Christopher Nolan has claimed he didn’t know exactly how popular Harry Styles is when he directed him in Dunkirk.
"I mean, my daughter had talked about him. My kids talked about him,” Nolan told The Hollywood Reporter.
“I cast Harry because he fit the part wonderfully and truly earned a seat at the table.”
Nolan told Entertainment Tonight: “I was new to Harry. I mean, I’ve heard his name from my kids, but I wasn’t really familiar with him.”
At Styles’ audition, the director said he saw “a very charismatic guy who clearly had a truthfulness and a subtlety in his ability to perform as a film actor.”
Styles appears as a British soldier in the new film, which focuses on the evacuation of Allied soldiers from Dunkirk, France in 1940.
Actor Mark Rylance also said he found out that Styles was a famous pop star from his 11-year-old niece.
“She was just more excited than anything I've ever done because I was going to be acting with Harry Styles,” he said.
One of Styles’ young co-stars told Digital Spy there’s too much attention on the former One Direction singer’s involvement in the film.
Fionn Whitehead praised Styles’ work in Dunkirk but added: “It’s got a bit silly really … There’s an amazing cast - including Harry - but there’s, you know, the creme de la creme of actors.
“The focus should not be Harry Styles doing a movie, it should be on the piece in general or his ability to act. And he’s great.”
Whitehead blamed the media. “They have put too much emphasis on this one guy instead of the piece as a whole and the ensemble as a whole.”