ABC/Phil McCartenHarry Styles is releasing his first solo single this week, but in July, he’ll make his big-screen acting debut in Dunkirk, directed by Christopher Nolan. Asked why he cast the One Direction singer, the Dark Knight series director Nolan says despite Harry’s relative lack of acting experience, he had the skills to pull off the role.
Dunkirk is about the evacuation of 400,000 Allied soldiers who were surrounded by the German army on the beaches of Dunkirk, France during World War II. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Nolan says, “When we put the cast together, we had some established names: Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy…But for the guys on the beach, we really wanted young unknowns.”
Nolan continues, “He’s not that unknown, but he’d never done anything as an actor before. So he auditioned. I auditioned literally thousands of young men with different combinations of young men. And he had it.”
Harry, of course, had to cut off his long hair to portray a World War II soldier. Asked if he was hesitant to do so, Nolan says, “I don’t want to get into it.”
Nolan also directed Memento, Inception, and Interstellar, among many other films.
Dunkirk hits theaters July 21.
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