‘Civil War’: Wagner Moura On His Political War Thriller, Alex Garland Stepping Away From Directing & More [The Discourse Podcast]

In this week’s episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo pursues the truth while discussing “Civil War” with star Wagner Moura (“Narcos,” “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”). The movie takes place in the near future during a second Civil War in America and follows a group of war journalists and photographers on a quest to interview the president and capture the war before the battle ends. The A24 film is written and directed by Alex Garland (“Ex Machina” “Annihilation”)and stars Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Nick Offerman, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and more.

During the interview, Moura discussed securing the role of Joel in the film after missing out on another Alex Garland project, his Hulu series, “Devs,” a role that coincidentally went to “Civil War” co-star Nick Offerman. However, he was ultimately drawn to the role due to his love for films that balance political themes and popular filmmaking elements.

“First, I thought that was brilliant writing,” Moura said. “And then I thought it was my thing, right? Like, it’s a very political film, but also because of all the films that I do — in ‘Marighella,’ when I shot it, I really wanted the film to sell as many tickets as possible. I want the films to be popular. Even the ‘Elite Squad’ is a very popular film in Brazil, and it is a political film, too. So when I read the script for ‘Civil War,’ I was like, ‘This is a holy grail. This is like a potential Hollywood blockbuster with something very strong to say!” And so I really wanted to do this.”

Moura, who plays a journalist in the film and is a former journalist himself, was quick to point out the importance of journalism and the dangers of polarization in the media, which is currently eroding the profession as a whole.

“I think that this polarization is indeed a big threat to democracies around the world,” Moura said. “Again, I think that journalism has a very important role in that because people are just so divided and consuming their own information from social media and from whatever. Then this spread of fake news, conspiracy theories, all that crap that makes good people start to hate good people. You know what really scares me? The truth as we know it is about to end. And the decline of journalism is something that really scares me because I graduated as a journalist, and many of my friends that are working in newspapers, they’re like, ‘Dude, I think I’m about to find another job because I don’t know to when this is going to be economically sustainable.”

Much of the discourse leading up to the film’s release has surrounded how the country is divided up in the movie and the lack of information surrounding how the fictional Civil War began. Moura discussed that he feels many people are missing the point of the film altogether.

“I knew that what led the country to that situation wasn’t something that [Garland] was interested in talking about,” Moura shared. “And to be fair, man, when I see a film with American troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, all of them, none of them explain anything. I get it because, in a film like this, there’s a cognitive dissonance. When you see like, ‘Oh, this is happening, it’s not in the Middle East, not in South America.’ It’s like you see the White House blowing up, and it causes a very strong reaction. And I understand that. But I think [Garland] was very smart in managing his personal political ideas not to merge totally into the film and to make a film that doesn’t have a political agenda.”

“You cannot say that this is a film with a progressive drive or a conservative drive, which is great because the big threat of the film, the thing that the film is talking about, is how dangerous polarization can be, and I love that,” he continued. “So we never discussed anything about why Texas and California are working together—because there is a president who is a fascist. Why wouldn’t they get together to fight against a president who’s trying to destroy democracy? It makes total sense to me. Godzilla and King Kong are working together, too, you know?”

Much attention has also been given to director Alex Garland, who recently decided to quasi-retire from directing for the foreseeable future, citing a lost passion for the work. Moura noted that he believed Garland but didn’t think he seemed unhappy while directing “Civil War.” He also said that it’s not a retirement; it’s just a pause for now.

“No [he wasn’t burdened], I think it’s more like a personal decision. As a fan, of course, I would love to see another Alex Garland film in 2026, but I get it,” Moura said. “And I also admire, and I have this fascination for people that go like, ‘Oh, I’m done. I’m going to do something else.’ Like Daniel Day-Lewis kind of thinks, ‘You know, I’m gonna make shoes.’ But [Alex Garland] said that he’s not retiring. He said he’s done for the foreseeable future. Yeah, and of course, saying ‘foreseeable future’ is a very vague and open thing, but Alex is not a bullshit guy—when he says something, he’ll probably be away from directing for a while.”

Moura is currently returning to Brazil to act in a film for director Kleber Mendonça Filho (“Bacurau”) in his native Portuguese language—something he hasn’t done in nearly a decade. After that, he’s set to return to the United States to direct his first English-language film.

“I’m going to my first film here in the U.S. It’s a film called ‘The Last Night of the Lobster’ based on Stuart O’Nan’s novel,” Moura revealed. “I like to say that it’s an anti-capitalism Christmas movie. The whole film takes place in one day, which is the last day of this food chain restaurant where all the employees got fired a week before Christmas and I play the manager who has to deal with all the employees and tell them what’s going on and I have to pick five of them to take to another venue. And it has to be shot in the winter because everything happens under a snowstorm. So we intend to shoot this like in December/January.”

“Civil War” is in theaters on April 12th. You can listen to the full interview below.