Famed for his macabre tales and a life beset by obsession and tragedy, Edgar Allan Poe remains one of the towering figures of nineteenth-century American literature and a fixture in the modern consciousness. But the Poe at the center of writer-director Scott Cooper’s gothic thriller The Pale Blue Eye, adapted from the 2006 novel by Louis Bayard, is a far different man.
Played by English actor Harry Melling, Poe is a warm and witty though troubled young man who finds himself embroiled in mystery when the body of a fellow West Point cadet is discovered dead, and with his heart skillfully removed. “I would describe him as an oddball, really,” Melling says of his young Poe. “He’s someone who’s a bit strange. He considers himself a poet and thinks he’s smarter than everyone else, but at the same time, doesn’t have the same social faculties as everyone else.”
Edgar Allen Poe (Harry Melling)
Poe’s unusual worldview makes him an appealing if unlikely ally to Augustus Landor (Oscar winner Christian Bale), the local detective hired to solve the case. “Landor realizes this guy can see things that maybe others can’t,” Melling says. “I think that’s where the relationship is formed, from this idea of, You help me, I’ll help you. Of course, as the film progresses, it turns into a very intense and very intimate friendship between the two [characters].”
The role comes as one of Melling’s highest-profile turns yet. The actor made his onscreen debut as spoiled Muggle Dudley Dursley in 2001’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and graduated to character roles in impressive ensemble productions including the Coen brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, The Old Guard, The Devil All the Time, and The Queen’s Gambit. The Pale Blue Eye afforded Melling the opportunity not only to work opposite Bale, but also the other powerhouse actors in the film’s supporting cast — Gillian Anderson, Toby Jones, Timothy Spall, and Robert Duvall among them. “It’s just unbelievable,” says Melling. “I lucked out. I really have.”
