Harry Styles Auditioned And Beat Thousands To Contenders To Land Christopher Nolan's 'Dunkirk'

While “Dunkirk” will mark a more serious side to Christopher Nolan, as he dives into an epic WWII story, the rest of the filmmaking ingredients we’ve come to expect from the director are here: big setpieces and spectacle, feverish attention to detail, and some big stars too. However, in addition to newcomers including Fionn Whitehead, one of Nolan’s most surprising decisions was hiring Harry Styles of One Direction fame for his first major film role. Was it a move by Nolan to expand the interest in his film or maybe encourage the studio that they could feel confident financing the picture, with such a popular young name attached? Well, according to the director, Styles simply had the goods.

READ MORE: Christopher Nolan Explains PG-13 Rating For ‘Dunkirk,’ Denies Crashing $5 Million Plane

“When we put the cast together, we had some established names: Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy. But for the guys on the beach, we really wanted young unknowns. 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,” Nolan told the LA Times.

Asked about whether or not Styles objected to cutting his glorious hair, Nolan immediately shut down the question: “I don’t want to get into it.” He also pretty much said the same when the interviewer tried to broach Ben Affleck‘s Batman. Nolan’s not playing that game….

“Dunkirk” opens on July 21st.

(P.S. I know that’s not Harry Styles in the image above, but there are no official stills of him in the film yet).