“How Dudley Dursley’s Narrative is Evolving”

If you’ve only seen Harry Melling on the screen, you must think of him as a very serious person. He only plays excited or tense characters — the armless, legless performer in the Coen brothers’ gem The Ballad of Buster Scruggs; the crazy preacher Roy from “The Devil for All Time” who pours spiders in the face; and the final role of Edgar Allan Poe, a jaded American poet whose brooding imagination spawned terrifying tales of death and gloom.

However, get to know Harry Melling, as we do in a posh London hotel at the end of a rainy November, and you’ll find him much more relaxed, even silly. Dressed in a striped knit sweater and comfortable trousers, the 33-year-old actor is friendly, quick to laugh and, for a few odd minutes, determined to convince NME that we should eat more bananas. “Honestly, I don’t think I could live without them!” he says, popping one into his mouth at lightning speed.

“I played conflicted, troubled characters”

In addition to the benefits of soft fruit, Melling happily tells us about the game “Pale Blue Eye”. Netflix’s Dark Detective came out last week and starred Christian Bale as Augustus Landor, a downtrodden detective hired to investigate the gruesome murders at West Point Military Academy in the 19th century. Bale is the main character here, but Melling is excited about the Internet.

Hailed on social media as a scene stealer, his fictional Poe is a young cadet who becomes Landor’s partner. He goes from nervous sidekick to pretentious braggart and frustrated wunderkind in seconds, demonstrating the range that most actors take decades to develop. The role is not pleasant – Po died an alcoholic and under mysterious circumstances at the age of 40 – so Melling had to delve into the darkest corners of the human psyche.

“I’ve played some controversial, troubled characters … and I’d like to think it’s not true that everyone is capable of great evil,” he says. “I think some people are driven to extremes and … they can beat it. They come out the other side and have a different outlook on life. I think that’s a wonderful thing.”

Later, when we broach the same subject with Bale, he will give us the opposite answer. “It’s absolutely true that under intense pressure anyone can do something terrible,” he says, hiding in a room down the hall from Harry’s. “This film is a fictional story about how my character, Landor, influenced Poe to become the drunkard he became, and why he died in a ditch in Baltimore in foreign clothes.”

Unlike his film counterpart, Melling tends to focus on the positive. Everything is “wonderful” or “adorable.” He’s fascinated by harmless, everyday things (bananas, discovering we share a barber shop). He even manages to find levity in Poe, who many consider the most painful writer of all time.

“Po was a very dark, dark writer with a dark life, but even in his stories there is an element of fun,” he says. “You can see how much he likes it… he has [lightness] in these very long sentences. I like to think he enjoyed the dark side, not a follower of it.

“Dudley Dursley will always be around – I accept that”

Enjoying the dark side is what Melling specializes in now, but he had to work hard for this image. For many years he was best known as Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter films.

After first playing the role of the boy wizard’s spoiled cousin in 1999 at the age of 10, Melling appeared in five of the seven box office films. During this time, he lost weight and in the first part of Deathly Hallows he had to wear a thick suit. This means that the Potterheads rarely recognize him, but he still tries to erase that connection even more. Melling did not attend the 2021 20th anniversary event and there is no sign of a healthy Hogwarts family atmosphere in his subsequent filmography.

He is not ashamed of the brazen bully. He is actually quick to emphasize how special the experience was. It just happened over ten years ago and he would like to move on please.

“It’s always going to be that way and I accept it,” he says with the well-rehearsed air of a man who has answered this question many times before. “I just wish the conversation was about what I’m doing now and not what I was doing when I was 10 years old. I think it’s like—he half-points his finger—accusingly—you’ve been asked about a paper you wrote when you were 10. How would you feel about that?” He’s right. In January 2013, the NME just put Palma Violets on the cover — now they’re going to a huge dump that is a landfill of its own.

“I am always amazed at the power of Harry Potter generations”

After Potter, Melling immersed himself in his craft. He wrote plays, studied theater and attended acting school at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He didn’t stay there long, but it allowed him to “play really bad,” he says, “and work through the process.” Small roles on British television (BBC period drama Garrow’s Law, Sunday night adventure The Musketeers) showed casting directors what he was capable of before a string of feature films, including Benedict Cumberbatch’s The Current War” and the exploratory epic “The Lost City of Z”. Following his works on Netflix: “Buster Scruggs” and “The Devil for All Time”, as well as the blockbuster “The Old Guard” and the popular chess thriller “The Queen’s Gambit”. With a growing body of work behind him, does he feel like he’s finally escaped Dudley’s looming presence?

“I think so,” Melling says uncertainly, “but I’ve always been struck by Harry Potter’s power over the generations. My friends have kids who are interested [books]and they’re like, “Uncle Harry is Dudley!” Although that narrative seems to be changing, and that’s great.

