Michael Gandolfini’s Transformative ‘Warfare’ Journey Included a Surprising Connection to His Father

A week before Christmas 2023, Michael Gandolfini was lying on the floor of his Airbnb in Los Angeles with his phone taped to the ceiling. He was attempting to video a self-tape for a scene that, as scripted, needed him on the ground, and with no one around that particular day to help, he improvised. Tape meet phone meet the ceiling.

It was unusual to get asked to audition so close to the holidays, and he didn’t have the ideal setup. But the project, Warfare, was one he didn’t want to pass up.

Based on the experiences of co-director Ray Mendoza’s time in the Navy SEALs, Warfare (out this weekend via A24) is a retelling of the day during the Battle of Ramadi in the Iraq War that saw Mendoza’s platoon attempt to evacuate two members of their team after they were severely wounded in an IED explosion. The film, co-directed by Civil War and Ex Machina filmmaker Alex Garland, is told in real-time, a stripped-down moment-by-moment rendering that would be made with minimal cinematic interference. There would be no soaring score. There would be no score at all. There would be no dramatized dialogue.

“I think they’re two of the most honest men I’ve ever met, so it was straightforward,” says Gandolfini of his first meeting with Mendoza and Garland (this time he was upright). They explained the intentions behind Warfare. In particular, to give Elliott Miller, one of the injured SEALs who sustained traumatic injuries and had no recollection of the event, a realistic depiction of what happened to him and his team. The filmmakers also outlined what they expected during the shoot, which would see the actors carrying 60 to 70 pounds of gear for full filming days, in addition to at times carrying the performers playing the injured SEALs.  

“We talked, in a very respectful way, about what I needed to do, strength-wise and working out-wise to get ready,” Gandolfini explains. “I am not in the gym every day. I am not dieting. I am not that person. It’s just not who I am or my genetics. But they were so respectful, especially for me, who kind of struggles with that stuff.” Garland was clear that he was not looking for Gandolfini to change his body. “He was like, ‘I am not looking for a superhero body. I’m not looking for any of that crap that we see.’ He was just like, ‘I just need to know you can put 60 pounds in your back and you can run for 10 hours.’”

From learning he was cast in the film to the start of production, Gandolfini had two months to prepare. The trainer he worked with was a veteran, a Marine. Gandolfini recalls, “Maybe about two weeks in, he was like, ‘Tomorrow you are gonna run a five-mile run with 23 pounds on your back.’ And I was like, ‘No way. I’m not doing it. That’s no way I can do that.’ And he was like, ‘That’s what you’re gonna do — and you’re gonna do that every morning now.’”

In addition to building physical strength, the 25-year-old says that the training helped him shape something less tangible that he took with him into his performance as McDonald. He says, “Any sort of ‘I can’t do it’ or ‘I’m going to give up’ that is not there. These men are unbelievably resilient, kind, and loyal. They do not ever give up. And that was a part of me that I had to learn and grow.”

The training was followed by a three-week boot camp with the rest of the cast, including Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Joseph Quinn, Kit Connor and D’Pharaoh Woon A Tai. On the first day, they shaved their heads together and then began running drills on the set that was erected on an abandoned WWII airplane runway on the outskirts of London. There were no trailers, instead everyone geared up with each other.

“Everyone was so humble, talented, hungry, willing to be there, and wanting to be there. And then we had the responsibility of what it was,” says Gandolfini, whose recent onscreen credits include Marvel entry Daredevil: Born Again. “It’s the first time that my job has ever had a real-life application: To show Elliot what happened to him. I’m such an anxious person, and I feel like I have to be of service to someone or put my focus on someone else to get out of my own head. And that was this from the beginning.”

Gandolfini’s McDonald is Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (or ANGLICO), and he is meant to coordinate with military air assets, but during the chaos of the explosion, he loses the ability to do so. Sans an official job, McDonald is the main person who tends to Elliot, administering what medical treatment he remembers from basic training. In what is otherwise a completely incomprehensible sequence of events for the general public, it’s Gandolfini’s performance as McDonald that audiences can maybe best relate to. McDonald fights through the disorder in their surroundings to help in whatever way they possibly can to the best of their abilities.

Both of Gandolfini’s grandfathers served in the military, while his father, the late actor James Gandolfini, worked with the Wounded Warrior Project, traveling to Iraq and Afghanistan to meet with active duty and military veterans. One year, says Gandolfini, his dad sent watches to injured soldiers. “Elliot actually got one of the watches. I didn’t know until Elliot showed me a picture of this watch, and Joe [Hildebrand, the other SEAL injured in the events of Warfare] came up and he’s like, ‘Your dad sent us watches when we were injured back in 2006,’” remembers the actor. “It was just so crazy to feel that connection to my dad again, and also a connection with [Elliot, Joe] and Ray.”

A goal for filmmakers was to give veterans an accurate onscreen depiction of war, so when friends and family ask questions about their experiences, if they are at a loss for words, there is something to point to. Hollywood has a long history of portraying war onscreen, largely with cinematic embellishments and flourishes that can easily lead to a romanticization of wartime. Warfare, says Gandolfini, is “an unbiased look at warfare, and because it’s unbiased, I think you really feel the consequences. It is so grounded, it is so factual, and the consequences feel so large, you cannot walk out of there and think like that’s a good idea to do that.”

Having objectives outside of offering good actorly performances allowed Gandolfini and the cast to deliver throughout the physically and emotionally arduous shoot. He says, “All of us went so much farther — the movie went so much farther.”