Harry Styles Says He Tries to 'Compartmentalize' His Work and Personal Life: 'Life Is About Learning'

Harry Styles recently announced the launch of his product line Pleasing

Published on November 15, 2021 04:30 PM

Harry Styles - Dazed Magazine — Harry Styles. Photo: Rafael Pavarotti

For Harry Styles, there's a fine line between work and play.

In a new interview, the 27-year-old singer opened about his mindset in recent months as he balances a wildly successful music career, a burgeoning acting career and the launch of Pleasing, his new product line.

"I've always tried to compartmentalize my personal life and my working life," Styles told Dazed.

The star has been famously tight-lipped about his love life, though he's been dating actress and director Olivia Wilde since meeting on the set of their upcoming film Don't Worry Darling.

For Styles, being cast in the film was a big step in his blossoming second act as an established actor — though he'd previously only appeared in the film Dunkirk, he now also has the movie My Policeman in the pipeline, as well as a small role in Marvel's blockbuster Eternals.

"I like to challenge myself and do something different and movies are definitely where I feel most out of my comfort zone," he told Dazed. "I'm coming from music where I don't think anyone really knows how it works, but I am somewhat in my comfort zone! But in movies, when I show up, I'm the new guy. I haven't been [an actor] for a long time and that's really cool, I feel like I've learned so much and life is about learning."

Styles has had plenty of time to learn the ins and outs of the music industry, as he got his start at just 16 years old in the British boy band One Direction.

The "Watermelon Sugar" singer told Dazed that at the time, showbiz was "new and exciting and I didn't know how long everything was gonna last."

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As time has passed, though, and he's embarked on a successful solo career, that fear is no longer as prevalent.

"There was a time when I was younger, and I was in the band, when I would have been afraid for everything to have stopped. I didn't necessarily know who I was if I wasn't in the band. Now, the idea of people going, 'We don't like your music anymore, go away' doesn't scare me. I think there was a time when it did. It gives me the freedom to kind of go, 'Great!' I'm not working from a place of fear. I'm working from a place of wanting to work stuff out, and try different things."

It's also only now, he said, that things "are hitting me for the first time."

"It really is the first opportunity where I felt like I had time to take it in since leaving home, to be honest," he said. "So, going forward, I'm just going to take things in as they're happening — how nice some of those things are, how not nice some of those things are — and observe them. When we get back to some semblance of normality, I will check in with parts of myself and make sure I don't lose myself again and get pulled back in."

Styles noted that his ability to be "completely, unapologetically" himself is a relatively new one — and that he's finally feeling "the most human I've felt in a long time."

The singer, whose newest venture Pleasing will kick off with a line of beauty products, including nail polish, serums and lip oils, is currently wrapping up his Love on Tour concert tour, which comes on the heels of his second studio album Fine Line.