‘I think my mom will like it’: Alexander Skarsgård on gay biker ‘dom-com’ Pillion | film

HAri Melling knows the secret to being a good shoe licker. “You want to give a proper, satisfying, sexy lick,” says the 36-year-old actor, who has the eyes and nose tones of Nicholas Lyndhurst. “Once you get to the toe cap, you want to make sure you can feel your tongue through the skin.”

Melling, who is barely recognizable from his childhood role as the hapless Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter films, learned this new skill while preparing for the award-winning BDSM romcom. He plays Colin, a shy traffic controller who becomes subordinate to a taciturn biker named Ray. Listening intently to Melling’s advice in this London hotel room are his two partners in Bellion: Harry Layton, the film’s 33-year-old writer and director, whose flat cap and smirk give him a punk look, and Alexander Skarsgård, 49, who plays Ray, and today wears a scruffy ensemble — red sweatshirt, blue sweatpants, black shoes — that doesn’t mess around. The beauty of the pin.

In the name of research, Melling and Layton spent time with the Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club (GBMCC), some of whom appear in the film as members of Ray’s gang. “The organization is moving into leather culture but is not focused on sex,” Layton says. “We supplemented them in the film with people from the Kink community. Have I told you about the weekend I spent with GBMCC?” No, I tell him: we have never met before. “Yes, we have,” he joked. “You just don’t remember.” Skarsgård chips: “Harry was wearing a mask.”

As part of the GBMCC weekend, Lighton was taken on an eight-hour backseat ride. “I wanted to look cute but they gave me these safe skins instead. I looked like an astronaut. My main concern was that I didn’t get the Grindr photos I was hoping for.” What did he have to do to prove his commitment to bikers? His eyes twinkle: “Suck my dick,” he says.

While Leighton was speeding around the UK on the back of a bike and Melling was licking boots, Skarsgård was doing… not so much. “I didn’t create any backstory,” he says. “It was great!” Colin finds out almost nothing about Ray, and neither do we: he is an enigma wrapped in an enigma and pressed into the skin of a motorcycle. “The material is right for showing up and doing just that,” the actor continues.

This may explain the electrical tingling between the two threads. “In our last scene together, there was a look Alex gave me that I wasn’t expecting,” Melling says. “It almost felt like I saw Ray through him in some way. It was a revelation. What happened still seems pretty mysterious to me.”

“I can dispel the mystery now,” Skarsgård says matter-of-factly. “We shot it on a Friday afternoon and I had an evening flight back to Stockholm for the weekend. So the look was, like, ‘Dude.’ Don’t spoil this. I have to be in the car to Heathrow in three minutes.” He spoke like a true Dom.

Before production began, Lighton sent Melling a 20-page initial package of references and photos to help play the role of Colin. Was there a beginner’s guide for Ray as well? Skarsgård looks empty.

“I sent you one, but I never heard back,” the director says.

Skarsgard narrows his eyes. “Did you receive a thank you note from my assistant?” he asks, eliciting a lot of laughter.

“I sent it straight to you,” Layton replies with a touch of desperation. Then he turned to Meiling. “You read your book,” he says.

“Oh, you This is amazing Good boy,” Skarsgård quips.

“I’m a submarine,” Meling says smugly.

“Well, I was already in my dom mode,” his co-star responded. “I was like, ‘I’m not reading this. Fuck!” Which It was the evolution of my character.

One of Pillion’s miracles is that it lives up to the promise of Layton’s short films, including 2016’s Sunday Morning Coming Down (a teen finds a beachside glory hole) and 2017’s Wren Boys (gay marriage in prison), which had already earned him a reputation as an eccentric storyteller. He was planning to make his first feature film about sumo wrestling when a producer sent him a copy of Adam Mars Jones’s breakout novel, Box Hill, winner of the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize, with a view to adapting it. In the book, subtitled A Story of Low Self-Esteem, which is set in the 1970s, Colin is an 18-year-old closeted virgin when he travels over Ray in the Surrey beauty spot formerly associated with the picnic scene in Jane Austen’s Emma. (There’s a picnic at Pelion too, although the meats on offer are quite different from the “cold selection” offered in Austen’s novel.)

In the book, Ray rapes Colin. Then love grows above the abuse like a cataract. “It has aspects of Stockholm Syndrome,” Layton says. For the film, he modernized the setting, changed key details (Colin is now out of the house and is in his 30s) and removed the rape. “I wanted Ray to get Colin’s approval for their first sexual encounter.”

