A former Harry Potter actor stars in an X-rated film that earned an incredible eight-minute standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival on Sunday night.
Actor Harry Melling, 36, who played Dudley Dursley in the famous wizarding film franchise forms a key part of the cast of Pillion.
The movie delves into the BDSM relationship between a gay biker and a parking attendant – receiving enthusiastic praise at its premiere over the weekend.
It is the debut feature from screenwriter and director Harry Lighton, focusing on the characters of Ray, portrayed by Alexander Skarsgård, and the quiet Colin, played by Harry Melling.
The storyline follows the journey of Colin, a shy individual who crosses paths with Ray, a self-assured leader of a biker gang, who introduces him to a submissive partnership. This arrangement challenges Colin’s ordinary life and leads to personal development as they navigate their unique bond.
As well as an eight-minute standing ovation at Cannes it has also earned praise from the critics.
Indie Wire writes: ‘Harry Lighton’s first feature outdoes ‘Babygirl’ in its graphic and psychologically complex portrayal of an aloof leather-clad biker and his devoted submissive.’
Before the screening, director Lighton said he wanted the film ‘to make you laugh, make you think, make you feel and make you horny.’Â
The film features explicit sex scenes and wild costumes but Cannes audiences were still lapping it up.
The Queen’s Gambit actor Harry stars as shy Colin, whose humdrum life in the suburbs is blown apart when he meets Alexander’s character Ray.
Ray strikes up a sexual relationship with Colin and integrates him into his queer biker milieu, injecting his life with a fresh dose of excitement and mystique.
However Colin eventually starts to feel stifled by the fact that he always has to occupy the submissive role in his dynamic with Ray.
Alexander has spoken freely in the past about how comfortable he is playing nude scenes, quipping to uInterview: ‘I’m Scandinavian, godda***it! We love to be naked.’
The Swedish hunk is also no stranger to gay sex scenes, having played multiple during his star-making turn on the vampire show True Blood.
One of the scenes was with heterosexual actor Theo Alexander, whose anxiety Alexander had to help assuage before they shot the sequence.
‘He’s also a straight guy and he was nervous; he had never kissed a guy before,’ Alexander explained in an interview with PrideSource.
He said to Theo: ‘Look at the scene. It’s this nemesis and he comes in and then it gets seductive and you think they’re gonna make love and it gets into that and then suddenly my character stabs him in the back and he explodes.’
He added: ‘In two minutes, look at this emotional rollercoaster we’re taking the audience on. If we commit to this, it’s going to be an amazing scene and we’re going to be very happy with it forever. If we hold back, that’s when it gets awkward.’
Alexander is himself heterosexual and is in a long-term relationship with Swedish actress Tuva Novotny, with whom he welcomed a baby in 2022.
However he remarked that homosexuality has ‘always been the most natural thing to me because my uncle and godfather is a gay man and so growing up, even as a little toddler, it was just as natural as being straight.’Â
Alexander, whose father is the Swedish movie star Stellan Skarsgard, recalled: ‘My aunt would show up with her husband and my uncle would show up with his husband.
‘He was, by far, out of my father’s four siblings, the most fashionable and the most trendy, cool guy. So, when I was a kid, he was the one I looked up to.’
The Stockholm-born heartthrob noted: ‘I thought he was really bada*** fit and awesome and cool, and obviously not because he was gay.’
He remembered: ‘When I became a teenager and the kids made fun of other teenagers who were gay, I never really understood that.
‘It just baffled me because my idol, my godfather, was gay, and he was the coolest guy I knew. I just couldn’t understand how that could be an insult.’
