THiS!! https://twitter.com/kiwi94325808/status/1588874735852875778?s=46&t=v3rXOPV-KuysW-QUsNFmyA

This is honestly one of my favorite scenes. I’ve watched it so many times. Harry’s just brilliant in it. And Michael’s quotes are heartbreaking.

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My Policeman (2022) dir. Michael Grandage

In regards to the small British movie My Policeman, Grandage was surprised to receive a phone call from Styles’ agent. Styles wasn’t even top of mind for the project when Grandage was putting it together. The film tells the story of a love triangle in the late 1950s when homosexuality was illegal in the UK, between a gay museum curator, the married police officer he loves, and the latter’s wife, as well as the relationship’s ramifications forty years later. “On this occasion from Harry’s team, they said we passed this script to him because he is looking for another movie, he really responded to the material,” recalls Grandage. “It was a very inspiring meeting for me. You probably know but most of the time a director is in a room trying to convince an actor to be in a film. So, it was really interesting being in a room with somebody who had read the novel at least once, I could tell, read the screenplay multiple times, and was talking intelligently about what they wanted to bring to the role of Tom,” exclaims Grandage about Styles. Why the role of Tom? Grandage says that Styles was drawn to the part as it entailed him “playing a complex character of somebody who couldn’t really express their emotions.” “Somebody who was hidden behind themselves almost. Somebody who had almost emotionally shut themselves down from the people and the world they’re in because he was a policeman in a society where it was illegal to be gay. So, basically what do you do in that situation? You pull your card very, very close to your chest and give absolutely nothing away,” adds the director. “So, he was intrigued about playing an inner life rather than an outer life. That interested him. He was interested in playing something internal where very little was given away. In fact, so little was given away, both (characters) Marion and Patrick found it difficult to read him. That’s the point of the character. The only other point of the character is that you, the audience, have got to believe why two people fell in love with him. So, if they didn’t fall in love with him because of his personality giving stuff out, they must have just fallen in love with him because he’s incredibly beautiful and charismatic to look at. So, a combination of those two factors was something Harry understood straight away. He said the inner life of this character is so interesting because the outer life is sort of shut.” “I thought, ‘You get him. You completely get him,” says Grandage. But beyond a mere acting feat, My Policeman meant an even greater deal to Styles as it’s a film that spoke directly to his LGBTQ fanbase. For Styles “being able to connect with (them on) a story that would genuinely mean something and connect and help people understand what it could be like if you start rolling back laws,” emphasizes Grandage. “That was also incredibly important to him,” adds the director, “being involved in a movie that may well help be part of a bigger debate.” Styles was engaged in three full weeks of rehearsals before shooting My Policeman. Says Grandage about working with Styles and the cast, “I wanted all of those discussions, all the rehearsal, even the staging, particularly the intimacy stuff. I wanted all of it to happen in advance. I wanted all of us to have really discussed in some depth about what we wanted to get from the scene, even backstory, coming to the scene, where we’re going.”

Harry Styles’ Fall Season Is A Sign Of The Times: From Onstage Extrovert To Complex Roles In ‘My Policeman’ & ‘Don’t Worry Darling ‘ II Deadline

The cast and director of My Policeman at the photo call in Toronto. 

My Policeman director Michael Grandage opens up about bringing sensuality to his intimate gay love story – and casting Harry Styles. The story is essentially about class and sex. The intertwined lives of three young people in post-war Britain are played out in parallel with their 40-year-older selves. Longing and regret runs counter to youthful lust and ambition. The thread that joins it all up is the very British theme of restraint. I was born into an England where homosexuality was illegal. As much as I wanted the film to be both beautiful and moving, I also wanted it to speak to a generation who may not fully appreciate what life was like in our relatively recent past. And that notion of restraint, of how things were, needed to be present in every aspect of the film; from the look and score to the melancholia that younger Patrick (David Dawson) feels as a gay man in the 1950s.

When it came to casting the film, we started with the younger generation and Harry Styles was the first to come on board. We had a great discussion about the story and, from the way he spoke about the script and the novel it's based on, it was clear he understood Tom as a character. Emma Corrin was just emerging, as early photos of them playing Princess Diana in The Crown had been released but it hadn't actually come out. I met with Emma and it became evident very quickly they had access to so much of younger Marion's spirit. And David is an actor I've worked with a number of times in the theater. I wanted somebody who successfully conveyed a sense of period as well as bringing an internal life to the character.

