Harry Styles is trying his hand at acting in a big way. He’s not taking easy roles. One of his new roles, as Tom in My Policeman, presents a serious challenge.
In the film, Styles’ character is a gay policeman who is deep in the closet. When his wife becomes jealous of the love of his life, she exposes him, leading to his arrest. Styles’ performance has yet to be fully evaluated by critics, but his mere presence on set put some of his fellow actors on edge.
‘My Policeman’ was filmed during the pandemic
According to Variety, Styles’ co-star Emma Corrin was nervous to work with Styles, especially since she had to go into a sound booth with him to record some audio. It would be intimidating for almost anyone to go into a sound booth with Styles, who has been dominating the music charts for years.
Styles worked closely with Corrin and co-star David Dawson. The three play young versions of the policeman Tom, his wife Marion, and his lover Patrick. My Policeman jumps between time periods. Styles and his costars played the younger versions of Marion, Patrick, and Tom, while other actors played their older counterparts.
Because of the pandemic, the six actors playing Tom, Marion, and Patrick didn’t get a chance to rehearse together. Instead, they met over Zoom. Linus Roache played the older version of Tom, and he was particularly intimidated by Styles.
Linus Roache was nervous about portraying an older version of Harry Styles’ character in ‘My Policeman’
Styles is a well-known figure in entertainment. Fans know his mannerisms and his face well. That’s what made Roache nervous about portraying an older version of Tom in My Policeman. He told Variety that he and Styles had one on one Zoom calls so that he could try to make Tom a cohesive character in both time periods, but the director didn’t push him to imitate Styles completely.
The director told Roache, “‘We’re different people 40 years later, so don’t worry about trying to imitate your younger partner.’ It was a relief to be released from the person having to imitate Harry Styles.” Roache told Variety.
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Even though Roache was not asked to mirror Styles’ unique mannerisms completely, he still had three weeks of one on one Zoom calls to nail down Tom’s character. That’s a long time for movie rehearsals. Delays because of the pandemic may have contributed to the long rehearsal time.
Long rehearsal time or not, the actors working on My Policeman took their roles seriously. Dawson even took the time to learn about gay bars during the 1950s.
David Dawson learned about gay bars while filming ‘My Policeman’
Dawson plays Patrick’s younger self in My Policeman. He is gay himself and is likely familiar with modern gay bars, but he didn’t realize how important gay bars were in the 1950s. At the time, it was effectively illegal to be gay. That’s what the movie My Policeman is all about. But the LGBTQ community found safe haven in gay bars at the time.
Luckily, Dawson was able to use a source alive at the time to learn about gay culture in the 1950s. He told Variety, “I have a man who’s very special to me who I worked with years ago, and became close friends with him. He used to tell me a lot of beautiful stories of him growing up as a gay man during this period.”
He also watched a docudrama titled Against the Law to prepare and understand the implications of being gay in the 1950s.
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