https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xb9Ty-1frw

For some actors it wasn't so hard to bring to life the desperate climate under the thumb of ruthless African warlords in "Beasts of No Nation." It was a real-life role they had already played.

Director Cary Fukunaga revealed to Vulture that he tapped some former combatants who participated in civil wars in Africa for his cast. The "True Detective" directed found the ex-militants in a Liberian refugee camp outside Accra, Ghana, where the drama was filmed. "We got a lot of our cast from that refugee camp," he said.

"Yeah, we had a lot of former combatants on the film," Fukunaga explained. "Anyway, the naked guy, he was a child soldier for Charles Taylor. He started when he was 10. We had all sorts of guys who were former combatants." Taylor, a former Liberian president, is now serving a 50-year sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Set amid a civil war in West Africa, Idris Elba plays a warlord who takes an orphaned youngster, played by Abraham Attah, as his protégé. The arresting drama follows the brutality of war through a child soldier's eyes.

"Beasts of No Nation" was featured part of the Venice Film Festival, will land on 29 big screen theaters on its Oct. 16 release date, along with a release on Netflix that same day.