Kink in the armour: Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling reveal all about hit ‘dom com’ Pillion (EXCLUSIVE)

“There’s a dildo the size of my thigh in that scene!” laughs director Harry Lighton of the astonishing centrepiece in hit ‘dom com’ Pillion. In it, Alexander Skarsgård’s BDSM king Ray commands an outdoor orgy as a smorgasbord of bottoms – Harry Melling of Harry Potter fame and Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears among them – compete for his attention. It’s gobsmacking stuff, climaxing with Skarsgård’s biker gang leader unveiling his pierced (and for the record, prosthetic) penis. A “close-up of a bellend” was cut, but “nothing else,” insists Lighton. “This version is the director’s cut. Exactly as explicit as I wanted!” 

“We’re gonna release the actors’ cut – way raunchier!” jokes Skarsgård, 49, over coffee with Attitude, Lighton and Melling in a London hotel. “But it’s not just a pile of bodies, or ‘hey, let’s shoot a crazy orgy scene in the woods. There’s a lot happening. It’s a rich sequence, visually, but also, story. There’s a lot packed into those three minutes, between [Melling’s character] Colin and Jake Shears’s character Kevin, the power play between them. When Ray walks over to Kevin, there’s jealousy there, and coming back to Colin, it’s revengeful. Then his first orgasm. It’s an emotional roller-coaster.”

Melling, the shy, unassuming sub to Skarsgård’s “confident, assertive” dom, concurs. “It’s a triumphant moment – Colin being good at it, enjoying it properly,” says the 36-year-old. “What’s so wonderful about the sex in this movie is it’s always telling a story. It’s not a pause where a sexy moment happens. Every moment of sex propels the narrative: of Collin’s understanding of what love is, of what sex means to him.”

Until the orgy, the guys’ rigid dynamic – Collin dutifully preparing dinner and cleaning the home of his master; sleeping at the foot of his bed like a dog; donning an assless singlet and contorted his body in all manner of improbable positions during a wrestling session – is marked by complete abdication of power. Then, it happens. Eye contact during sex. Ray’s mask slips, and irrepressible tenderness seeps through. “Colin takes control of it, in a way,” smiles Melling.

Attitude – the world’s biggest LGBTQ+ media brand and Europe’s best-selling magazine for gay men – is launching of Attitude Uncut, an all-new digital magazine that will be published six times a year (between Attitude print issues) and available exclusively on Apple News+ and via the Attitude app. Featuring long-read journalism inspired by themes resonating within the LGBTQ+ community, each issue will provide a deep dive into topics as varied as sexuality, identity, health, relationships and beyond. The first issue – themed ‘Kink’ – is inspired by hit film Pillion, in cinemas from 28th November. Set in the world of fetish, it stars Alexander Skarsgård and former Harry Potter star Harry Melling who, after a chance meeting in a pub, begin a love affair that takes them both on an unexpected journey of self-discovery. 

“A split seconds where Ray’s not in control – what will that trigger in him?” adds Skarsgård. 

It’s something this writer and lover of transgressive queer cinema has never seen before: a deeply explicit gay sex scene with the grit and harshness of Cruising (1980) or Stranger by the Lake (2014), but laced with emotion, and as such a refreshing contrast to the other extreme of gay sex on film: the soft-focus sentimentality of the window fade-out in Call Me By Your Name (2017). It makes an envelope-pushing point: all of us – even 6’4 alphas obsessed with pain and power – are vulnerable to love and intimacy.

Leather and grace

Humanising a misunderstood community was a key driver for Lighton, 33. A major misconception, he says, is that they “do not have lives outside of BDSM. You often see them represented as secondary characters who do a BDSM scene and exit the film. But you can be into kink and then go for a roast lunch with your parents. It doesn’t need to be contradictory, inconsistent. It can be difficult – there can be ways your parents’ or society’s ideals rub up against your needs. But I wanted to show their lives exist in the round.” 

This tension plays out through fish-out-of-water Colin, an audience surrogate whose dull, sexless existence – working as parking attendant, living with his parents in Bromley, singing in a barber shop quartet – is upended by a chance meeting with Ray at the local pub. An alleyway hook-up on Christmas Day seals the deal: Collin falls in all-consuming love and lust. “I didn’t even think about it, it just was,” says Melling of his immediate chemistry with Skarsgård. “There wasn’t a ‘eureka!’ [moment] – from the get-go, it felt good.”  

“I instantly knew the moment I shook this beautiful man’s hand,” adds Skarsgård, known for roles in True Blood and Big Little Lies.

“The female names tattooed on his chest, things around the apartment – there are clues” – Alexander Skarsgård on Ray

Ray’s life outside of kink, though, is a near-total mystery. What does he do for work? What music does he listen to? (“Kim Wilde!” jokes Skarsgård.) There are easter eggs. 

“Practical things he’s particular about,” says Lighton. “Not eating chocolate [for example] – there’s a logical explanation.” 

(Ray’s otherworldly physique, by the way, is almost unbearable to look at, prompting unhinged behaviour in others, such as when Jake Shears’s Kevin cruelly tells Collin: “You bring his qualities into relief.”) Adds Skarsgård: “[Colin’s mum] is like: Does he have a secret life? A wife? A husband?’ It was funny planting little hints. The female names tattooed on his chest, little things around the apartment. There are clues.”

To read the rest of this feature, check out Attitude Uncut on Apple News+.

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