where it's going to be very kinetic, very dangerous, close proximity firing of these weapons.
04:39And I think the willingness to commit fully was important.
04:44So everyone was full in and the brotherhood, a lot of autonomy and ownership was given to them to include Joseph Quinn, Will Poulter, Charles Melton.
04:54And I just, it was more about them applying concepts and principles of our, of the culture they're about to embody.
05:00And they did as I could, it's a longer conversation, but I think it really, it's a, I think it was the ownership and the autonomy and the guidance.
05:10I was like, here kind of, I'm going to give you some, some guidance and then, but it's, it's your movie as well as it is mine.