Nicholas Galitzine Dances All Night to the Best Song Ever in August Moon ‘Guard Down’ Video
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Maybe it’s the way Nicholas Galitzine walked straight into our hearts and stole it — through the doors and past the guards, just like he already owned it. Or maybe it’s just August Moon, the fictional boy band the actor fronted for Prime Video’s The Idea of You, channeling the spirit of One Direction in the music video for their song “Guard Down.”
Helmed by the film’s directed Michael Showalter, the “Guard Down” video evoked flashbacks to the 2013 release of One Direction’s “Best Song Ever” video — that is to say, it centers on five boy band members completely disregarding authority after an unserious opening skit sets the scene.
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“This is the third album song,” Savan Kotecha, who wrote and produced The Idea of You soundtrack, recently told Rolling Stone about “Guard Down.” The electric guitar-laced cut has racked up more than 3 million streams on Spotify since the film was released. Coincidentally, “Best Song Ever” was the lead single from Midnight Memories, One Direction’s more rock-driven third album. Just saying.
“It’s all about the pitfalls of fame,” Kotecha continued. “Letting your guard down is either substance abuse, or women, or whatever … partaking in things you know you shouldn’t and losing someone that’s known you before you were famous.”
Galitzine is the only member of August Moon who actually sings — Kotecha cut vocals on the soundtrack in place of the others — but they feel like a real band on-screen thanks to the boy band boot camp training they endured to build a sense of genuine connection while making the film. It’s what makes their choreography and camaraderie in the “Guard Down” video work on top of the song actually being kind of excellent.
“I have some friends who are musicians and pop stars. And the lifestyle to me — it’s so crazy. I have such admiration for them because whether you’re going on tour or performing in front of 80,000 people, it’s just entirely different,” Galitzine told Rolling Stone in a recent interview. “Acting is quite insular in a way, whereas being a musician, you have to give all your energy outwards. I had such fun doing the music side of it. But whether I can be a pop star in real life, I think, is maybe be a different thing altogether.”
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