From viral social media videos, to the concert stage and the big screen, Harry Styles is everywhere these days – including Toronto. The 28-year-old superstar musician and actor was in town last month (can you believe it?…time flies) for his sold-out “Love On Tour,” which packed the Scotiabank Arena with thousands of feather boa-sporting fans – some of whom had camped out on city streets for days. Styles is set to soon grace the city once again, when his film My Policeman makes its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Harry Styles is clearly no stranger to the spotlight, having launched his career back in 2010 as a solo contestant on British music competition series The X Factor, which resulted in him joining best-selling boy band One Direction before going on hiatus in 2016 to focus on his solo career.
In 2017, his self-titled debut solo album debuted at number one in the UK and the US and was one of the world’s top-ten best-selling albums of the year, with his smash hit “Sign of the Times” topping the UK Singles Chart. Harry Styles went on to deliver more global hits with his second studio album, “Fine Line,” released December 2019. Its fourth single, “Watermelon Sugar,” topped the Billboard Top 100. Among his accolades are also two Brit Awards and a Grammy.
The summer of Styles
In support of “Fine Line” (released December 2019) and most recent album “Harry’s House” (released May 2022), “Love On Tour” is the second concert tour by the English singer-songwriter. Much to the joy of fans throughout the world, the widely popular tour is seemingly never-ending, with Harry Styles making headlines as of late for adding 19 new dates in 2023…with more coming soon.
The celebrated album “Harry’s House” quickly went on to define summer 2022, with its chart-topping single, “As It Was,” which reached the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and stayed there for 10 weeks. The song was also recently named Spotify’s Most Streamed Song of the Summer by users around the world. With “As it Was” on top of the list, Styles also showed up again further down the list, with “Late Night Talking” taking the 13th position among global Spotify users. In Canada – where “As it Was” topped the list as well – “Late Night Talking” was the ninth most streamed tune of the season.
In a recent interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Styles says the making of Harry’s House “wasn’t about the geographical location,” rather it was “much more of an internal thing.” As the title would suggest, it centres on a day in Harry’s house. “What do I go through? A day in my mind, what do I go through in my house? I’m playing fun music. I’m playing sad music. I’m playing this, I’m playing that. Feeling stuff. Kind of like a day in the life. I like all of that stuff,” Styles told Lowe. “And I think while it obviously is a lot more electronic in a lot of places than anything I’ve made, it’s also so much more intimate to me–and so much more intimately made.”
Styles told Lowe that he made the music on the album because it’s what he wanted to listen to. “And this is my favorite album at the moment, and I love it so much,” said Styles. Clearly, he’s not alone.
Harry Styles steals the big screen
With just a handful of film credits under his belt, Harry Styles is now creating a buzz for his acting talents too. The musician made his big screen debut in Christopher Nolan’s Academy Award-winning film Dunkirk in 2017.
Now, Styles stars alongside Florence Pugh in the highly anticipated upcoming psychological thriller Don’t Worry Darling, which will hit theatres on September 23. Directed by Styles’ then girlfriend Olivia Wilde (as it’s believed they may no longer be together, although not confirmed), the film tells the story of a 1950s housewife (played by Pugh), who is living in a utopian experimental community and begins to wonder that her husband’s seemingly glamourous company is hiding dark and disturbing secrets. The film just premiered at the Venice International Film Festival on September 5, where Styles admitted to journalists that he wasn’t exactly as confident in his acting chops as others are of his on-screen talent.
“Music I’ve done a little longer so I’m a bit more comfortable.”
Harry Styles
“Music I’ve done a little longer so I’m a bit more comfortable. What I like about acting is I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing,” said Harry Styles at the coveted film festival.
Next up for Styles comes closer to home with TIFF 2022. Set to screen September 11, My Policeman is a film adaptation of a novel of the same name. The period piece takes place in both the 1950s and the 1990s and centres around a policeman who marries a woman while carrying on a relationship with a male museum curator. Its ensemble cast – which also includes names like Emma Corrin, Gina McKee, Linus Roache, David Dawson, and Rupert Everett – has been selected for a TIFF Tribute Award for Performance.
From stage sensation to style icon
When it comes to fashion, Harry Styles is known for his colourful and flamboyant personal style that boldly sets him apart from the sea of suits on awards show red carpets. It’s safe to say his evolving style has come a long way since his boy band days. While not without its critics, we on the other hand feel the way Harry Styles expresses himself through fashion is a progressive step in the right direction in terms of genderbending norms, but also reminiscent of the 1970s era, when fashion was more fluid. Styles was the first man to appear solo on the cover of Vogue, and GQ has called him “the best-dressed musician in the world.” In mid-October, Gucci is set to release a collaborative collection between Alessandro Michele and Styles, called “Gucci Ha Ha Ha”– which we can’t wait to get our hands on. As his tour continues, we’re definitely only going to see more inspiring outfits from the fashion-forward star.
On a more personal level
It’s safe to say that Styles is one of the most wanted men on the planet, right now. Of course, his highly publicized relationship with fellow superstar Olivia Wilde (the pair connected on the set of Don’t Worry Darling) is the subject of both perpetual headlines and social media banter – with people either calling it #goals or taboo. Think what you will, they’re a red-hot couple in our books, whether or not people believe they’re still together.
Despite the pace and the global success, Styles says in his interview with Lowe that he’s found a sense of balance. “You miss so many birthdays and stuff like that. And then eventually, it’s just assumed that you’re unable to be at stuff. And I think that was one of the things where I was like, ‘oh, I want to take a second into balancing my life out a little bit.’ This working is not everything about who I am, it’s something I do. And I don’t want to be defined as a person necessarily by what I do all the time,” said Styles.
He tells Lowe that his career began to define him.
“And for a really long time, I didn’t really know who I was if I didn’t do this.”
Harry Styles
“And for a really long time, I didn’t really know who I was if I didn’t do this. And that’s really scary because you go like, ‘Okay, well if this ends, am I going to be good at handling it? What am I going to feel like?’ And I think it just gave me an opportunity to get comfortable with who I am and get to know that person a little bit more,” he said. “And putting out the first single from this album was far and away the most relaxed I’ve ever felt putting anything out. I no longer feel like my overall happiness is dependent on whether a song goes here or goes here.”
Styles will hit Toronto later this month. Whether or not his TIFF premiere is met with as much, um, drama (Google it) as the Venice International Film Festival will remain to be seen. Either way, one thing is for sure: Toronto will embrace Styles with open arms, as we always do.
Credits
Editorial Direction, Art and design by, Steven Branco; Cover shot by Hanna Moon; Special thank you to the Sony Entertainment Canada, Amazon Studios, Warner Brothers Canada, and TIFF teams for their assistance to help bring this story together, and very special thank you to Apple Music‘s Zane Lowe and the Apple Canada team for their amazing interview and sharing it with us for use.
