TIFF47: Harry Styles, Emma Corrin and the cast of ‘My Policeman’ to receive TIFF Tribute Award for Performance

Cameron Bailey, CEO of TIFF, announced today that the ensemble cast of My Policeman — Harry Styles, Emma Corrin, Gina McKee, Linus Roache, David Dawson, and Rupert Everett — will be honoured with the TIFF Tribute Award for Performance. 

Now in its fourth year, the TIFF Tribute Awards presented by BVLGARI will return to an in-person gala fundraiser during the 47th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, September 11, at Fairmont Royal York Hotel. As previously announced, My Policeman by director Michael Grandage will have its World Premiere at this year’s Festival.

The TIFF Tribute Award for Performance is presented by Polestar.

“When your film shifts through time and across fluid boundaries of love and desire, you need a cast that can embody those nuances in every gesture,” said Bailey. “Harry Styles, Emma Corrin, and David Dawson deliver beautiful, mirrored performances with Linus Roache, Gina McKee, and Rupert Everett. We’re thrilled to honour the ensemble cast of My Policeman with the TIFF Tribute Award for Performance.”

Adapted for the screen by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Ron Nyswaner from Bethan Roberts’ award-winning novel of the same name, Prime Video’s My Policeman follows three young people — policeman Tom (Styles), teacher Marion (Corrin), and museum curator Patrick (Dawson) — as they embark on an emotional journey in 1950s Britain. Flashing forward to the 1990s, Tom (Roache), Marion (McKee), and Patrick (Everett) are still reeling with longing and regret, but now they have one last chance to repair the damage of the past. Grandage carves a visually transporting, heart-stopping portrait of three people caught up in the shifting tides of history, liberty, and forgiveness.

For the first time ever, the TIFF Tribute Award for Performance will be celebrating an ensemble cast in the now gender-neutral acting category. This is the first of two performance awards to be announced. Past recipients honoured in the prestigious acting category were Jessica Chastain and Benedict Cumberbatch in 2021; Kate Winslet and Sir Anthony Hopkins in 2020; and Meryl Streep and Joaquin Phoenix in 2019. 

The TIFF Tribute Awards have served as an awards-season bellwether, with past honourees Jessica Chastain, Roger Deakins, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Joaquin Phoenix, Taika Waititi, and Chloé Zhao going on to win awards on the international stage. The TIFF Tribute Awards honour the film industry’s outstanding contributors and their achievements, recognizing leading industry members, acting talent, directorial expertise, new talent, and a below-the-line artist and creator. The Awards event also serves as TIFF’s largest annual fundraiser to support TIFF’s Every Story fund, which promotes diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in film and TIFF’s core mission to transform the way people see the world through film. More information on the 2022 TIFF Tribute Awards event and this year’s honourees will follow in the coming weeks.

Harry Styles is an international singer, songwriter, and actor. Styles made his acting debut in Christopher Nolan’s 2017 acclaimed drama Dunkirk and can next be seen in Olivia Wilde’s upcoming film Don’t Worry Darling. My Policeman marks his first-ever starring role. 

Actor Emma Corrin is best known for the role of Lady Diana Spencer in Season 4 of the Netflix worldwide, award-winning hit series The Crown. The role earned Corrin a Golden Globe and Critics Choice award for Best Actress, as well a SAG and Emmy nomination in the same category. Corrin will reunite with director Michael Grandage this year to star in Orlando, a play penned by Neil Bartlett from the Virginia Woolf novel. Corrin will play the titular role in the feminist classic, which spans nearly 400 centuries and follows a poet who explores gender expression and meets various key figures of English literary history. They have been selected by The Hollywood Reporter as one of their “Next Gen” breakout actors and named as one of Screen International’s “Stars of Tomorrow” in 2020. Up next for Emma is their lead role in the Netflix and 3000 Pictures new film adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, based on the classic 1928 novel by D.H. Lawrence. Emma is currently filming the lead role in FX’s limited series Retreat. Emma will play Darby Hart, the amateur sleuth at the centre of a murder mystery set at a secluded retreat, joined by further cast including Harris Dickinson and Alice Braga.

