Harris Dickinson's Directorial Debut 'Urchin'

Summary

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Podcast Summary: All Of It with Alison Stewart

Episode: Harris Dickinson's Directorial Debut ‘Urchin’

Date: July 27, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of All Of It focuses on the directorial debut of acclaimed actor Harris Dickinson with his new film, Urchin. The conversation centers around the inspiration, development, challenges, and creative decisions behind the film, as well as the lived experiences Dickinson and star Frank Delane drew on to portray a moving story of struggle, relapse, and dignity on the streets of London. The film, lauded at Cannes and available on Hulu and Disney, places the viewer inside the tumultuous reintegration journey of Mike, a young ex-convict battling his demons and societal obstacles.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Origins and Development of 'Urchin'

• Genesis of the Story:
  • Harris Dickinson shares that the film was six years in the making, highlighting an extensive, collaborative development process.

    “It's been around six years of developing it at the moment. ... We worked closely with various different organizations and advisors and fields in prison reform and probation... It really felt like a big collaboration between lots of different people that had lived experience with it as well.” (Harris Dickinson, 02:23)

• Authenticity:
  • Emphasis was on rejecting blame and instead providing an empathetic, full picture of someone trying to re-assimilate after incarceration.

    "It was trying to present a full picture of someone trying to reassimilate and how difficult that is once you've been either incarcerated or once you've lost your support network...and you've kind of given up on yourself. It's really a difficult battle." (Harris Dickinson, 03:41)

Collaboration and Character Building

• Frank Delane’s Perspective on Working with Dickinson:
  • Dickinson’s actor background shaped his empathetic, hands-on directing style.

    “He's an actor's director, which I think is a rare... thing, at least in my experience. You could come in and just have one line and Harris would be there with the actor, running it until he got it right and just really holding space for the creative process.” (Frank Delane, 05:03)

  • The collaboration between lead actor and director was robust, focusing on building Mike's character together.

Behind the Scenes: Challenges of Production

• Decision-Making as a Director:
  • Dickinson discusses unexpected challenges, like last-minute location changes, and seemingly small but impactful decisions like costume choices.

    "You commit to that and you say, well, he's wearing that throughout the whole film because he's not necessarily the kind of film where he's going to keep changing costume." (Harris Dickinson, 06:41) “It's the last minute changes that you have to really account for and that no one can really warn you about. ...You have to figure out what the next move is for the night.” (Harris Dickinson, 06:41)

• Ambitious Scope on a Tight Schedule:
  • Filming took place over 28 days across 36 locations, demanding tight coordination and adaptability.

    “What was challenging? We had 36 locations. ... It was foolish of me, to be honest, but we made it work. ... There was this energy fueling the shoot of like, we've got to get this in the time allocated.” (Harris Dickinson, 11:33 & 12:15)

Representing Dignity and Hope

• Symbolic Scenes:
  • A scene in which Mike tries on a sweater and new shoes in a thrift shop comes up as a quiet moment of dignity and wishful self-respect, both for the character and the shop worker.

    “The story that we wanted to tell in that moment was, was one of, of… dignity and feeling good about yourself, you know, feeling, feeling proud of yourself.” (Frank Delane, 08:17) "There's an idealistic element... we're in front of a mirror, we're on Savile Row fitting a suit... and there's something quite sweet about that." (Harris Dickinson, 09:34)

• Mike’s Hopes and Dreams:
  • Despite hardship, Mike aspires to operate a limousine chauffeur service—a poignant symbol of hope amid adversity.

    “He has an aspiration to be a… have a limousine chauffeur service.” (Frank Delane, 11:14)

Realism Versus Surrealism: Narrative Choices

• Trippy, Escapist Moments:
  • Amid gritty realism, the film interjects magical-realist sequences to depict escape and interior trauma.

    “I like to speak about it as if we're departing reality or suspending reality for moments. ... I think we all go to places in our mind in order to escape. Particularly when we're dealing with stories around someone who has been through extreme trauma.” (Harris Dickinson, 13:22) “Why not break the form of ordinary social realism and go somewhere else with it, you know?” (Harris Dickinson, 13:22)

Looking Forward: Dickinson’s Future Ambitions

• On Making More Films:
  • Dickinson expresses both passion and caution about the director’s life.

