By all accounts, it has been a big week for Harry Styles, as he pulls headline-making moments for his two upcoming, high-drama Hollywood films.
His 110 million social media fans – not including another 70 million on Spotify – are intrigued by his God-given beauty, his androgyny, that he is a pop culture singing and acting enigma, oh, and the fact he can appear to spit on a male co-star, then swap spit with one in his next.
On the red carpet and at the premiere of his film Don’t Worry Darling at the 79th Venice Film Festival, he was the centre of a media frenzy.
He couldn’t catch a break, but it didn’t matter and he didn’t care.
The September 7 release of the first full trailer for his next film, My Policeman – in which he plays a 1950s gay man – has sparked online delight and an ongoing debate about his sexuality.
Styles brought it all together on stage at Madison Square Garden in New York on September 8, swapping his Gucci pantsuit from Venice for his signature sequinned pants with a purple and yellow T-shirt.
In front of 80,000 screaming fans, he addressed the so-called ‘‘spit-gate’’ episode, and then grabbed a Gay Pride rainbow flag and waved it across the stage.
‘‘Wonderful to be back in New York. I just popped very quickly to Venice to spit on Chris Pine,’’ he joked, smiling.
Emotional journey
The first full trailer for Amazon Prime’s intimate drama My Policeman shows Styles, who plays a married police officer, involved in a secret homosexual affair.
The scenes released so far have some viewers reflecting on the impact Heath Ledger had in the 2005 film Brokeback Mountain.
An adaptation of Bethan Roberts’ 2012 romance novel, My Policeman follows policeman Tom (Styles), teacher Marion (Emma Corrin) and museum curator Patrick (David Dawson, The Last Kingdom) as they embark on ‘‘an emotional journey in 1950s Britain’’.
‘‘Flashing forward to the 1990s, Tom (Linus Roache), Marion (Gina McKee), and Patrick (Rupert Everett) are still reeling with longing and regret, but now they have one last chance to repair the damage of the past.’’
The movie is set around the time that Britain’s Wolfenden Report recommended decriminalising homosexuality, but this wasn’t legislated for another decade.
“This love is all consuming,” says Styles’ character, during a racy bedroom scene in the trailer.
“I pity people who don’t know what it feels like to be this in love. Come with me, just you and I.”
Director Michael Grandage told Vanity Fair in June he was ‘‘immediately impressed’’ by Styles, and that his limited experience would work well for him in this role.
“Because he hasn’t done much, he hasn’t developed the ability to work out tricks or even lie.
‘‘He can only do it truthfully and as he knows it,” he says, likening his naturalistic work to that of a young Albert Finney or Tom Courtenay.
His gender-fluid, mass appeal through his fashion and music, and the frequent comparisons to Mick Jagger and David Bowie prompted Styles to tell Rolling Stone in June: “Sometimes people say, ‘You’ve only publicly been with women’, and I don’t think I’ve publicly been with anyone.”
‘‘If someone takes a picture of you with someone, it doesn’t mean you’re choosing to have a public relationship or something,” he said.
‘Fret not’: Harry moves on, quickly
Back on stage in New York, Styles shrugged off the Venice Film Festival sideshow and unsavoury speculation he spat on co-star Chris Pine.
After a short pause where he laughed and looked at his band, he said: ‘‘Fret not, we’re back … you can sit, you can dance, you can feel free to be whoever you want to be in this room tonight.’’
More importantly, it closed the door on the shenanigans between his fellow Don’t Worry Darling cast members, including rumours of a rift after apparently snubbing his girlfriend and the film’s director and star, Olivia Wilde, on the red carpet.
Wilde, 38, and Styles, 28, met on set last year after Shia LaBeouf (Transformers franchise) needed to be replaced.
Lining up for the world’s cameras during a red carpet photo shoot, Styles refused a request from a member of Wilde’s team to swap positions and stand next to her.
Special mention in this saga goes to the hundreds of memes created after his press call with Pine, when Styles was asked about the movie.
In one clip, Styles could be seen giving a vanilla explanation of why he liked working on Don’t Worry Darling: “My favourite thing about the movie is that it feels like a movie,’’ he said, causing Pine to visibly cringe.
‘‘Our favourite thing about Oreo cookies is that they taste like Oreo cookies,’’ wrote one bemused fan.
Styles’ entree into the acting world – which started with 2014’s Dunkirk and evolved to Eros in Marvel’s Eternals last year – is now secure, as far as his fans are concerned anyway.
My Policeman will be available on Prime Video in Australia and New Zealand on November 4
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