Okay, let's just get one thing out there. If you don't know who Harry Styles is in the year 2017 then you've basically been living under a rock for the past six years. Or your name is Christopher Nolan.
The Dunkirk director revealed in a new interview just how little he knew about Harry before casting him in the movie. He said he had heard of him from his kids but besides that, he really didn't know much about the British crooner. Can you even imagine what that's like? Hearing about one of the biggest celebrities in the world FROM. YOUR. KIDS. Obviously, kids are smart but that's beside the point here.
Christopher chatted with Entertainment Tonight and said, "As a director, I have to trust my instincts, my ability to figure out who's the right guy for the part. I'm not too worried about baggage. I was new to Harry. I mean, I've heard his name from my kids, but I wasn't really familiar with him… What I was seeing [when he auditioned] was a very charismatic guy who clearly had a truthfulness and a subtlety in his ability to perform as a film actor."
Okay, even though Christopher may not have really known how famous Harry was, this may have been a good thing. It's good because he didn't JUST cast him because he was Harry Styles from One Direction. It means that Harry can probably actually act and is probably good at it.
Christopher continued, "What I'm hoping for, when people see the film, is I'm hopeful that they won't miss what he's done, because it's very subtle, very truthful and real. I wasn't giving him a sort of flashy thing to do. But it's really important what he does in terms of what it says, I think, about human nature and what people do in different situations, and I think he pulled it off with incredible grace and reality. And that as a director, that's what you're looking for."
And he just keeps the bloody compliments coming. Christopher actually compared his decision to cast Harry as the part he has in the movie to when he cast the late Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight.
He said, "When I cast Heath Ledger as the Joker [in The Dark Knight], it raised a lot of eyebrows and caused a lot of comment. I have to trust my instincts, and Harry was perfect for this part."
Heath won awards for that performance, including an Oscar for that role, so this kind of gives us some pretty high expectations for what Harry is going to do on-screen. Ultimately, rumors have always run wild that Heath's untimely passing was due in part to spiraling into a depression from what some say was because he got so into his character of The Joker. There's no actual proof that this is true, but there's no denying how much passion he had for the role.
If Harry puts even half as much work into his character in Dunkirk then Christopher's instincts will be spot on.
This article originally appeared on j-14.