Latest news with #HarryMelling
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Harvest star Harry Melling: ‘I was surrounded by titans like Fiona Shaw. I was starry-eyed as they told me stories about theatre work'
At 36, Harry Melling is having a moment. Long past his days as Dudley Dursley, Harry Potter's pampered, odious cousin, Melling has quietly become one of Britain's most intriguing character actors. His latest role, in the Cannes hit Pillion, marks a new chapter for the transformative performer. Produced by Element Pictures, the engaging film, a queer BDSM romance costarring Alexander Skarsgård , follows Melling's Colin, a poignantly awkward traffic attendant, as he becomes the submissive partner to Ray, the charismatic leader of a motorbike club. A tender, kinky biker comedy with surprising echoes of Ealing Studios comedy, Pillion, the directorial debut of Harry Lighton, got an eight-minute standing ovation at its premiere at the French film festival in May – and generated an unexpected intimacy-co-ordination challenge to do with a picnic table. The unassuming Melling is full of praise for his colleagues and for Robbie Taylor Hunt, the intimacy co-ordinator who supervised the sex scenes. READ MORE 'Robbie did such an amazing job,' says Melling. 'He was really thorough and also allowed enough room for us to play and have fun. It felt like the intimacy was always an extension of the narrative and Colin's character. It wasn't like this separate, sexy moment.' Pillion: Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård in Harry Lighton's film The ecstatic reception at Cannes is no surprise. Melling has emerged as an auteur's favourite, working with the Coen brothers, on The Ballad of Buster Scruggs ; a solo Joel Coen, The Tragedy of Macbeth ; David Gray, on The Lost City of Z ; Amanda Kramer, on Please Baby Please ; and Michael Winterbottom, on Shoshana . [ Michael Winterbottom on Shoshana: 'The film is about political violence. That theme is acutely relevant with what's going on in Gaza' Opens in new window ] 'Touch wood, I hope I can keep working with such brilliant, visionary directors,' he says. 'Because, when it comes to film, it really is about them. As an actor, it's never about you, not really. You're there to support their vision, to give them enough material to take into the editing room and shape into the story they want to tell.' In this spirit, Melling has finished shooting Butterfly Jam, Kantemir Balagov's long-awaited follow-up to Beanpole, alongside Barry Keoghan . Before that there's the Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari 's Harvest, her first film in English. Alongside collaborators such as Yorgos Lanthimos , Tsangari is a pioneering film-maker of the Greek weird wave, the cinematic movement famed for its deadpan tone and surreal, unsettling storytelling. 'I saw Chevalier before our first meeting,' Melling says. 'That was my introduction to Athina's work. It's an extraordinary film, right? I knew that she had this project. I didn't know anything about it. It was just a general meeting to catch each other's vibration. And I just fell in love with her instantly. 'She's such an artist, with a distinctive voice and a way of telling stories that feels very different to anything I have done before. She sent me the script but without any role attached to it. That's a very nice way of entering a story, because you are navigating from every angle.' An intriguing medieval folk western set in Scotland's Inner Hebrides archipelago, Tsangari's fourth feature brings together a fine cast – it also includes Caleb Landry Jones, Rosy McEwen, Arinzé Kene and Frank Dillane – in an adaptation of Jim Crace's novel. Set across seven hallucinatory days in a nameless village, Harvest follows Walter Thirsk (Landry Jones), a townsman turned farmer and outsider in a superstitious, tight-knit community. The fragile rural life is shattered first by a mysterious barn fire – prompting the scapegoating of three strangers – and, soon after, by the arrival of Edmund Jordan (Dillane), the ambitious, pitiless cousin of the local lord, Master Kent (Melling), who asserts his claim on the land and threatens their communal traditions. Nominally the kindlier lord who believes in land-sharing, Kent, struck by bumbling indecision, causes tensions to escalate, as greed, superstition, and fear of recently arrived outsiders take over. Harvest: Harry Melling in Athina Rachel Tsangari's film 'When I first read my character I thought, well, he's stuck in an impossible situation,' says Melling. 