David Dawson recently starred in the espionage thriller All the Old Knives for Amazon Studios, starring alongside Jonathan Pryce, Laurence Fishburne, and Chris Pine. Dawson has a wide and varied television career and is also a revered stage actor, best known for his role as King Alfred in The Last Kingdom. On stage, Dawson received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for playing Smike in the 2007 production of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Other notable performances have been in The Entertainer (Old Vic); Comedians (Lyric Hammersmith); Posh (Royal Court); Luise Miller (Donmar Warehouse); The Dazzle (Found 111); The Duchess of Malfi (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse); Brian Friel’s Aristocrats (Donmar Warehouse); The Vortex (Rose Theatre); Romeo & Juliet (RSC); The Long, The Short & The Tall (Sheffield Crucible)’ Richard II and, most recently, Fairview (Young Vic.)

Gina McKee has enjoyed a varied acting career both on stage and on screen. Some of her many film appearances include featured roles in Joe Wright’s Atonement, Michael Winterbottom’s Wonderland, and Roger Michell’s Notting Hill. In Paul Thomas Anderson’s romantic drama Phantom Thread, McKee played the role of Countess Henrietta. She also starred alongside Tom Hollander and Peter Capaldi in Armando Iannucci’s In the Loop. As well as film, McKee has made many notable TV appearances, including most recently as Commander Anne Sampson in the hit BBC TV series Bodyguard. Other TV credits include her role in Hebburn (which won an RTS award), The Borgias, Line of Duty, The Street, The Lost Prince, The Forsyte Saga, Brass Eye, and Our Friends in The North, which earned McKee the coveted Best Actress BAFTA Award. Alongside McKee’s screen career, she is also an acclaimed stage actress with productions including Faith Healer, the Olivier Award–nominated King Lear, and Old Times, all at the Donmar Warehouse. Other productions include: The Mother, Di and Viv and Rose; London’s West End’s Richard III, Ivanov, The Lover and the Collection; as well as Aristocrats for the National Theatre.

Rupert Everett first appeared on stage in 1981 as Guy Bennett in the West End production of Julian Mitchell’s play Another Country, a role which he repeated in the 1984 film version and saw him nominated for a BAFTA as Best Newcomer. Subsequent nominations include a BAFTA and Golden Globe for My Best Friend’s Wedding. 

​​Linus Roache first gained worldwide recognition in Antonia Bird’s critically acclaimed film Priest. Since then, he has appeared in many films, including Iain Softley’s Wings of a Dove, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, Mira Nair’s The Namesake, and John Furse’s Blind Flight, for which he received a Best Actor nomination from the Scottish BAFTAs. He also played the lead role in Pandaemonium, directed by Julien Temple, for which he won the Best Actor award at the Evening Standard Film Awards. He has starred in The Chronicles of Riddick, Hart’s War, and Jaume Collet-Serra’s Non-Stop opposite Liam Neeson. Recently, Linus has starred in Panos Cosmatos’ visionary film Mandy, as well as Hochelaga, Land of Souls, directed by François Girard. In 2022, Linus shot a film called The Dresden Sun, directed by Michael Ryan, and The Apology, directed by Alison Star Locke. He also shot a new Showtime series calledFellow Travellers written and directed by Ron Nyswaner. Linus starred in Liberté: A Call to Spy, directed by Lydia Dean Pilcher, and Alex Gansa’s hit series Homeland for the final two seasons. Other recent credits include the BBC miniseries Summer of Rockets, directed by Stephen Poliakoff, and three seasons as the power-hungry King Ecbert in Michael Hirst’s acclaimed series Vikings. Linus received a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Robert Kennedy in the F/X television film RFK, directed by Robert Dornhelm, and co-starred in HBO’s award-winning The Gathering Storm, for which he won the Satellite Award for best actor in a supporting role. Roache played series regular Executive A.D.A. Michael Cutter in NBC’s Law & Order. He also played a lead role in Julian Fellowes’ miniseries Titanic. His extensive theatrical experience includes seasons with the RSC, the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Court, London’s West End, as well as Richard II and Coriolanus, in which he played opposite Ralph Fiennes at London’s Almeida Theatre and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, directed by Jonathan Kent.