I FEEL VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE CHARACTERS I PLAY, WHICH ALSO GIVES ME LICENSE TO EXPLORE THAT CHARACTER’S JOURNEY WITH A LOT OF INQUIRY, A LOT OF QUESTIONING, AND TO REALLY CRITIQUE IT. MY QUEERNESS IS NOT A REJECTION OF THAT, BUT AN EMBRACE OF IT AND EVERYTHING THAT COMES WITH THAT FLUIDITY. IT FEELS LIKE BEING MORE SURE OF WHO I AM. “ ” poles of the plot, Styles as Tom offers a certain innocence to the role. At this point, it feels almost obstinate not to mention Styles, particularly in connection to Corrin.The popstar has faced some eviscerating reviews for his performance in Don’t Worry Darling, and similar scrutiny has begun to surround My Policeman. But for Corrin, their megawatt costar was more than the deified musician trying his hand at acting. The two were already friends, introduced by their mutual stylist, Harry Lambert, who regularly lands both clients significant sartorial coverage. It’s no wonder that Styles and Corrin share an affinity for Lambert’s bold choices, as both stars have made waves for their boundary-pushing approaches to gender and fash- ion. “[Lambert has a] bravery and boldness and a huge imagination. I think he’s willing to go places that other stylists don’t, and I think that’s so much fun,” Corrin says. “Especially if you’re on such a journey of self-discovery, I felt it’s fun to have someone who puts you in things that take you out of your comfort zone.” In 2020, during an appearance on The Tonight Show, Corrin told Jim- my Fallon that Styles once dog-sat for Spencer, but otherwise they’ve re- mained pretty mum on their friendship. But in preparation for their frigid aquatic scenes in My Policeman, they share that the two regularly swam together near their home in North London.Though Styles and Corrin are both avid cold water swimmers, many of the scenes set to film at Brighton Beach were cut due to dangerous water temperatures. “I go normally in the winter, which is mental, I know, but it’s quite exhilarating,” they admit. Even though the pair had to forgo their frigid dips, Corrin looks back fondly on their bonding experience with Styles. “We would go for swims in the pond and Hampstead Heath to try and get acclimatized during the winter, so we both started doing that in February,” they say. “We were like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna go every morning before rehearsals so that, when it comes to filming, we can brave the ocean.” Corrin swears by their cold water dips. “It’s kind of the best feeling. It wakes you up like nothing else. Also, the first sip of hot coffee after you’ve been in cold water is the best feeling, it’s so good.” My Policeman isn’t Corrin’s only recent role that tackles the nuances of gender and sexuality. The actor also stars in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a Net- flix adaptation of the 1928 book by D.H. Lawrence. Both the source mate- rial and the film are unflinching in their depiction of sexuality—the novel faced (and won) an obscenity trial that launched it into notoriety. “It has the most poignant and powerful exploration of female pleasure that I’ve seen, really, which is remarkable that it was written by a guy,” Corrin says. Lady Chatterley’s Lover follows Constance (Corrin) during her unful- filling marriage to Sir Clifford Chatterley (Matthew Duckett) and her sub- sequent affair with their gamekeeper Oliver Mellors (Jack O’Connell).The film, which was shot in September 2021, is one that Corrin describes as both timely and timeless. “We really wanted to put that at the forefront of a very honest portrayal of what it is to be a woman and to be denied your own pleasure, and to go on this discovery of your autonomy of your body and control over your own body, within a love story,” Corrin says. With the United States Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, the themes of sexual and bodily autonomy are even more resonant. “The goal was
to make it feel like it could exist in any time, and that the characters could speak to people and their experiences today, especially wom- en’s experiences of having power and control of their own bodies.” Lady Chatterley’s Lover joins a swelling movement in film and tele- vision to offer more incisive glimpses into female sexuality. The notion that desire and unapologetic pleasure is still so taboo is baffling to Corrin. “For Connie (Constance), she was fighting against feeling trapped and being made to feel ashamed of what she needed, what her body needed,” they say. One of the most fa- mous scenes from the book finds Connie and Oliver running naked together in the rain. Corrin recalls filming last October in Wales, under the torrent of six rain machines, sur- rounded by strangers. While the experience is intimidating, to say the least, looking back, Corrin is immensely proud of the bravery that is borne out of such vulnerability. “It’s the most terrified I’ve ever been in my life, I think, but it was the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done,” they say. “To know that I can let go and do that, it was remarkable.” Though they are portraying a hetero- sexual woman in both My Policeman and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Corrin was fascinated by the lens they were able to take to wom- anhood as a queer, nonbinary actor. “Being nonbinary and playing female characters, there’s a nice element of separation,” they say. “I feel very different from the characters I play, which also gives me license to explore that character’s journey with a lot of inquiry, a lot of questioning, and to really critique it. My queerness is not a rejection of that, but an embrace of it and everything that comes with that fluidity. It feels like being more sure of who I am.” Corrin also brings their lived experience to the stage production of Orlando, which they are set to begin staging not long after our conversation. Virginia Woolf’s feminist mainstay follows the titular Orlando, who at the age of 30, suddenly metamorphosizes into a woman. “I think one of the iconic literary explorations into queerness and into fluidi- ty,” they say. “This person just drifts between times and places and people and genders. It’s so beautiful, I think it’s such a celebration of queer expression and queer love. It’ll be fun to celebrate that every night.” The past few years have been a personal reckoning into gender and sexuality for Cor- rin, both personally and professionally. I as- sumed it might be frustrating for Corrin, who has garnered a reputation for period pieces, to constantly return to an often stormy time that does not yet recognize them as they are. But the actor looks at their life as the impetus of their character choices, rather than a lim- itation: “Even if these characters aren’t spe- cifically queer, I think amongst the people in the world you have the real visceral struggle with self-knowledge.”
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