'He's trying to please everyone. And if I try and do that, then at no point will the audience be too angry with him. Because he hovers between these different worlds, caught between the oncoming modernity and looking after old friends. He does care for the villagers. But it's a film full of characters who keep sitting back and don't know how to take action. The audience is constantly moving between different points of view. Who's right and who's wrong keeps shifting.' Melling was born in London in 1989, the son of the children's illustrator and writer Joanna Troughton and the animator James Melling. His grandfather is Patrick Troughton, best remembered as the second Doctor in Doctor Who. Storytelling is in the DNA. 'I think I caught that fascination with stories as a young child,' he says. 'Between reading my mum's picture books as a kid and then going to the theatre too young to watch, I just fell in love with stories. I knew that I'd love to do anything I could in that realm. It seems like one of the most extraordinary things that human beings can do.' Melling was catapulted into the public eye by appearing in five of the eight Harry Potter films. His role was small but memorable, particularly for Dudley's physical transformation and eventual moment of uneasy redemption in The Deathly Hallows, a scene that was ultimately cut from the final film. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Richard Griffiths, Harry Melling and Fiona Shaw as the Dursleys in the 2007 film directed by David Yates Melling has deliberately distanced himself from the world of Harry Potter. He was a notable absentee from the 20th-anniversary television special Return to Hogwarts and has rarely spoken about the series, choosing instead to focus on theatre and independent film. 'One thing I did get from the Potter films was a curiosity about cinema,' he says. 'How things work with different directors, I was always fascinated by that. To me there's such a mystery around film: why a particular take works, why something doesn't work. It's something you are always trying to catch as an actor.' After those films he enrolled at London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art. 'I felt like I didn't know anything,' he says. 'I understood how a set worked. I understood the logistics. But in terms of performing I was just so hungry for knowledge. I went to drama school so naive and just wanting to get better and bridge the gap between being a child actor and a senior actor. 'I was surrounded by titans like Fiona Shaw . I was starry-eyed as they told me stories about theatre work. When I left I just did theatre for a long time. It's great to be doing more movies, but I'd love to get back.' The Pale Blue Eye: Robert Duvall as Jean Pepe, Christian Bale as Augustus Landor and Harry Melling as Edgar Allan Poe When Christian Bale teamed up with him for The Pale Blue Eye , a murder mystery from 2022 in which Bale's seasoned detective is assisted by a young Edgar Allan Poe, the veteran actor was full of praise for his screen partner. 'He just made me only see him as Poe afterwards,' Bale said. Melling has retained a soft spot for the 19th-century American author of The Raven and The Tell-Tale Heart. 'I just adored playing him. He's such a strange creature, and to have an opportunity to play against Christian Bale was wonderful. It was daunting in the sense that a lot of people were coming to that movie with an idea of who Edgar Allan Poe was. Luckily, because he was slightly younger, I had a bit more room to play with. But if I had to have a pint with any of my characters I'd probably say Edgar Allan Poe. He pauses, almost apologetically. 'But really any of them.' Harvest is in cinemas from Friday, July 18th
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Pillion' Review: Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling Are Magnificent in a Wildly Explicit and Strangely Sweet BDSM Romance
Dick-sucking, boot-licking, and ball-gagging are de rigueur for a movie like writer/director Harry Lighton's wildly graphic and strangely moving BDSM romance, 'Pillion.' But for a British queer film that puts the particulars of a gay dominant-submissive affair (or arrangement, better yet) up front and up close, actors Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling find the sweet center of a story marked by clamps, cages, and assless unitards. No doubt comparisons will arise to another A24 movie, 'Babygirl,' which last year put Nicole Kidman on all fours, crying out to Harris Dickinson that 'I'm gonna pee!' when actually she was just having an orgasm with another person for the first time. Lighton, adapting Adam Mars-Jones' book 'Box Hill,' really does take us there in the delightful 'Pillion,' with Skarsgård getting more emotionally naked than ever and almost physically more than he ever got as Eric Northman on TV's 'True Blood.' But not without, at first, this leather-clad biker, who seeks a submissive with seemingly disinterested vibes, radiating aloof energy when he first meets barbershop quartet singer Colin (Melling, in a truly special and wonderful breakout performance). A parking