After One Direction split-up/took an extended break (I thought I’d add the latter in case you’re too traumatised to think they might not get back together) most expected that Harry Styles would concentrate on a solo career. However, it looks like he’s got acting in his sights, as Deadline reports he’s been offered a role in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.

Nolan seems to be very busy casting, as the news comes hot on the heels of reports that newcomer Fionn Whitehead is currently the top choice for the lead role, with Jack Lowden and Aneurin Barnard also in talks. Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh and Tom Hardy are already onboard. It’s not known however who any of them would play.

The movie will centre around the Dunkirk evacuation, which occurred in May 1940, when Belgian, British, and French soldiers in Northern France were cut off and surrounded by the German Army. It was a giant military disaster – something even Winston Churchill acknowledged in a speech in the House Of Commons – with hundreds of thousands of men trapped, with the German Army on one side and the sea on the other. A massive evacuation was put into operation, with Naval vessels joined by an armada of ‘little ships’, such as fishing boats, small ferries, tourist boats, lifeboats and merchant marine craft, which braved the seas and German guns in order to help rescue over 300,000 men.

The evacuation is one of the most incredible stories of the war – an event which could have allowed the Germans to win if the men had not been saved. Nolan’s movie will be released July 21st, 2017.