Drink you milk little kittens, Harris Dickinson has stepped into the Criterion Closet.
Hot off his sexy turn in Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller “Babygirl,” Dickinson still wasn’t able to get co-star Nicole Kidman off his mind as he selected a few Blu-rays to take home. In taking Gus Van Sant’s 1995 satire “To Die For” off the shelf, Dickinson was reminded of a scene that may draw certain parallels to his “Father Figure” moment in “Babygirl.”
“My favorite scene in this is when she’s videoing Joaquin and the other actors, and she’s saying, ‘Move your hips. Now let’s dance. Oh yeah. Come on, guys.’ And she’s trying to get them to move,” Dickinson said of Kidman’s work in the film. “And Joaquin Phoenix’s character is just, like, doing this crazy, like, out-of-time jive. But yeah, Nicole’s incredible in this. I love this film. It’s disturbing.”
Sticking to his British roots, Dickinson went on to grab John Mackenzie’s staple gangster flick, “The Long Good Friday,” which follows a London crime boss as he works to go legitimate.
“We actually studied this in school, that end close-up on Bob Hoskins, and obviously an incredible Helen Mirren in this film, but I remember that was kind of the first time watching gangster cinema that felt grounded and about the human relationships rather than the sort of glamorization of that lifestyle,” said Dickinson. “It was feeling deeply for Bob’s character, even at the end when he knows he’s kind of messed up, and he’s almost a bit pathetic.”
Earlier in the video, Dickinson offered praise to another British icon of cinema, Mike Leigh, who he described as “a big influence for me as a person in film.” Another huge influence was gonzo cinematic artist Harmony Korine, who’s work with “Gummo” struck a chord with Dickinson.
“‘Gummo’ was one of those early films I watched that kind of…was disturbing, and it caused trouble for film in a way. It went against so much form, which I loved,” he said. “And I met him recently and he was smoking a cigar and I thought, ‘That’s very Harmony Korine.’ But I used to skateboard a lot as well, so I feel like skate culture and Harmony Korine kind of go hand in hand.”
Watch Dickinson’s full Criterion Closet video below.