Despite his growing reputation in Hollywood — directors such as the Coen brothers and Pale Blue Eyes’ Scott Cooper are already seeking him out — Melling remains humble. He is very polite and still lives in his hometown of London. He admits to looking himself up on Wikipedia, but only to ask for a correction: “I always get greeting cards on March 13, and it’s not my birthday.” Ask him about his bright future, and he dismisses the question.

“I try as much as possible to stay out of the picture and see the bigger picture,” he says. “I’ve always told myself that if I focus on the work, hopefully everything else will fall into place.” The theory is beautiful, but in practice it doesn’t happen. Subscribe to success and you’ll get a flurry of offers, but order failure and it’ll be sold out soon. You can’t just rely on your own talent.

“Being an actor is like snakes and ladders”

“It’s a game,” Melling says. “It’s like snakes and ladders. If I’m always aware of doors that can open (or close), I’m afraid that will prevent me from making choices, and I don’t want that.

He is happy to discuss something that will probably never happen. Reddit has a fan casting of Melling as the psychopathic DC villain The Joker; and during our research we came across a post saying he could play a good Morrissey in a Smith biopic (bad news: Essex heartthrob Jack Lowden is already starring in the 2017 film My England).

“I always find this fan stuff fascinating,” he says Melling. “My grandfather [actor Patrick Troughton] was the second Doctor Who, and people always say things like, “Oh, you should do that.” But I’ve never met him! It’s weird that people on the internet think this would be a good casting for you. The Joker? Morrissey? I’m flattered.”

Melling’s next real-life job sounds like fireworks. It’s Nigel Winterbottom’s The Promised Land, a crime thriller set in Tel Aviv in which he plays a 1930s police officer who hunts down Zionist freedom fighter Abraham Stern. True, he’d rather not discuss the movie, but he told us he just got back from filming in Italy, where he had tickets for Kendrick Lamar. His schedule meant he couldn’t go, which was exhausting: “I’m such a Kendrick fan. I love his music.” What else is he listening to right now? “I really like the new Arctic Monkeys album,” he says. “I have eclectic taste.”

Given his pedigree in portraying underdogs, we ask if there’s a musician he’d like to play for. “With passion projects,” he begins, “the thing is, you can put a lot of pressure on them. Suddenly it becomes an obsession and ends up being something you don’t want to do. It can become a very large cloud of anxiety hanging over you. Melling doesn’t need it, he’s still on the rise. Whatever he does next, we’re sure it won’t involve magic wands.

“Pale Blue Eye” is now streaming Netflix

If you’ve only seen Harry Melling on the screen, you must think of him as a very serious person. He only plays excited or tense characters — the armless, legless performer in the Coen brothers’ gem The Ballad of Buster Scruggs; the crazy preacher Roy from “The Devil for All Time” who pours spiders in the face; and the final role of Edgar Allan Poe, a jaded American poet whose brooding imagination spawned terrifying tales of death and gloom.

However, get to know Harry Melling, as we do in a posh London hotel at the end of a rainy November, and you’ll find him much more relaxed, even silly. Dressed in a striped knit sweater and comfortable trousers, the 33-year-old actor is friendly, quick to laugh and, for a few odd minutes, determined to convince NME that we should eat more bananas. “Honestly, I don’t think I could live without them!” he says, popping one into his mouth at lightning speed.

“I played conflicted, troubled characters”

In addition to the benefits of soft fruit, Melling happily tells us about the game “Pale Blue Eye”. Netflix’s Dark Detective came out last week and starred Christian Bale as Augustus Landor, a downtrodden detective hired to investigate the gruesome murders at West Point Military Academy in the 19th century. Bale is the main character here, but Melling is excited about the Internet.

Hailed on social media as a scene stealer, his fictional Poe is a young cadet who becomes Landor’s partner. He goes from nervous sidekick to pretentious braggart and frustrated wunderkind in seconds, demonstrating the range that most actors take decades to develop. The role is not pleasant – Po died an alcoholic and under mysterious circumstances at the age of 40 – so Melling had to delve into the darkest corners of the human psyche.

“I’ve played some controversial, troubled characters … and I’d like to think it’s not true that everyone is capable of great evil,” he says. “I think some people are driven to extremes and … they can beat it. They come out the other side and have a different outlook on life. I think that’s a wonderful thing.”

Later, when we broach the same subject with Bale, he will give us the opposite answer. “It’s absolutely true that under intense pressure anyone can do something terrible,” he says, hiding in a room down the hall from Harry’s. “This film is a fictional story about how my character, Landor, influenced Poe to become the drunkard he became, and why he died in a ditch in Baltimore in foreign clothes.”

Unlike his film counterpart, Melling tends to focus on the positive. Everything is “wonderful” or “adorable.” He’s fascinated by harmless, everyday things (bananas, discovering we share a barber shop). He even manages to find levity in Poe, who many consider the most painful writer of all time.

