Harry Styles Beat Out Thousands Of Other Actors For 'Dunkirk' Role

The director of Harry Styles‘s first-ever film is opening up about why he was cast.

The 23-year-old “Sign of the Times” singer had to audition for Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan says, and he actually beat a lot of other guys for the role.

“When we put the cast together, we had some established names: Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy,” Christopher told Los Angeles Times. “But for the guys on the beach, we really wanted young unknowns. He’s not that unknown, but he’d never done anything as an actor before. So he auditioned. I auditioned literally thousands of young men with different combinations of young men. And he had it.”

Mark your calendars – Dunkirk hits theaters on July 21.