My Policeman star David Dawson on filming sex scenes with Harry Styles
When My Policeman's David Dawson learned he would be getting intimate with Harry Styles for the movie's already notorious sex scenes, a team stepped in to support him.
"[Director] Michael Grandage was wonderful in that respect," Dawson told EW while sitting down in our video studio at the Toronto International Film Festival. "He created a space that was full of nothing but support, and brought on a wonderful intimacy coordinator, and the four of us explored what we wanted those scenes to be, together."
The British theater vet, who portrays Patrick, a young gay man who falls in love with Styles' Tom in repressed 1950s Britain, had the task of finding his bearings around Styles' superstardom. Dawson says that he and Styles came to an understanding — and a trust.
"Me and Harry promised each other we would always look out for each other during it," said Dawson. "I can't emphasize the importance of an intimacy coordinator enough."
Amazon Prime David Dawson and Harry Styles play Patrick and Tom, two men who must hide their affair, in 'My Policeman'
Styles expressed similar sentiments in a recent Rolling Stone interview, noting that it was crucial to the entire team to bring a gentleness to the sex scenes. "So much of gay sex in film is two guys going at it, and it kind of removes the tenderness from it," Styles said, indicating that, with My Policeman, he hoped to make moments that were "tender and loving and sensitive."
Before they got to those moments, though, Dawson also had to wrestle with Styles' enormous fame. "Because of COVID, we had to do our meet and greet on Zoom," Dawson tells EW. "The day Michael says 'You're going to be meeting Harry Styles on Zoom,' [you think], How strange is life. Very quickly you have to get rid of the musician you knew him as before."
Dawson said Styles made it easy, bringing a down-to-earth approach to the work. "He's a good Northern lad like myself," the actor says. "And we had the luxury of a three-week rehearsal process to build on that friendship and chemistry."
My Policeman made its world premiere at TIFF and will be in theaters Oct. 21, then on Prime Video Nov. 4.
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