David Dawson

David Dawson is a gay British actor who has been open about his sexuality and has brought LGBTQ+ stories to audiences through both his personal visibility and his choice of roles. He built a strong career in British television with roles in Ripper Street (2012) and The Last Kingdom (2015), before gaining wider international attention in the gay romance drama My Policeman (2022), in which he starred opposite Harry Styles as Patrick Hazlewood, a museum curator whose secret affair with a married police officer spans decades. The film, based on Bethan Roberts's novel, excavates the costs of closeted love in 1950s England, and Dawson and Styles were nominated for Best Kiss at the 2023 MTV Movie & TV Awards. Dawson has spoken about the importance of telling such stories truthfully and without apology. He married author Josh Silver in 2023.