Harry Styles' attire does not disappoint when he arrives for his interview.
The heart-throb member of the British boy band One Direction is wearing a pink shirt with frills so extravagant it appears as though it was inspired by the puffy pirate shirt Jerry Seinfeld infamously wore in a classic episode of his TV sitcom.
We are in Santa Monica not to talk about Styles' breakout solo music career, upcoming world tour with stops in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland or his private life which, of course, included a romance with US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift.
Styles, 23, is in this Los Angeles beachside suburb to chat about his movie acting debut.
Not one to do things by halves, Styles' first big screen drama is the World War II epic Dunkirk by Christopher Nolan, the director behind The Dark Knight, Inception and Memento.
Styles is keen to talk about his role.
"It's fun," Styles says with a smile that would cause his legion of teenage girl fans to scream and then pass out.
"Promo is fun."
Styles plays a young British soldier trapped with 400,000 other British and allied troops on the beach of the coastal French town of Dunkirk in 1940.
With German forces closing in and the marooned soldiers facing annihilation, an evacuation involving civilian boats big and small crossing the British Channel becomes their only way to escape.
Styles has a childhood link to what was one of the great feats and pivotal moments of the war.
"One of my friend's dad has a boat used at Dunkirk with bullet holes in it," Styles said.
"It's important to tell the bits of history that are often overlooked.
"In school they kind of touch on it and obviously they tell you about the end bit where we won the war, so I feel like it is important to realise what got us to that point."
With One Direction on hiatus so members can pursue solo projects, Styles heard about Nolan making Dunkirk, so made an audition tape and sent it off.
"We all looked at the tape and thought, 'Obviously he has great potential. He has no training. Let's put him into the mix with all of the other semi-finalists'," Nolan said.
"We did days and days of workshops and auditions and he earned a seat at the table."
The cast includes Oscar winner Mark Rylance and nominees Kenneth Branagh and Tom Hardy, but for the young soldiers trapped on the beach Nolan was focused on hiring unknowns.
Nolan did not know much about Styles' boy band career, but the filmmaker likes to make unexpected casting decisions.
"As far as the baggage he carries or whatever, I have never been too worried about that," Nolan said.
"When I cast Heath Ledger as The Joker it raised a lot of eyebrows.
"You have to say to people, 'It is my job to try to see something in somebody they can bring to this project', and I was excited to see what Harry has done in the film because I think the performance is subtle, but truthful and that's the best thing you can say about a performance."
The beach scenes were largely shot at Dunkirk, so when word got out over social media, masses of his Styles' young fans had to be stopped from storming the set.
Styles jokes his fans came in handy to make up the large numbers of extras Nolan needed on the beach.
"We just put them in army uniforms," he laughs.
"If you see any female soldiers, that's who they are."
Dunkirk opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday.