    “Yes. I hope someone will let me. ... It's just, there's so much of my life and commitment and time and stories and dedication in this film. ... You kind of have to refill the pot, you know, in order to go and do it again.” (Harris Dickinson, 14:45 & 14:55)

Bonus: Playing John Lennon

• Upcoming Role:
  • Briefly, Dickinson describes his preparation for an upcoming role as John Lennon, sharing how it involves daily music practice:

    "It's just been a lot of music. ... It's been like a year of music rehearsals, really. Just learning to play the instruments. Kind of like school. Just going in every day and just getting it done.” (Harris Dickinson, 15:44)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It's been around six years of developing it at the moment. ... It really felt like a big collaboration.” (Harris Dickinson, 02:23)
• “He's an actor's director … just really holding space for the creative process and for exploration.” (Frank Delane, 05:03)
• “Desperation has its own language that maybe we, yeah, we're not all tapped into if we're not desperate. I think poverty has its own language.” (Frank Delane, 10:22)
• "I like to speak about it as if we're departing reality or suspending reality for moments. ... Particularly when we're dealing with stories around someone who has been through extreme trauma." (Harris Dickinson, 13:22)

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Important Timestamps

• [02:23] — Harris Dickinson discusses the six-year journey of developing ‘Urchin’ and his collaborative approach.
• [03:41] — The challenge of reintegration and rejecting blame; striving for empathetic realism.
• [05:03] — Frank Delane on Dickinson’s rare quality as an actor’s director and collaborative process.
• [06:41] — Dickinson on the decision-making challenges and the chaos of film production.
• [08:17] — Symbolic thrift shop scene and the restoration of dignity.
• [10:22] — Delane on Mike’s desperation and the language of poverty.
• [11:33] — The ambitious logistics: shooting in 28 days across 36 locations.
• [13:22] — The purpose and nature of surreal moments within the film.
• [14:45-14:55] — Dickinson reflects on the possibility and demands of making another film.
• [15:44] — Dickinson talks about preparing to play John Lennon.

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Tone and Language

The episode maintains an open, conversational tone, with Dickinson and Delane speaking candidly about both the artistic and practical aspects of filmmaking—balancing empathy, realism, and creative risk. The focus is always on authenticity, care for the subject, and respecting the lived experience represented on-screen.

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This summary captures the richness of the conversation, including practical production insights, philosophical reflections, and the personal journey of both the director and star in bringing ‘Urchin’ to life.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

This is All OF it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Now we'll talk about the directorial debut of a talented actor, Harris Dickinson. You might know him as the star of Baby Girl and Triangle of Sadness, but but for this movie called Urchin, he stepped behind the camera as its director and writer. The film stars Frank Delane as Mike. We meet him as he's sleeping on the streets of London. A nice man offers to help Mike buy lunch and helps him out. It looks like things might get better for Mike. That is, until he hits the man and steals his watch. Those ups and downs are characteristic of Mike's life. He lands in prison, but is given a potential fresh start when he gets out. He gets a job but loses it. Mike gets clean, but the pull of drugs is too powerful. Urchin premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where Frank Delane took home an award for his performance. You can stream it now on Hulu or Disney. Harris Dickinson and Frank Delaine joined us here on all of It. And I started by asking Harris how long he had this story in his head.

[C]

It's been around six years of developing it at the moment. We started writing it up until kind of now releasing it. Yeah, around six years.

[D]

And was it the original story? Is it the story we see on

[C]

screen or how did it develop there or thereabouts? I mean, it was always about someone kind of falling between the cracks trying to paint a picture of someone navigating their way through a tricky system and ultimately kind of battling against themselves and tracking in real time as. As they unravel, in a way. But I think we worked closely with various different organizations and advisors and fields in prison reform and probation and had a lot of people weigh in on it and interrogate the material. So it was, it was, it was. It really felt like a big collaboration between lots of different people that had lived experience with it as well. So that was always important for the script and the development to really try and push it into the best place possible. And then, of course, Frank came on board around eight, nine months before we started filming, and we collaborated on the role together and found our way into it together as well, which was nice.

[D]

Harris, you mentioned that you were working with different organizations. What was something that you learned or you experienced firsthand that you knew you had to make it. It had to make it into the film?

