Harris Dickinson Won't Be Your Heartthrob

The actor's feature-length directorial debut is a dark look at homelessness, but don't call him a do-gooder.

- Carrie Battan

HARRIS DICKINSON’S DAY JOB is being John Lennon.

The actor has spent the better part of the past year rehearsing for Sam Mendes’s four-part Beatles biopic, expected in theaters in 2028. Occasionally, though, Dickinson, 29, plays hooky from the band to nurture his side hustle as writer and director. “The odd day off feels naughty,” he tells me on a recent Monday morning, “like I’ve got a sick day from school.” Urchin, his first feature film, will premier that evening in London, and he’s a bit jumpy as he rummages through the cabinets of his office in search of coffee and tea accoutrements. Now that he mentions it, he does sort of look like an errant schoolboy, the hood of his gray sweatshirt pulled up over his head, its cord tied in a bow like a shoestring. On the big screen, Dickinson is a stolid hunk, but in person he's scrawnier. His hair is longer than the crew cut worn in his most famous role, as Nicole Kidman’s younger lover in 2024's Babygirl—now chopped bluntly at haphazard lengths, like Lennon in the mid-’60s.

“I think it might be quite awful,” Dickinson says, referring to the freshly prepared tea he sets down on the table. “It’s not the optimal milk that I like. I like fucking normal milk, and this is some almond shit.”

Dickinson is anticipating tonight’s event with an air of disquiet; he keeps messing with his hood and running his hands through his hair. He’s been working on Urchin for about five years, and at Cannes the film received a five-minute standing ovation and won both the International Critics Prize and Best Actor for its lead. But Dickinson is still sorting out how to discuss the movie's delicate subject matter.