Bethan Roberts (right) was over the moon when she realised who Harry Styles (centre) was (Picture: rex/ amazon prime
The author of My Policeman ended up running down the street swearing when she realised what a huge star they’d bagged as their lead man in Harry Styles.
Bethan Roberts, who wrote the 2012 novel which has been given a film adaptation, admitted she didn’t really know much about Harry when he signed up for the movie.
She told Metro.co.uk on the red carpet at the London premiere for My Policeman: ‘I’d be lying if I said I had a total identikit picture of how [the characters] looked.
‘But I don’t know, I’ll see how it goes but I wonder if it will be like other films I’ve seen where I can’t now get the actors’ faces out of my head [when I’m reading the book.] They’re all really good fits.’
Bethan admitted: ‘I’m a bit old to be a fan of One Direction! I was a bit puzzled. I didn’t quite understand how big Harry Styles is.
‘I was a bit like “I do know who he is,” but I had to go and look him up. So I got out of the meeting and I googled him.’
Harry (centre) plays a gay policeman in 1950s Brighton (Picture: Prime)
When she realised she had a global megastar as her leading man, Bethan added: ‘Then I was like “Waaaaah!!” and I ran down the street swearing.
‘And I understood then – it was really quite amazing.’
Harry plays Tom Burgess, a gay policeman in 1950s Brighton, who enters into a relationship with museum curator Patrick Hazlewood (David Dawson) while being married to schoolteacher Marion Taylor (Emma Corrin) in a time when homosexuality was illegal.
My Policeman will be released in cinemas from October 21 and will be available to stream on Amazon Prime from November 4.
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It was a pretty epic casting.