[C]

Well, I think the interesting thing about Mike and the age and the point he's at, in his late 20s, something happens, particularly in the UK from, from 16 to 25, there's different support networks available. You're in a different bracket. Right. And as soon as you get past that, it becomes incredibly difficult to support people in the same ways. And so I think the one thing I really wanted to try and show is, and, and reject is the idea that we're blaming anyone, right? We're not blaming the people that work in those fields. There's phenomenal work being done by all of those different workers and organizations. But it was trying to present a full picture of someone trying to reassimilate and how difficult that is once you've been either incarcerated or once you've lost your support network or you've kind of exhausted your options and people have given up on you and you've kind of given up on yourself. It's really a difficult battle. So I think we just wanted to try and get that across in the film and provide a bit of insight and empathy towards this.

[D]

You know, Frank, how do you think we're going to talk about Harris like he's not here? How did Harris's background as an actor help him as a director?

[E]

I think I really appreciated Harris's background as an actor with his. With his directing style. He's. He allowed him to. To really, well, to jump into scenes with me and we could rehearse it a lot. And so there was just a sort of understanding of the. The things an actor goes through to, to achieve character and like having this extra support network. If you Know, we could. As Harris said, we really built Mike together. And Harris is an actor's director, which I think is a rare. Becoming a rarer thing, at least in my experience. It could be. You could come in and just have one line and Harris would be there with the actor, running it until he got it right and just really holding space for the creative process and for exploration and also knowing where the switches are in each actor and being able to flick those switches. And he certainly pushed me in ways that I've not been pushed before. And I think that's a testament to his understanding of the craft of acting.

[D]

All directors have to make decisions. That's a big part of being a director, is decision after decision after decision. What is the decision? That was a little bit hard to make, but that worked out for you on this film.

[C]

Which jacket Mike wore? The costume. The costume decisions are the hardest because they're the. They're interesting, though, but they're a big commitment. Yeah, you commit to that and then you say, well, he's wearing that throughout the whole film because he's not necessarily the kind of film where he's going to keep changing costume. And so you commit to that and you say, well, we're in now and is it right? But no, I mean, I kind of said that in jest, really. It's, it's, it's. It's the last minute changes that you have to really account for and that no one can really warn you about. You know, you're on set and you lose a location. We were doing a lot of unit moves. We were doing a lot of night shoots. And there were times where we were on the go shooting somewhere and our locations manager would come and say, oh, by the way, we've lost the location for the next scene. What do you want to do? And you have to figure out what the next move is for the night. Are we gonna do it on this street corner? Are we gonna find a new Lego? Are we gonna fabricate something? Should I just rewrite something? So it's those moments that you can't really prepare for. That took me.

[B]

But I do wanna ask about the

[D]

clothes and I wanna ask Frank about. There's a scene where you're trying on a sweater, a jumper. And it's a very sweet scene because the woman in the shop, we assume it's a thrift hand shop, is rolling up your sleeves. Like she's making sure that it fits you right and you're very sort of proud of it. And then she goes and she gets you These loafers and you're really into these loafers. What was going through Frank's mind? Why was that important to him? That his sweater fit well and that his loafers fit well.

[E]

Mike's mind, I assume you mean rather than Frank's. Frank's mind, sorry, Mike's mind. Although I suppose it was one mind in that moment, I guess. Although we probably shouldn't get too deep into the psychology of character versus. Versus actor. I think, you know, the, the. The Harris and Harris wanted to. The story that we wanted to tell in that moment was, was one of, of. Of again dignity and feeling good about yourself, you know, feeling, feeling proud of yourself. Having a bit of money, having a bit of money to spend on, on something you like, which when you don't have any money and if you haven't had any money for a long time that though that those things can be, can be robbed of you. The experience of going into a shop and finding a nice jumper and really feeling yourself and feeling good and maybe experimenting with a new pair of shoes that you wouldn't usually try and a kind of. Yeah, wanting to, wanting to show, show yourself off a bit. And yeah, I think that that was, that was the story that Harris was, was tapping into in that moment.

[C]

There's also something quite sweet about the idea that they both believe they're in a slightly more higher class situation. The idea that she's, you know, in the script it said in her mind she's working high end retail.

[D]

Right.

[C]

Maybe once upon a time she was.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

And now she's in a charity shop in East London and clothes are no more than £4. But still there's an idealistic element to it where it's like me and you, we're in front of a mirror, we're on Savile Row fitting a suit, you know, and there's something quite sweet about that.

[D]

The film kicks off with kind of a tough moment. Mike attacks this man under the bridge, a really nice man, and steals his wallet. Frank, what's going on with Mike in this moment that he decides to attack and to rob this person?

