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| British singer Harry Styles plays a teenage British soldier in the big-budget wartime epic "Dunkirk". |
The path from pop to screen stardom is strewn with the wreckage of a
thousand broken dreams but British singer Harry Styles may have pulled it off
first time in wartime epic "Dunkirk".
If the first reviews of the big-budget wartime epic which is released
this week are anything to go by, Styles may be about to join a select club that
includes David Bowie and Mark Wahlberg as rare exceptions to the rule.
The One Direction singer plays a teenage British soldier desperate to
escape northern France in 1940 as German troops push the Allies into the sea.
"Harry put in an amazing performance," said the film's British
director Christopher Nolan, the man behind some of the biggest blockbusters
ever made.
"He very much earned his seat at the table and did a wonderful
job," the maker of "Inception" and "The Dark Knight"
told AFP.
Critics who called the film a "masterpiece" in a string of
five-star reviews were also pleasantly surprised by how well the pop star did,
with one tweeting "Harry Styles can act!"
The Guardian called it a "perfectly strong acting debut" while
Britain's Daily Mirror said "if you didn't know who he was, you'd probably
be picking him out as an actor to watch in the future".
The 23-year-old singer trained with the film's stunt crew before the
arduous shoot on the same beaches from which 338,000 British, French and
Canadian troops were evacuated despite constant shelling and bombing raids in
the nine days that became known as the "Miracle of Dunkirk".
- Big gamble -
Styles has screen time alongside heavyweights Cillian Murphy, Kenneth
Branagh and Mark Rylance in the movie.
But co-star Jack Lowden said neither he nor the film's other big screen
first-timers, British actors Fionn Whitehead and Tom Glynn-Carney, looked out
of place in such company.
"It's remarkable what the boys did," he told AFP.
"On a set like this you could pick the wrong two or three guys and
they could implode on you. Christopher Nolan took a gamble and it worked."
Styles, whose debut solo single "Sign of the Times" topped the
charts in 84 countries in May, admitted that the shoot, which was hampered by
bad weather, was tough and that he was "overwhelmed" by his first few
days on set.
Unlike almost all big Hollywood directors, Nolan eschews special
effects.
He insisted on using the actual locations where the events took place,
real warships and World War II aircraft and many of the original "little
boats" that brought the soldiers safely to England.
Nor did he stop filming when gales blasted the French coast, tearing
lumps off an historic jetty he had had rebuilt.
"The whole film was a bit of a challenge. We were not working in
normal film set conditions," Styles told AFP before its premiere in
Dunkirk on Sunday.
"Chris is very visceral in the way he works, which can be intense
at times. It was nothing of course compared to the real story... but yeah it
was tough."
- Who's Harry Styles? -
Styles's character Alex is one of a group of young soldiers whose ordeal
on the beaches is followed over a week in the film.
"Alex has this edge to him. He comes off a little more hardened
than the other guys. Alex likes the idea of being the tough guy, but he's also
really scared," he said.
"It is impossible to know how you would have reacted (in that
situation). And luckily we haven't had to.
"Growing up in England you learn a little bit about Dunkirk in
school. But because it is not our finest moment it is often washed over and
told quite quickly," Styles added.
"It is this fairytale story of people who were on the beach and then
were picked up and taken home" by the plucky little boats.
Nolan, 46, who made his name with "Memento" starring Guy
Pearce in 2000, admitted that he didn't really know who Styles was before he
began casting for the film.
"My kids talked about him, but I don't think I was that aware of
how famous Harry was.
"We were looking at thousands and thousands of young men in open
casting calls" when Harry put himself forward, he said.
"We were determined to cast fresh faces
unknowns ironically but Harry very much earned his seat at the table."
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