garage attendant by day and dandied-up singer by night who's just a bit too old to still be living with his parents — though his mum (Lesley Sharp) is dying of cancer, which in part keeps him home — Colin isn't so much looking for love or companionship or sex as much as he finally happens to fall into it when on Christmas Eve he's asked for a date, of sorts, by Ray (Skarsgård, who looks and sounds more and more like his father with each day). More from IndieWire Jodie Foster: 'Silence of the Lambs' Filmmaker Jonathan Demme Is My 'Favorite Feminist Director' LA Mayor Karen Bass Wants to Cut the Red Tape Required to Get a Movie Made in Hollywood Ray is an enigma and a mystery, a man who zips into town on a motorbike like a phantom and could just as easily evaporate at any minute. He's not at all giving of emotion toward Colin as their courtship — again, if we can call it that — turns into a serious but never sinister game of domination and submission. When Ray eventually brings Colin back to his ascetically composed apartment, he refuses to let Colin hang up his coat. He refuses Colin to have much volition at all. Ray also has a tattoo in the middle of his chest, inked with the names 'Ellen Wendy Rosie' for reasons never explained but all the more to add to his impenetrable allure. It's penetrating Colin — physically, psychically — that he eventually gets around to after some toying and coying. He won't let Colin sleep next to him, keeping him on the floor like a dog at the foot of the bed. Here's the kind of guy for whom Karl Ove Knausgård 's 'My Struggle' is light bedtime reading. Colin's mother is shocked when Ray makes him buy the groceries and cook his own birthday dinner. 'You couldn't upset me if you tried,' Ray, ever the implacable and gorgeous dominator, tells Colin at one point. What makes 'Pillion' so thrustingly good is how much the movie teases and tantalizes us, getting off on withholding, until finally unleashing in all its graphicness once Colin is face down, plunging his mouth on Ray's quite large, pierced cock, plunging ever deeper into Ray's expansive kinky social world. Scissor Sisters lead Jake Shears makes his acting entrance as one of the submissives orbiting Ray — and he ends up one of the stars of a very hot group sex scene splayed out over a picnic table, in which Ray fucks Colin face to face, eyes locked on eyes, for the first time. It warms the cockles of my heart still to think about Colin, having shaved his head and totally turned himself over to acts of devotion and in service of his master, wearing a locked chain around his neck, with Ray wearing the key around his own. 'Next to you, I'm nothing. When I'm yours, I'm the same,' Colin tells Ray, which sounds like the debased line of someone being desperately exploited by a partner. But Colin says it with the cadence of love, which his mother in her dying days simply cannot understand. Colin willingly puts himself in an abject position because what's happening between him and Ray is love, for him at least, even if that version of love doesn't comfortably conform to our understanding of what love is supposed to be, a system of back-and-forth flow in mutual directions. Colin craves Ray's command, and Ray would be lying if he said he wasn't feeling feelings about his boytoy, too. Which is when 'Pillion' takes an unexpected direction, Colin finally assuming more control over the relationship and becoming the emotional power bottom he was destined to be in their dynamic. What makes 'Pillion' work so well is that the film finally does give way to a big emotional release after so much cockteasing and edging of the audience and of Colin. Cinematographer Nick Morris has an eye for both sweaty intimacy in its hottest moments and the pooling reserves of desire and reined-in emotion that require a certain detachment. Until we are snapped back into what is ultimately a deeply moving love story, one where we become the submissives to Lighton's strange, beautiful, and sexy vision. It also never hurts to be anchored by two actors who are totally game and committed to that vision, and willing to go there, chains, gags, assless chaps and all. 'Pillion' premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. A24 will release the film at a later date. Want to stay up to date on IndieWire's film and critical thoughts? to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings — all only available to subscribers. Best of IndieWire The 25 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies, Ranked Every IndieWire TV Review from 2020, Ranked by Grade from Best to Worst
Daily Mail
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
X-rated BDSM film starring Harry Potter actor edited down due to extreme sex scenes and nudity