[E]

Well, I think desperation has its own language that maybe we, yeah, we're not all tapped into if we're not desperate. I think poverty has its own language. You know. In that moment Mike is, is not in his right mind. He is coming off drugs or needing a fix. He. He's just been robbed himself by. And I think that, yeah, he in that moment has worked himself up to a place where he feels like that is his only Option, really. Survival.

[D]

When you think about his hopes and dreams, what are they?

[E]

Well, Harris and I spoke a lot about this, actually, and Mike talks about it in his. In the film. He has an aspiration to be a. Have a limousine chauffeur service.

[D]

This was shot in 28 days, right, Harris?

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

What was challenging about that?

[C]

What was challenging? We had 36 locations.

[D]

Oh, my goodness.

[C]

Yeah, That's a lot. It was foolish of me, to be honest, but we made it work. We had an amazing crew that really facilitated this in the best way possible for us and worked super hard to, you know, roll with the punches. But what else was hard? I mean, a lot of actors as well, we had a lot of different roles coming in and out of the story. Playing small but important parts of Mike's journey. That's hard. The sort of collision of tones and bringing people into the same world

[D]

was exciting about 28 days shooting.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. And especially like, we. It was the summer. I mean, it wasn't the. That hot because it's London, but it was the summer we had. We had short nights. So we was. When we shot night stuff, we had from around 10pm until 4:30am because that's when the sun would start to rise. So it was. It was a short period of. Of night time. So it really meant that there was this energy fueling the shoot of like, we've got to get this in the time allocated. But it was.

[E]

It was.

[C]

It was. It was polarized because there was also times where it was more considered. We had a. We were at the hotel. We. It was slower pace. We had time. We weren't rushing. So it was a perfect combination of tones and feelings and energies.

[D]

I wanted to ask you. There's some kind of trippy parts in the film. Cells looking down a sink, sort of falling into this cave. It could be the mind who knows exactly where it is.

[B]

The rest of the film is so

[D]

grounded in reality and you have these little areas of trippiness, I guess, the way I'm gonna put it.

[C]

Why I like to speak about it as if we're departing reality or suspending reality for moments. Which is, I think, a natural part of coping mechanisms with all of us. Right. Like the resistance to absolute reality. And I did. I don't. And that's not whimsical or overly pretentious. That's just the truth. I think we all go to places in our mind in order to escape. Particularly when we're dealing with stories around someone who has been through extreme trauma. You Know, that does stuff to the brain chemistry, and we cope with it in unique ways. And I just think a story like this deserves that. And for me, when I was developing it, I always. I've always had an interest in that kind of storytelling as well. Magical realism, more surreal elements, escapist cinema, fairytale fables, folklore. For me, it's just what I'm intrigued by. And it felt like, why not break the form of ordinary social realism and go somewhere else with it, you know?

[D]

Have you seen Rose Byrne's new movie,

[C]

if I Had Legs?

[F]

Yes.

[C]

Not yet. I was just talking about it, though. Yeah, I'm excited to see it.

[D]

There's. There's a whole bunch that's similar.

[C]

Okay. Yeah.

[D]

The two films.

[C]

Yeah. Okay. I'm excited to see it. Yeah.

[D]

Harris, are you gonna make another film?

[C]

Yes. I hope someone will let me.

[D]

That sounded like it took a little while.

[C]

Yeah, No, I just. It's a. It's a huge time commitment, isn't it? And I absolutely have something else I want to make next. But it's just. It's just there's so much of my life and commitment and time and stories and dedication in this film. And so you just. You kind of have to refill the pot, you know, in order to go and do it again.

[D]

I heard you were playing the piano out in the hallway, and everybody's like, oh, he's playing John Lennon. He's playing John Lennon.

[C]

I wasn't playing Beatles songs. I was just tinkering away. And I hope you didn't hear it live on radio.

[D]

Didn't hear it live.

[C]

Ought to be embarrassing. What is your preparation screaming on the piano?

[B]

What's your preparation been like for that

[D]

role playing John Lennon?

[C]

It's just been a lot of music. Yeah, it's been. It's been like a year of music rehearsals, really. Just learning to play the instruments. Kind of like school. Just going in every day and just getting it done, you know, there's no way around it. That's it. Yeah.

[B]

That was my conversation about the film Urchin with writer, director, and actor Harris Dickinson, and the film's lead, Frank Delane.

[G]

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