hélène marie pambrunHarry Styles delighted fans earlier this month by releasing the video for his song "Treat People with Kindness," featuring him and Fleabag star Phoebe Waller-Bridge performing some intricate choreography. Now we know just how long it took Harry to learn those steps.
The video was filmed in early 2019. Choreographer Paul Roberts tells Billboard that Harry and the video directors sent him a clip of one of the most famous dance scenes in movie history — The Nicholas Brothers' legendary routine in the 1943 film Stormy Weather — and asked him, "How long do you think it would take to dance like this?"
Once Roberts realized Harry wasn't joking, they started working in January of 2019 and trained for four or five weeks, every single day. Phoebe, who was working in Canada, trained on her own with Roberts' assistant until she could join them in London.
"Both Phoebe and Harry were so committed," Roberts says, adding, "We tried to make it as athletic as possible but without compromising them as artists and becoming too comedic. We wanted it to be a bit quaint and cute in places, but we definitely didn’t want it to be thought of as nonsensical or silly."
So, now that he's got the dancing bug, could Roberts Harry on Broadway some day? As he told Billboard, "I think with Harry Styles, anything is possible, is it not?"
By Andrea Dresdale
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