CANNES – Harris Dickinson is sitting on a rooftop terrace in Cannes, trying to find all the movie tattoos on his body.
There’s a little one for 2001’s “Donnie Darko,” but there’s a much larger one on his arm for “Kes,” Ken Loach’s seminal British social realism drama from 1969.
“I’m sure there’s a few more on my legs,” Dickinson says, smiling. “I can’t remember.”
But the spirit of Loach runs strong in Dickinson’s directorial debut, “Urchin.” The film, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, stars Frank Dillane as a homeless London drug addict.
A sensitive and preceptive character study, “Urchin” has been widely hailed as a standout at Cannes. Just as the 28-year-old Dickinson, who starred in last year’s “Babygirl,” is emerging as a major movie star, he’s revealed himself to be a filmmaker to watch, too.
“Before we screened, I was debilitated by nerves,” Dickinson said the day after the premiere. “I felt so vulnerable — which I do normally with acting, but not as much. I suddenly realized what an exposing thing this is. Like you said, it’s showing a different side of myself and putting that out there to be obliterated.”
But Dickinson, who first emerged in Eliza Hittman’s 2017 film “Beach Rats,” only expanded audiences’ notions of him with “Urchin.” As he explained in an interview, making it was important enough to him, even if it meant sacrificing parts at the very moment Hollywood won’t stop calling. Next, Dickinson will star as John Lennon in Sam Mendes’ four-film Beatles project. The Associated Press’ conversation with Dickinson has been edited for clarity and brevity.
AP: How did your artistic journey start? Was acting or directing first?
DICKINSON: I wanted to direct from a very young age. I wanted to make films. I was making these skateboard videos and I was doing a lot of short films on YouTube. I had a web series where I would release episodes weekly. It was like a sketch show. That was my first love, just making things.
Acting kind of kicked off a little bit once “Beach Rats” came out at Sundance. It was weird. I had to earn my stripes, of course, as an actor. But I couldn’t go to film school because I was acting. So I just carried on my own interest in it and thought: Hopefully someday I can do it. Then the short film happened and the BBC took a chance on me, commissioning “Urchin.”
AP: Was it hard to juggle your priorities?
DICKINSON: Hard to figure out, yeah. And particularly when we’re in a world where people don’t always love someone trying to do multiple things. And rightly so. There are times when you shouldn’t be trying to be a basketball player, or whatever. A lot of people do go, “Oh, I fancy doing that now,” particularly when they get to a more successful position. But this has always been a love of mine and I’ve just been waiting for the moment to do it. It’s strange as well because I’m also at a point in my acting where I had to take a lot of time out to make this film. But I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
AP: That must have required a lot of effort, especially after all the attention of “Babygirl.” Did it mean saying no a lot?
DICKINSON: Yeah, for sure. But it’s easy to say no to things. “Urchin” was all I could think about. It was pouring out of me. It was all that was on my mind. It’s easy to say no when you’ve got something to take you away from that, you know? Nothing that came in would make me question my own film, which is a sign that I had to make it at this time. I don’t know, maybe that sounds self-important.
AP: What was it about this character that compelled you?
DICKINSON: The discovery of Mike happened over a long time. I really started with the intention to create a very focused character study of someone who was ultimately battling against themselves. I wanted to show a full person in all of their ugliness and all of their humanity and their charm. And that was a hard process to get right. It also happened with Frank, who came on and tapped into those things so beautifully. I kept coming back to the no judgment thing, not allowing us to feel sorry for him too much. Just observe him and go through situations and see how he acts.
AP: I admire that he’s trying to get his life in order, but he’s also sabotaging himself.
DICKINSON: He can’t transcend his own behavior, which is so common for a lot of people, especially when they’ve been through a certain degree of trauma. How do you get out of that? How do you change your behavior? When your support network’s gone, even the institution is not enough to get someone out of these cycles. As people, what interests me is that we’re an incredibly advanced civilization but, at the end of the day, we’re quite rudimentary in our design. We’re quite basic in the way we go back to things.
AP: Did the film proceed out of work you’ve done with a charity for homeless people or were you inspired firstly by social realists like Ken Loach?
DICKINSON: I’m always a bit reluctant to talk about this because it’s something I’ve been doing in private and not trying to be like a heroic thing of a cause. I’m just a minor, minor part of a much bigger cause that is ultimately made up of hundred of thousands of individuals that are collectively working toward change. But it was always important to have the bones of this film lay in that space. It had to have the undercurrent to it. It had to have that factual reality to it.
And, yeah, Loach, (Shane) Meadows. Ken Loach, he’s one of the greats, for good reason. He’s made incredibly important films. And I don’t know if this film has the throughline of a social realism drama or a social political film. I think it has the beginnings of it because we enter the world and then stay there very observationally. But then the language changes.
AP: Do you expect to keep making films interspersed between acting?
DICKINSON: I hope so. I hope people let me do it again. That’s the goal. But it takes a lot of you. I think my partner is probably happy for me to not be a neurotic person for a bit.
AP: Well, playing John Lennon is no piece of cake, either.
DICKINSON: I’ll probably be neurotic, as well. I’ll probably be just as neurotic.
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Jake Coyle has covered the Cannes Film Festival since 2012. He’s seeing approximately 40 films at this year’s festival and reporting on what stands out.
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