Harvey Fierstein says he’d want Harry Styles to star in a Kinky Boots movie

Harvey Fierstein, the award-winning actor and writer has done some fan casting of his own for a cinema version of his hit musical Kinky Boots. 

Fierstein’s adaptation of the much-loved UK film, about the son of a Northampton shoemaker who takes his father’s business in an unusual direction, is currently playing off-Broadway, with a new revival also wowing audiences in England.

While discussing the show with Page Six, the Mrs Doubtfire star and Torch Song Trilogy scribe said that former One Direction and current solo icon Harry Styles would make an excellent leading man in a film version of the musical (which is, obviously, adapted from a film). 

Fierstein said “I think Harry Styles would be glorious”, giving the singer, who has recently moved into the world of film with appearances in the likes of Dunkirk, Don’t Worry Darling and Eternals, his backing. Styles had previously been rumoured to be in the running for the Wicked movie, but the role has since gone to Bridgerton star Jonathan Bailey. 

That’s not all, the Kinky Boots writer went on: “I was also thinking about Bruno Mars for Lola [a drag star who befriends Price]…I mean, he’s got the theatricalities and all that stuff.” 

A film adaptation of Kinky Boots has been discussed for a while, and would mark the latest in a long line of films going first from screen to stage and then back again – with the likes of Mean Girls and The Color Purple all in the pipeline. 

Kinky Boots has a Tony-Award nominated book by Fierstein and Tony and Grammy award-winning music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper. Numbers in the show include “The History of the Wrong Guys”, “Sex Is In the Heel”, “Land of Lola” and “The Soul of a Man”, while the piece was first seen a decade ago at Chicago’s Bank of America Theatre in 2012.