Skarsgård and Melling Find Humor and Heart in Provocative “Pillion”

Alexander Skarsgård has seen his latest film “Pillion” with audiences at least four times—an unusual practice for an actor who typically views his work just once with a crowd. But this provocative drama about a dom-sub relationship between members of a gay biker club offers something different each time.

“It can play in so many different ways,” Skarsgård explained in a recent interview. “It’s really fun to see and feel the energy in the room, how sometimes people really lean into the comedy and sometimes it feels more somber and heartfelt.”

“Pillion,” which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year before touring the festival circuit, is only now reaching North American theaters. The film stars Skarsgård as Ray, a mysterious member of a gay biker club who begins a dominant-submissive relationship with Colin, a younger, less experienced man played by Harry Melling.

The film stands out for balancing explicit sexuality with unexpected sweetness and humor. Director Harry Lighton, who joined Skarsgård and Melling for the interview, was adamant about not sanitizing the sexual content.

“I was very keen that if we were going to take on this subject matter, the sex would be on screen,” Lighton said. “It wouldn’t be portrayed through ellipsis or the camera panning away because that would make it seem like I was judging the type of sex we were showing.”

When asked if the film could be categorized as “sex positive” or “sex negative”—a debate that surrounded recent films like “Babygirl”—Lighton resisted such binary classification.

“It’s hard for me to reduce it to sex positive or sex negative, because there are ups and downs to Colin’s experience,” he explained. “Maybe I’d call it ‘sex net positive,’ which is an incredibly unsexy way to describe the film. For me, it’s about someone trying to grow into his sexuality. And that’s always going to be a bumpy road. But where he ends up is with more knowledge and practice.”

Skarsgård revealed that the screenplay was actually more explicit than what appears in the final cut. “You made sure that anyone who read the screenplay knew what they were throwing themselves into,” Skarsgård told Lighton with a laugh.

For Skarsgård, Ray presented an intriguing challenge—a dominant figure with hidden depths that are never fully explained. “I love the little clues that Harry put into the screenplay and the fact that it’s never really spelled out,” Skarsgård said. “There’s never a big cataclysmic moment where he’s opening up about his past.”

The actor enjoyed finding subtle ways to add dimension to his character. “It was a lot of fun finding little things that would add flavor to the character of this dominant biker, everything from what book is he reading, what glasses is he wearing, to what are the tattoos on his body. Maybe they’re more effeminate. Maybe he’s listening to ‘I Think We’re Alone Now,’ pop music from the ’80s.”

For Melling, who many still remember as Dudley Dursley from the “Harry Potter” films but has since built a career as a respected character actor, “Pillion” marks his first lead role in a feature film. However, when the conversation turned to whether this might be his “breakthrough” moment, Melling bristled slightly.

“The idea of the word ‘breakthrough’ terrifies me,” Melling admitted. “If you as an actor start considering this is the moment or the breakthrough moment, you’re sort of done for.”

Throughout the interview, the trio demonstrated the same easy rapport and humor that infuses the film, with Skarsgård playfully feigning jealousy when attention shifted to Melling’s performance. “You saw the vacant, distant gaze of an actor when the conversation isn’t about him,” Skarsgård joked.

While the filmmakers don’t expect “Pillion” to match the commercial success of “Heated Rivalry,” another recent film featuring explicit LGBTQ+ content, they’re pleased with its broad appeal.

“The fact that people in the BDSM community seem to respond to it, but Harry’s mom also loves it—hopefully it can appeal to a lot of people,” Skarsgård said.

Lighton added: “‘Heated Rivalry’ is a good example of someone taking a risk on something which seems like it might be niche, and then suddenly it explodes into the mainstream. Taking risks can result in not only exciting creative material but commercially viable results as well.”

“Pillion” is now playing in select North American theaters.