He’s referring to the fellatio that takes place in a dark alley near Primark on Christmas Day, where Colin kneels before the tough, passionate biker. “The three of us discussed that scene a lot,” Skarsgård recalls. “We tried a version that seemed aggressive, but we all wanted to pull back from that.” Melling leans in and says: “I’m so glad we did it, because in terms of Colin’s entry point into the relationship, it opens up a whole other path.” Skarsgård embraces the idea: “Yes, the audience should be with Colin on this, and not feel like he was raped in an alley.” No one would accuse the film of being too obscene, but Leighton did a quick shot of this scene. “Originally, there was a close-up of the end of Ray’s bell,” he says. “But it would have cut through the tension and sparked laughter.”

In various drafts of the script, Layton attempted to move the events to ancient Rome, or to a modern cruise ship. I heard he wrote a version set in space. “That’s not true,” he says. “But it could be great.” Skarsgård seems excited: “BDSM in space suits! I love it. The only problem will be once you start decompressing… Perfect!“It imitates his internal organs being sucked in. “Also, it would be very difficult to overpower someone in zero gravity,” Layton says, cooling off at the thought.

Why drive so far around the houses and then end up with an eccentric motorcycle gang, just like in Box Hill? “I loved the essence of the novel, but because it was my first film, I wanted to shake it up and see how I could make it my own. Hubris took me to ancient Rome. It’s also how my writing process works; I get frustrated by something and throw it all up in the air.”

Plus, it’s not like “butt seats with wrestlers” is his craziest idea. Five years ago, he met with producers after walking out late the night before. Losing inspiration, he turns to one of his childhood crushes: groundskeeper Willie from The Simpsons. “He’s very orange and has a big beard. I remember when he took his shirt off, I said, ‘That’s my man.’ So I showed them the live-action version of Groundskeeper Willie starring Michael Fassbender. They were kind of interested, but they thought there might be a rights issue. No kidding.”

Layton’s indirect adaptation at least helped him solve what he saw as a narrative problem: Ray’s death, two-thirds of the way through the book. “It was only through writing the cruise ship version that I discovered I didn’t want to kill him.” Ray’s film survives. But what about Colin’s low self-esteem? “I think that’s still there. He’s sexually neurotic, he lives with his parents and he doesn’t like his job. The difference is that there’s an aspect of self-loathing in the novel, whereas I wanted to turn that into self-doubt so that when he jumps off the cliff into this new life, the catalyst is more of a positive force than a negative force.”

The trailer also contains an approving quote that describes Pillion as “feeling good.” That might be the case for a film that embraces a networked society without shame or judgement. Layton has little tolerance for the “No Kink at Pride” rhetoric that has accompanied LGBTQ+ festivals’ drift into the mainstream. “Now that Pride has become a family event, there’s this idea that kinks are not appropriate to be shown in public. But Pride started as a call to arms for queer people, so it’s the marginalized, the queer people, who should have pride of place, not families with five-year-olds. I feel proud to have made a film that celebrates people in the suburbs, and treats them with compassion.”

Skarsgård agrees. “There’s a danger when you tell a story about a subculture that it might paint too rosy a picture,” he says. “But what I love about this movie is that he’s so confident about everything. It’s funny, it’s exciting and you believe in the characters. We never wanted to appease the straight audiences but I also think my mom would love the movie. We didn’t want to He makes But she can enjoy it.

One audience member that Layton is nervous about showing Bellion to is his twin brother. Although he describes him as “my best friend,” there is some interesting historical tension between them. Their father, Sir Thomas Leighton, is a baronet. “It’s just a title,” the director says, not seeming too happy when asked about it. Did he grow up in the palace? “I didn’t. Sorry to disappoint you.” The baronetcy would eventually pass to Layton Sr.’s eldest son – not Layton but his twin, born six minutes before him.

“When did you know the address?” Melling asks.

“I was seven or eight years old,” he says. “I thought I might kill my brother because that’s what you read about in history books. It made me angry that he would get the title ‘sir’ and I wouldn’t get anything.”

“I can call you ‘sir’ if you want,” Skarsgård offers.

“I would rather have a military title like sergeant,” Layton says. “That’s even hotter. Being ‘sir’ is kind of bad. Anyway, I’m over it now.”

The evidence suggests otherwise. In the film, Layton saddles Colin with a twin brother who is “a bit vanilla.” There was also a twin in his first short film called Sunday Morning Coming Down. “He was a bit of an idiot, too,” he laughs. It may seem as if he made amends by giving his brother a brief role at Pelion as an amateur footballer. “Even though I cut his head off in the shot.” This is quite the power play. If there isn’t a movie to be made about all this, I’ll eat my biker boots.