Taylor Russell has experienced “distinct loves” in her life that have shaped what she wants in a partner — but does her new flame, Harry Styles, check all the boxes?
“I’m never going to be volunteering all of my feelings. I’m somebody who, annoyingly, complicatedly, needs things to be asked and pulled from me to talk about it,” the actress, 29, confessed during an interview with The Face published on Wednesday, August 30. “But even then I’m like, ‘I’m sorry, is this too much? Is this too much?’ So I need a partner who is going to do that or else it’s never going to work.”
Russell, who was first linked to Styles, 29, in June, noted that it takes time for her to be open with a boyfriend. Despite some dating reservations, she revealed that she is addicted to the concept of romance.
“In life, what’s my favorite drug? Does love count?” Russell asked, before asserting that “love” is her drug of choice. “I mean, love, a lot of the time, feels like a drug. You feel so insane. Being with the person all the time, you’d do anything for them. You’re like, ‘I wanna have all of this stuff with you and I wanna do everything with you.’”
She continued: “That feels like [a drug], especially when you’re not in love all the time … I have my distinct loves of my life and so I can remember the feelings of them pretty specifically and intensely.” (Russell added that she “didn’t experiment with drugs much” in the traditional sense of the word during her teens and 20s.)
After making a splash in 2022’s Bones and All, Russell made headlines this summer when she was spotted spending time with Styles in London. She was then seen cheering on the singer at several of his Love on Tour shows in July across Europe.
“Harry is always smiling when he’s with her,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly earlier this month, confirming the pair have been “dating for a few months.” Styles and Russell are “having a great time together,” the insider added.
Russell, meanwhile, shared in her The Face profile that trusting someone, especially a romantic partner, is something she’s been working on lately.
“I really want to live an open life and meet somebody and be real and honest and truthful with them. You can’t really live an open life if you aren’t sharing of yourself while you ask another person to share of themselves with you,” she said. “My experience the past couple of years, [with] people I’ve really trusted, things weren’t held in a way that I would’ve appreciated them to be held. And so, that has changed things in me a little bit.”
Russell described herself as a “homebody” who has had to push herself outside her comfort zone since moving to London. She recalled telling herself during the move, “You have to open up and allow people to know you. … If something happens, something happens, that’s life. You are going to be hurt — that’s the tax. The tax on a real relationship is the reality that you will get hurt, you will [have] grief, something will be lost at some point and that’s OK. It’s worth it.”
The choice to fully immerse herself in the U.K. lifestyle has begun to pay off for the Canadian star. “I feel at peace in a lot of ways. I’m meeting incredible people,” Russell teased, seemingly hinting at England native Styles. “I feel there were parts of my life that were dormant that [now] feel very ignited, which haven’t for years and years and years. I know I’m being vague with what I’m saying.”
