Liam Payne auditioned for 'West Side Story' in front of Steven Spielberg.

Liam Payne

Liam Payne

The former One Direction singer - who has been taking acting lessons - could be following 'Dunkirk' star and former bandmate Harry Styles into a possible film career, and revealed his first ever opportunity was for a role in the iconic director's upcoming big screen remake of the beloved musical.

Speaking to Roman Kemp on 'Capital Breakfast', he said: "Thank you, I've had a lot of lessons. I would love to go... I've had some great auditions for a couple of different things.

"The first thing I ever auditioned for was for the remake of 'West Side Story' which is being done by Steven Spielberg.

"On my last birthday I got a message saying 'you need to go and meet SS on Thursday.' So I had to go and do an audition in front of him which was quite wild."

Liam, 25, insisted while he wasn't lucky enough to land the big role, he was delighted to make it as far as he did in the casting process.

He added: "No, I didn't get it but I was in like the last five people for it which I was quite happy with 'cause it was a difficult - it was a big part in the film. Yeah and it was the first audition I had ever done and I put four tapes in and then managed to get to meet Steven Spielberg so it was pretty amazing."

Despite touring in stadiums around the world and selling millions of records during his time with the 'Story of My Life' hitmakers, Liam said the audition was the "craziest thing" he's ever done.

He said: "It was a bit of a cold room I'm not going to lie. It was like all curtained off in like a big warehouse type thing and he just kind of rolled in and was like 'Liam!', and I was like 'this is wild'.

"Like this is the craziest thing I've ever done in my life. But he was super nice. It was a great - it was a really fun process so I enjoyed it - it was good."