My Policeman Is Sexy. Cast And Creators Say Scenes Serve A Purpose

"My Policeman," now in select theaters and available for streaming on Amazon Prime Nov. 4, centers around the trinity of Tom, Marion and Patrick — a complex love triangle of middle-class residents of the coastal English town of Brighton in the 1950s.

Tom, a policeman played by Harry Styles, finds himself torn between his affection for his wife, Marion (Emma Corrin) and his desire for his friend, Patrick (David Dawson) — despite the strict law banning homosexuality (homosexuality remained illegal until 1967 in England.) The stakes are raised because, as the film's title clearly denotes, Tom is in law enforcement.

"My Policeman," based on the 2012 novel by Bethan Roberts, comes with many intimate scenes between both Tom and Patrick and Tom and Marion, which are crucial to moving the story forward.

Emma Corrin and David Dawson talked to TODAY about why those buzzy scenes, which have already made headlines, are so central to the film.

'Part of the storytelling': The cast weighs in on the sex scenes in 'My Policeman'

Between Tom and Patrick's raw, stolen encounters and Tom and Marion's tense physicality, there is certainly no shortage of sex in this film.

In the movie, sex serves as a temperature check for the central relationships. Tom and Marion's intimate scenes are peppered with tension and pause, seemingly devoid of passion — and the opposite is true of Tom and Patrick's. Marion rightly begins to suspect that Tom is in a secret, passionate relationship with Patrick outside of their marriage.

Corrin, who uses they/them pronouns, spoke on the importance of those scenes for their character’s development.

"When Tom and Marion are first intimate together, it's almost heartbreaking in the sense that, although they're physically close to each other, they're so far apart. I think it's one of the first times she realizes there's something quite significant missing from their relationship. You really feel that and feel for her, and that's very powerful," Corrin said.

Speaking to TODAY, director Michael Grandage elaborated on his deliberate approach to these scenes.

"I wanted the intimacy scenes to be part of the narrative. Sometimes in a film, you get 'story, story, story, sex scene, story, story,'" he said. "The sex scenes had to move the plot forward and help you understand the difference between those two relationships."

Tom, according to Grandage, finds his encounter with Marion "difficult," whereas he is "abandoned and free" in his first relationship with a man. "I wanted it to tell its own story," he said.

Of course, sex scenes also mean Styles fans are commenting on the film, which premiered not long after Styles's other headline-grabbing movie, "Don't Worry Darling."

The movie's chemistry isn't limited to the bedroom. Styles, Dawson and Corrin's characters are meant to be lifelong friends, and Corrin shared that it was important for the audience to believe in that relationship, too.

"The friendship that the three of them have is so central and we knew that the audience would really need to believe in that. We were lucky to have a three-week rehearsal process before we started shooting where we really got to know each other," Corrin said.

The cast hopes 'My Policeman' will inspire more conversation around LGBTQ+ issues

Corrin, who identifies as non-binary, found playing Marion "challenging and intriguing," as Marion struggles to accept her husband's queer identity.

"I was willing to explore it and I learned a lot. I certainly learned what it was like for people to exist at that time," Corrin told TODAY.

After discovering Tom and Patrick's relationship, Marion has to decide how to handle the revelation.

"That part of the story, Marion's journey and what she does, is so central to furthering the narrative of queer acceptance today. It's why the film is so heartbreaking," Corrin said.

Corrin hopes "My Policeman" furthers conversations about the progress left to be made about acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community. For Grandage, "My Policeman" underlines how times have changed — for the better.

"I was born into the England of this film, and when I was a young person, the law didn't change. But many years of prejudice was left. But now I'm proud of the huge advancements that have been made in the LGBTQ+ communities," he told TODAY.

The director hopes young people can take this story as inspiration to keep advocating and moving forward.

"If young people can be able to look at this film and see what the past was like and when you live in a society where you aren't free to be yourself ... if they can become advocates for why we need to keep moving forward, then that is a wonderful thing," he continued.

Dawson added, "If our film can even, in some small way, continue a conversation, I think that's important. It reminds us that it's important to look at our past in order for us to progress and move forward. I hope people come away with that."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com