Their older selves [played by Linus Roache, Gina McKee and Rupert Everett] followed quite quickly, making the whole casting process relatively straight forward. I knew I was looking for actors who would embody their younger selves without needing to look exactly like them. After all, we change so much. I look at photographs of myself when I was 40 years younger and I barely recognize that person. Certainly, there are a few moments in the film where young and older characters cross over. But that's an emotional memory of the past, whether it's Patrick thinking he is with a younger Marion or, later, with the Tom that he fell in love with. We all play with time differently and this film explore how memory and time are bound together.

Intimacy is a key motif in the film and most particularly how it is expressed through the hands. I wanted it to take on an almost sculptural feel and the sensuality of touch is a key element of the storytelling. That first touch of a finger brushing a neck, a secret touch of a hand at a concert, fingers gliding over marble, holding a cigarette, the washing of a hand as part of a ritual, hands digging into flesh at the height of male passion, or clinging on for dear life as a newly married couple navigate their way through something. It all represents a physical life to the film in bonds the characters together over 40 years.

The intimacy we see in the film between Patrick and something that others can now experience in the UK without fear of breaking the law. But the huge gains in creating a more open society around the world are beginning to feel fragile again - and I see this film as an opportunity to create debate. We watch the action in 1958 and 1999 through the prism of our own time; so, in a way, three periods come to life that offer us life that offer us the chance to explore how far we’ve come and how precarious those freedoms are.

via Curzon. (16 August 2022)

My Policeman (2022)

“touch has a memory.”

Now that My Policeman is out, I just have to mention from the viewpoint of my artsy oriented brain how gorgeous they thread the theme and visual connections of art and real life throughout the movie. Specially, so much focus on their hands, the touches to marble to the touches of body, the way Patrick sees Tom almost as a piece of art himself, sculpture or painting of everything he desires. It ties beautifully together and really paints (no pun intended that time) the picture of how both Patrick and Marion see Tom and see who he is beyond the surface. I just love it and bravo to Michael and his team for making that happen.

Film after film: My Policeman (dir. Michael Grandage, 2022)

I don't mean to be profane, but aren't objects of beauty there to be worshipped?

My Policeman

Harry truthfully and as he knows it representing a closeted gay man in a societally-forced fauxmance. Understatement of the year.

Love this era of blatantly stating the obvious. Feels very Big Gay War of him but this time others have joined the fight.

Adding - Harry came to THEM with the script memorized and ideas for scenes.

https://twitter.com/susanboylestea1/status/1582836443486990337?s=46&t=OoSnJ9GBpaheSzG49-wrPA 😭😭😭

Yes, yes, yes!!! Harry was perfect for this role, not just because he’s a closeted queer man and he can understand that struggle. But I think he also must have deeply understood that character because, like Harry Styles TM, Tom is a blank slate that everyone around him projects their fantasies onto.

MY POLICEMAN : THE ART OF HANDS (dir. Michael Grandage)

My Policeman (2022)

Dir. Michael Grandage

Language: English

Not at first. The script was swishing around CAA, and so one day, we got this curious call. it was Harry’s agent at CAA. He said: ”Just so you know, we shared this script with Harry, and he has responded to the material and would love to meet you.” Then they did that lovely thing of going: ‘If that’s okay.’ At the time Dunkirk was just out, and he’d been wrapping on Don’t Worry Darling. I met with Harry at my offices in London, at the top of one of the theatres in the West End.I was astonished. He’d read the novels, which I would have expected, but sometimes don’t over-expect. But the bit that had easily astonished me was he’d read the screenplay so many times, clearly numerous times, because he was able to quote quite a lot of the material that didn’t even involve the character of Tom, which shows an astonishing level of understanding. He was briefed and prepared with a real understanding of both the novel and the screenplay that I thought: I don’t understand why I wouldn’t do this, actually. I don’t understand why I wouldn’t want to go here? ‘You are charismatic, you have proved that you want to be on screen, your want to carry on doing film work; you are intelligent and up for discussion. I think we’ve got to try and make it a reality.’ It was very, very straightforward once we got him. I think we did then decide to cast the other two [young] actors first and then find the older actors to respond to the younger cast.

Michael Grandage about Harry’s casting process for MP

“Actually, we met Harry in person. Yeah, he turned up at my office in London. He had a copy of the book in his pocket. When he went outside he was snapped, and the book cover started to go a bit viral and it just took off.”

-Michael Grandage on casting Harry for the role of Tom during COVID restrictions. (24 November 2022)

via Amazon Studios