According to Nicholas Galitzine, there is no connection between Harry Styles and his made-up musician character Hayes Campbell in The Idea of You, instead the actor took inspiration from Backstreet Boys.
In the new romance, the 29-year-old actor from Red, White & Royal Blue plays a pop star from a boy band named August Moon who, following a chance encounter at Coachella, falls in love with Anne Hathaway’s 40-something divorced character, Solène.
Even before the 2017 release of the Idea of You book, a lot of admirers have drawn comparisons between Hayes and the 30-year-old former member of One Direction, Harry Styles.
Galitzine told People magazine, “I like to distance myself from that comparison because I think Hayes is his own character and has his own struggles and wants and tastes, even in who he is as a musician.”
“We took tons of different references,” added the actor.
“I think the boy band as a whole was an amalgam of a lot of different artists and groups. I’d love people to come to watch the movie with an open mind and embrace Hayes and August Moon, and maybe become fans of August Moon individually as well. I mean, there’s some really, really catchy songs in the movie.”
His inspiration for the role came from whom? Galitzine claims that they were influenced by “the sort of hysteria around them” when the Backstreet Boys “first came out.” They also borrowed some routines from the well-known K-pop group BTS.
“I think the training that BTS went through was far more intense than what I was allowed to go through for three weeks before we started shooting,” jokes Galitzine, adding, “But they have this ability to seem entirely nonchalant and chill in the way they hit their choreography. It’s almost like not so try-hard, effortlessly cool. We were trying to embody a little bit of that.”
