When you heard that Harry Styles was starring in a gritty Christopher Nolan thriller about a World War II evacuation, you could have been forgiven for expecting the worst.
And if you did go into the whole thing feeling cynical, chances are you may have been surprised at just how good the former One Directioner actually turned out to be.
Christopher Nolan wasn't, though. In the BBC Radio 1 interview above (skip to 5:00), the Dunkirk director explains that he wasn't surprised by it at all.
"My job [...] is to meet someone, audition them, look at them, and figure out what they can do," he explains. "But I was very pleased by people's reaction to what Harry did."
Nolan goes on to say that Styles actually took a pretty big risk with the film, because his performance is so subtle.
"He's very, very real in what he does in the film, which is what I wanted," says Nolan. "It's very truthful.
"But it's not glamorous. He's not an exotic villain, there's nothing obvious that he gets to do -- you're playing human frailty."
