International sex symbol and LGBTQ ally Harry Styles will perform his first gay sex scene in the highly anticipated film "My Policeman," directed by Michael Grandage.
Grandage recently opened up about the process of filming those intimate moments with Styles, who stars as a closeted cop in the 1950s period drama.
In a Vanity Fair interview published Thursday, the filmmaker described the movie's sex scenes as lovemaking "in the broadest sense of the word, something that was choreographically interesting and not just some kind of thrusting sense of sex going on."
As Vanity Fair put it, Grandage wanted to avoid "prurience" while blocking those sequences, which he said were inspired by the "very sculptural" body language of the 1959 Alain Resnais film "Hiroshima Mon Amour."
Based on Bethan Roberts' novel of the same name, "My Policeman" centers on a gay police officer named Tom (Styles) who falls in love with a male museum curator (David Dawson) while married to a female schoolteacher (Emma Corrin).
"These two men, when they're together, seem to be free," Grandage told Vanity Fair. "And then when he has to have an act of lovemaking, or a sexual act, with his wife he seems to not have that freedom, just even in his body language."
Distributed by Amazon, "My Policeman" will open in cinemas Oct. 21, almost exactly a month after Olivia Wilde's "Don't Worry Darling" — also starring Styles — hits theaters. A streaming release on Amazon Prime Video will follow Nov. 4.
In an April interview with Capital FM, Styles warned against watching either of his steamy upcoming projects "with your parents" and joked that he would "have to do another" film that's more family friendly in the future. The pop musician also shared what it was like to shoot sex scenes for the first time as his acting career begins to take off.
"All I can say from my own experience is that I was very lucky to have a very trusting relationship within the people that we were working with," he said.
"Above anything that's happening ... we're doing this together, and we trust each other. ... we can stop whenever, and all that kind of stuff. ... I'd never done that before — on camera, at least."
Ever since he emerged as a standout member of the British-Irish boy band One Direction, fans have long speculated about Styles' sex life and sexuality, which he discussed candidly in an interview with Better Homes & Gardens earlier this year.
Initially, Styles said, he was "ashamed at the idea of people even knowing" that he was having sex — "let alone who with."
"But I think I got to a place where I was like, why do I feel ashamed?" he told the magazine. "I'm a 26-year-old man who's single; it's like, yes, I have sex."
As for his sexuality, Styles said, "I've been really open with it with my friends, but that's my personal experience; it's mine."
"The whole point of where we should be heading, which is toward accepting everybody and being more open, is that it doesn't matter, and it's about not having to label everything, not having to clarify what boxes you're checking," he added.
With both "My Policeman" and "Don't Worry Darling" on the horizon, Los Angeles fans of the "Harry's House" artist are bracing for a Harry Styles fall: Just days after "My Policeman" hits theaters, the pop sensation will play his first of 15 consecutive shows at the Forum in Inglewood.
Tickets are already sold out for the L.A. concert series, which begins Oct. 23 and ends Nov. 15.
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