Prime Video has shared first-look images at Michael Grandage’s My Policeman, starring Harry Styles, Emma Corrin, and David Dawson. The images offer a glimpse at the married life of Styles’ closeted character Tom Burgess and Corrin’s Marion Burgess, as well as the love triangle between the pair and a museum curator named Patrick Hazelwood (Dawson).
Based on the 2012 novel by Bethan Roberts, My Policeman follows Tom, Marion, and Patrick in two different time periods. The first, set in Brighton in 1957, follows policeman Tom as he struggles with his sexuality during a time where it is illegal to be gay. Pressured by society’s expectations, he pursues a relationship with schoolteacher Marion while also embarking on a secret love affair with Patrick. Forty years later, we see the three still intertwined, as Marion decides to take in an elderly Patrick after he suffers a stroke— the move implodes her marriage with Tom.
When it came to selecting the three actors at the center of the story, Grandage admits in an interview with Vanity Fair that Styles was by no means his first choice, and it was Styles’ team who actually approached him. Despite only appearing in one film prior to his audition (2017's Dunkirk), Grandage says Styles stunned him from the start of their meeting.
“He had read the script so many times that he knew every single beat of it at that meeting. I found that incredibly impressive. He knew other people’s lines; he knew all of his lines,” Grandage says, “He knew why he wanted to talk about it, why one scene worked this way and another worked.”
The director also explains why Styles’ lack of acting experience actually worked in their favor during filming.
“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, comparing him to Albert Finney or Tom Courtenay. “They just bring themselves to the role, and it seems to be very uncomplicated in the way they achieve it and Harry had that.”
My Policeman premieres in theaters on October 21 before arriving on Prime Video on November 2. Styles also stars in Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling opposite Florence Pugh, which arrives in theaters on September 23.