Exclusive: Harry Melling on playing Edgar Allan Poe in The Pale Blue Eye
Now playing on Netflix is The Pale Blue Eye, written & directed by Scott Cooper and starring Christian Bale, Harry Melling, Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, Harry Lawtey, Simon McBurney, Hadley Robinson, Timothy Spall, Joey Brooks, Brennan Cook, Gideon Glick, Fred Hechinger, Matt Helm, Jack Irving, Steven Maier, Charlie Tahan and Robert Duvall.
Based on the book by Louis Bayard, the film was produced by Scott Cooper, Christian Bale, Tyler Thompson, John Lesher and executive produced by Tracey Landon, Dylan Weathered, Louis Bayard, Chris Sharp, Jennifer Lamb, Emily Salveson, and Ryan Smith.
West Point, 1830. In the early hours of a gray winter morning, a cadet is found dead. But after the body arrives at the morgue, tragedy becomes savagery when it’s discovered that the young man’s heart has been skillfully removed. Fearing irreparable damage to the fledgling military academy, its leaders turn to a local detective, Augustus Landor (Christian Bale), to solve the murder. Stymied by the cadets’ code of silence, Landor enlists the help of one of their own to pursue the case, an eccentric cadet with a disdain for the rigors of the military and a penchant for poetry—a young man named Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling).
Best known as Dudley from the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Melling has racked up some incredible roles over the years with films such as The Coens’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s hit action film The Old Guard, the psychological thriller The Devil All the Time, and Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth.
Blackfilmandtv.com’s Wilson Morales spoke with Melling regarding his role as Edgar Allan Poe.