Kit Connor has revealed his new movie Warfare “stretched him the most” as an actor because “so much was expected” of him.

The upcoming action film follows, in real-time, a platoon of Navy SEALs on a mission through insurgent territory during the Iraq War, and stars British actors such as Connor, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis and Joseph Quinn.

During a Q&A moderated by IndieWire, the 21-year-old shared that Warfare made him a better actor because the cast had to rehearse intensely and perform in front of the camera for long unbroken takes.

“I found that Warfare was one of the projects that has stretched me the most as an actor. And I do find that whenever you do any job (like this) they challenge you and they stretch you and you generally come out a better actor,” he shared. “I’d never been on a project where so much was expected of us and we expected so much of ourselves.”

Explaining how they prepared for the 10-15 minute-long takes, the Heartstopper actor continued, “We’d almost treat them, as Ray (Mendoza, co-writer and co-director) would say, like mini plays. We’d rehearse them out. We’d drill them. We’d go over and over them. We’d get it down to the second to a point where we could do it over and over again in front of the camera.”

Connor added that he and his co-stars had to bulk up to be able to carry the necessary equipment and weapons during filming.

“We would work our a*ses off to be able to do that,” he shared. “And often when you train for a film, it’s to have a six-pack or to look a certain type of way, where there was no aspect in this film that we do that. We were training to be able to do the job which was really refreshing.”

Warfare, co-written and co-directed by Alex Garland, will be released in cinemas on 11 April.

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