“Po was a very dark, dark writer with a dark life, but even in his stories there is an element of fun,” he says. “You can see how much he likes it… he has [lightness] in these very long sentences. I like to think he enjoyed the dark side, not a follower of it.

“Dudley Dursley will always be around – I accept that”

Enjoying the dark side is what Melling specializes in now, but he had to work hard for this image. For many years he was best known as Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter films.

After first playing the role of the boy wizard’s spoiled cousin in 1999 at the age of 10, Melling appeared in five of the seven box office films. During this time, he lost weight and in the first part of Deathly Hallows he had to wear a thick suit. This means that the Potterheads rarely recognize him, but he still tries to erase that connection even more. Melling did not attend the 2021 20th anniversary event and there is no sign of a healthy Hogwarts family atmosphere in his subsequent filmography.

He is not ashamed of the brazen bully. He is actually quick to emphasize how special the experience was. It just happened over ten years ago and he would like to move on please.

“It’s always going to be that way and I accept it,” he says with the well-rehearsed air of a man who has answered this question many times before. “I just wish the conversation was about what I’m doing now and not what I was doing when I was 10 years old. I think it’s like—he half-points his finger—accusingly—you’ve been asked about a paper you wrote when you were 10. How would you feel about that?” He’s right. In January 2013, the NME just put Palma Violets on the cover — now they’re going to a huge dump that is a landfill of its own.

“I am always amazed at the power of Harry Potter generations”

After Potter, Melling immersed himself in his craft. He wrote plays, studied theater and attended acting school at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He didn’t stay there long, but it allowed him to “play really bad,” he says, “and work through the process.” Small roles on British television (BBC period drama Garrow’s Law, Sunday night adventure The Musketeers) showed casting directors what he was capable of before a string of feature films, including Benedict Cumberbatch’s The Current War” and the exploratory epic “The Lost City of Z”. Following his works on Netflix: “Buster Scruggs” and “The Devil for All Time”, as well as the blockbuster “The Old Guard” and the popular chess thriller “The Queen’s Gambit”. With a growing body of work behind him, does he feel like he’s finally escaped Dudley’s looming presence?

“I think so,” Melling says uncertainly, “but I’ve always been struck by Harry Potter’s power over the generations. My friends have kids who are interested [books]and they’re like, “Uncle Harry is Dudley!” Although that narrative seems to be changing, and that’s great.

Despite his growing reputation in Hollywood — directors such as the Coen brothers and Pale Blue Eyes’ Scott Cooper are already seeking him out — Melling remains humble. He is very polite and still lives in his hometown of London. He admits to looking himself up on Wikipedia, but only to ask for a correction: “I always get greeting cards on March 13, and it’s not my birthday.” Ask him about his bright future, and he dismisses the question.

“I try as much as possible to stay out of the picture and see the bigger picture,” he says. “I’ve always told myself that if I focus on the work, hopefully everything else will fall into place.” The theory is beautiful, but in practice it doesn’t happen. Subscribe to success and you’ll get a flurry of offers, but order failure and it’ll be sold out soon. You can’t just rely on your own talent.

“Being an actor is like snakes and ladders”

“It’s a game,” Melling says. “It’s like snakes and ladders. If I’m always aware of doors that can open (or close), I’m afraid that will prevent me from making choices, and I don’t want that.

He is happy to discuss something that will probably never happen. Reddit has a fan casting of Melling as the psychopathic DC villain The Joker; and during our research we came across a post saying he could play a good Morrissey in a Smith biopic (bad news: Essex heartthrob Jack Lowden is already starring in the 2017 film My England).

“I always find this fan stuff fascinating,” he says Melling. “My grandfather [actor Patrick Troughton] was the second Doctor Who, and people always say things like, “Oh, you should do that.” But I’ve never met him! It’s weird that people on the internet think this would be a good casting for you. The Joker? Morrissey? I’m flattered.”

Melling’s next real-life job sounds like fireworks. It’s Nigel Winterbottom’s The Promised Land, a crime thriller set in Tel Aviv in which he plays a 1930s police officer who hunts down Zionist freedom fighter Abraham Stern. True, he’d rather not discuss the movie, but he told us he just got back from filming in Italy, where he had tickets for Kendrick Lamar. His schedule meant he couldn’t go, which was exhausting: “I’m such a Kendrick fan. I love his music.” What else is he listening to right now? “I really like the new Arctic Monkeys album,” he says. “I have eclectic taste.”

Given his pedigree in portraying underdogs, we ask if there’s a musician he’d like to play for. “With passion projects,” he begins, “the thing is, you can put a lot of pressure on them. Suddenly it becomes an obsession and ends up being something you don’t want to do. It can become a very large cloud of anxiety hanging over you. Melling doesn’t need it, he’s still on the rise. Whatever he does next, we’re sure it won’t involve magic wands.

“Pale Blue Eye” is now streaming Netflix