When people talk about Kristen Stewart, they usually gravitate toward the blockbuster vampires or the high-fashion Chanel ads. But honestly, if you want to see where she actually proved her mettle, you have to look at the Camp X-Ray cast.
Released in 2014, this indie drama didn’t set the box office on fire, but it did something much more difficult. It took the most politically charged location on the planet—Guantanamo Bay—and turned it into a quiet, claustrophobic character study. It’s a movie about two people stuck in a cage, even if only one of them is behind bars.
The Powerhouse Duo: Stewart and Moaadi
The heart of the film is the friction between Peyman Moaadi and Kristen Stewart.
Stewart plays Pvt. Amy Cole, a small-town girl who joined the military to escape a dead-end life in Florida. She’s green, she’s nervous, and she’s trying way too hard to be the "tough soldier" her superiors expect. Stewart is famously good at that guarded, twitchy energy, and it works perfectly here. She isn't playing a hero; she’s playing a cog in a machine that she doesn't fully understand yet.
Then you have Peyman Moaadi.
If you haven’t seen the Oscar-winning A Separation, you might not have known him before this, but he’s incredible as Ali Amir. He’s "Detainee 471," a man who has been at Gitmo for eight years. While Stewart’s character is all silence and rigidity, Moaadi is a whirlwind of talkative, desperate, and often funny energy.
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Their chemistry isn’t romantic—that would be gross and wrong for this story—it’s human.
Basically, the whole movie hinges on their conversations through a small slot in a cell door. They argue about the Harry Potter books. Ali is obsessed with finding out if Snape is actually a villain, and he’s frustrated that the prison library only has the first six books. It’s a weirdly specific, humanizing detail that director Peter Sattler supposedly found during his research. It grounds the high-stakes political setting in something petty and relatable.
The Supporting Players: More Than Just Background
While the leads get the glory, the rest of the Camp X-Ray cast fills out the oppressive atmosphere of the base.
Lane Garrison plays Cpl. "Randy" Ransdell, and he’s sort of the antagonist of the piece. He’s the veteran guard who has become completely desensitized. He sees the detainees as "them" and the guards as "us," with no room for gray areas.
Interestingly, Garrison brought some heavy real-life experience to the role. He actually spent time in prison himself years prior, and he’s been vocal about how that helped him understand the psychology of both the guards and the guarded. He plays Ransdell with a localized, petty kind of cruelty that feels much more real than a cartoon villain.
Then there’s John Carroll Lynch as Col. Drummond.
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Lynch is one of those "hey, it’s that guy" actors who is good in literally everything. Here, he represents the bureaucracy. He’s not "evil," but he is the personification of the rules. He’s the one who reminds Cole that they don't call them "prisoners," they call them "detainees," because prisoners have rights under the Geneva Convention. That kind of linguistic gymnastics is what the movie critiques so effectively.
The cast also includes:
- Joseph Julian Soria as Pvt. Rico Cruz, a soldier who starts off sympathetic but eventually gets broken down by the environment.
- Cory Michael Smith as Pvt. Bergen.
- Ser'Darius Blain as Pvt. Raymond Jackson.
- Tara Holt as Pvt. Mary Winters.
Why the Performances Mattered
A lot of critics at the time, like David Rooney from The Hollywood Reporter, pointed out that Stewart delivered some of her best work here. She has this way of holding a close-up where you can see the internal struggle between her orders and her empathy.
It’s a "two-hander" for the most part.
When you have a movie that takes place in such a confined space, you can’t hide behind CGI or big action set pieces. You just have the actors. Moaadi, in his first English-language role, had to convey years of trauma and isolation while mostly sitting on a floor. He makes you care about Ali without ever fully answering the question of why he was sent there in the first place—which is exactly the point. The movie doesn't want to litigate his guilt; it wants to look at his humanity.
Production and Realism
They didn't actually film in Cuba, obviously. Most of the movie was shot in San Pedro, California. They used an abandoned warehouse and turned it into a hauntingly accurate replica of the detention cells.
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The budget was tiny—around $1 million—which is basically pocket change for a movie starring someone of Stewart's stature. But that lack of money forced them to focus on the script and the performances.
To prep for the roles, the actors went through a sort of "mini-boot camp" to learn how to move and speak like soldiers. Lane Garrison and Stewart even reportedly spent their downtime on set hitting golf balls into the ocean (or a makeshift range) to blow off the intense emotional steam from the scenes.
Actionable Insights for Viewers
If you’re planning to revisit Camp X-Ray or watch it for the first time, keep an eye on these specific elements:
- Watch the "IRF" Scenes: Look at how the cast handles the "Initial Reaction Force" sequences. It’s a brutal, choreographed process used to subdue detainees. The physical toll on the actors is visible.
- The Harry Potter Subplot: It sounds like a joke, but it’s the primary metaphor for Ali’s existence. He is stuck in a story that he can't finish.
- The Linguistic Shifts: Pay attention to how the officers correct the junior soldiers. The way they use language to distance themselves from the reality of the prison is a masterclass in psychological framing.
To get the most out of the film, it’s worth looking into the real history of the Camp X-Ray facility, which was actually only used for a few months in 2002 before prisoners were moved to Camp Delta. The film uses the "X-Ray" name because of its symbolic weight—the idea of seeing through things.
Check out the early 2010s interviews with Peter Sattler for more context on how he balanced the political "hot potato" of the subject matter. He was very clear about wanting to make a "human" movie rather than a "political" one, and whether he succeeded is still a big point of debate among fans of the film.