Christopher Nolan surprised a lot of people when he cast singer Harry Styles in his World War II epic Dunkirk, and not just because it marked the former One Direction member’s big screen acting debut. Nolan’s productions are always shrouded in secrecy, so it seemed strange that he would basically invite extra unwanted attention from the paparazzi by adding someone to the cast who finds themselves being hounded by both the press and a legion of fans wherever they go.
That being said, the Inception director admitted that there were parallels between casting Styles in Dunkirk and choosing Heath Ledger to play the Joker in The Dark Knight, another casting choice that was met with confusion and skepticism before the actor went on to deliver one of the most iconic performances of the 21st Century.
Much to Styles’ credit, he acquitted himself well in Dunkirk and didn’t prove to be as distracting as you would expect a world famous pop star to be in a grounded and realistic war movie, although it hasn’t led to a full-blown jump into acting as many were predicting. Having turned down a role in The Little Mermaid remake, the 26 year-old’s fans recently went crazy at the news that he could be starring alongside Brad Pitt in a film, even though it turned out to be false.
Now, the latest unfounded rumor claims that Styles has signed on to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a top secret role, which was revealed in a post on Twitter from Kris Tapley of Netflix before being swiftly deleted. While it seems like a very remote possibility, Eternals star Richard Madden did admit last year that the full cast of the movie has yet to be revealed, and Styles’ Dunkirk co-star Barry Keoghan is already on board, so who knows? That being said, a casting coup of that magnitude would no doubt be very difficult to keep under wraps, even for the MCU.