US Vogue December 2020 presents Harry Styles by Tyler Mitchell, and here’s the preview.

In addition to music, acting has also remained a fundamental form of expression for Harry Styles. His sister, Gemma Styles, recalls that even on the eve of his life-changing X Factor audition, Styles could sing in public only in an assumed voice.

“He used to do quite a good sort of Elvis warble,” she remembers. During the rehearsals in the family home, “he would sing in the bathroom because if it was him singing as himself, he just couldn’t have anyone looking at him!”

Styles’s role-playing continued soon after 1D went on permanent hiatus in 2016, and he was cast in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, beating out dozens of professional actors for the role. “The good part was my character was a young soldier who didn’t really know what he was doing,” says Styles modestly. “The scale of the movie was so big that I was a tiny piece of the puzzle. It was definitely humbling. I just loved being outside of my comfort zone.”

His performance caught the eye of Olivia Wilde, who has cast him in a leading role for her second feature, a thriller titled Don’t Worry Darling, which went into production this fall. “To me, he’s very modern,” says Wilde of Styles, “and I hope that this brand of confidence as a male that Harry has—truly devoid of any traces of toxic masculinity—is indicative of his generation and therefore the future of the world. I think he is in many ways championing that, spearheading that. It’s pretty powerful and kind of extraordinary to see someone in his position redefining what it can mean to be a man with confidence.”

The seismic changes of 2020—including the Black Lives Matter uprising around racial justice—have also provided Styles with an opportunity for personal growth.

“I think it’s a time for opening up and learning and listening,” he says. “I’ve been trying to read and educate myself so that in 20 years I’m still doing the right things and taking the right steps. I believe in karma, and I think it’s just a time right now where we could use a little more kindness and empathy and patience with people, be a little more prepared to listen and grow.”

Harry Styles

Growing Up

In a village in the North of England, Styles thought of London as a world apart: “It truly felt like a different country.” At a wide-eyed 16, he came down to the teeming metropolis after his mother entered him on the U.K. talent-search show The X Factor.

“There’s so much joy to be had in playing with clothes. I’ve never thought too much about what it means—it just becomes this extended part of creating something”

One Direction, star was making music whenever he could. “After a show you’d go in a hotel room and put down some vocals,” he recalls. As a result, his first solo album, 2017’s Harry Styles, “was when I really fell in love with being in the studio,” he says. “I loved it as much as touring.” In the music he has been working on now, Styles wants to capture the experimental spirit that informed his second album, last year’s Fine Line.

Go behind the scenes of Harry Styles’s fashion-filled photoshoot. Watch as Harry plays an acoustic rendition of “Cherry.”

December cover story’s fashion-filled photo shoot, which was shot on location at the Seven Sisters cliffs in Sussex, England.

Directed by Lillie Eiger, the new cover video sees Styles perform an impromptu acoustic rendition of “Cherry”—a song from his second solo album, 2019’s Fine Line—while armed with his Fender acoustic, a lacey Bode shirt, and Eliou necklace. 

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Photographed by @tylersphotos,
Styled by Camilla Nickerson @camillanickerson
Cast Harry Styles @harrystyles