One of the most critically-acclaimed movies to screen at Cannes this year has been edited down due to its graphic nature. Pillion, which stars Alexander Skarsgard and Harry Melling, 36, who played Dudley Dursley, is a gay BDSM-themed romance from first-time feature writer-director Harry Lighton. The movie received an eight-minute standing ovation, but Lighton admits that the version screened at the iconic film festival had been edited down significantly due to its graphic sex scenes. 'It was purely because I didn't want to push the audience into feeling they were being deliberately shocked by an image,' he explained to Variety. 'So for example, there was one close up of a d**k, a hard d**k … like down the barrel of the lens. And after watching the film on that "f**k-off" screen I thought, yeah, cutting it was probably the right decision!' Skarsgard chimed in, 'There's definitely a raunchier version of this movie … what you've seen is the family friendly version… there's also the Alexander Skarsgard cut.' Lighton admits that Pillion may need to undergo even more edits to ensure that it can get a US release. The film explores the BDSM relationship between a gay biker and a parking attendant - with the project earning rapturous applause at the premiere. A synopsis reads: 'Colin, a timid man, meets Ray, a confident biker gang leader, who initiates him into a submissive relationship, challenging Colin's mundane existence and prompting personal growth through their unconventional dynamic.' Before the screening, director Lighton said he wanted the film 'to make you laugh, make you think, make you feel and make you horny.' The film features explicit sex scenes and kinky BDSM costumes but Cannes audiences were still lapping it up. Melling stars as shy Colin, whose humdrum life in the suburbs is blown apart when he meets Skarsgard'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. Skarsgard 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, thanks to 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.' The actor 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.' Skarsgard is himself heterosexual and is in a long-term relationship with Swedish actress Tuva Novotny, with whom he welcomed a baby in 2022.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
All the Details Behind Alexander Skarsgård's BDSM-Inspired Cannes Looks
This year's Cannes Film Festival organizers may have banned the infamous naked dress, but they didn't say anything about BDSM-themed dressing—for men, at least. Ironically, while the dress code has devoted its attention to restricting women's attire on the red carpet, Alexander Skarsgård's kinky thigh-high boots and mismatched sequin suit have bent the rules of propriety in a way that feels humorous, yet irreverent. The Swedish actor is currently at the festival promoting his upcoming movie, Pillion, where he plays Ray, the handsome leader of a queer biker club who takes on Colin (played by Harry Melling) as his sexual submissive. The film is already a festival favorite, receiving a warm seven-minute standing ovation. So why not lean into the character and promote it even more? If anything, themed dressing and red carpet Easter eggs have become the norm thanks to stylist-celeb power duos like Zendaya and Law Roach. From dressing Zendaya in archival cyborg-like Givenchy by Alexander McQueen for the Dune: Part 2 press tour to a custom tennis-printed Loewe dress for a Challengers premiere, every photo call has become an opportunity for subliminal messaging. Others have pushed the boundaries even further, going full method, like Timothée Chalamet who attended the New York premiere of A Complete Unknown dressed in a perfect recreation of a Bob Dylan outfit from 2003, blonde swooping hair and all. Skarsgård isn't a stranger to pushing the style envelope or channeling his roles through gimmicky fashion either. When promoting his film Infinity Pool, the actor wore a leather leash around his neck to walk the carpet. Albeit, it was a jarring sight for the context, but it directly referenced a scene from the movie and felt appropriately authentic to the celebrity's eccentric demeanor. At the Cannes photo call for Pillion's screening, the actor sported Loewe leather trousers paired with a thrifted BDSM graphic T-shirt depicting a faceless leather boot stepping on a man's open mouth—he is playing Colin's 'dom' after all. Later, on the red carpet, Skårsgard donned a full look from Saint Laurent's spring 2025 menswear collection, including the uniquely sensual over-the-knee leather boots (which have also been seen on Pedro Pascal). The sartorial madness didn't stop there. For the premiere of Eagles of the Republic, the actor stepped out in what could only be described as a Frankenstein-like suit. All styled by Harry Lambert, Skarsgård wore a gray striped Magliano jacket, oversized pink bow tie, and contrasting cobalt sequin trousers from Bianca Saunders. Daring? Yes. More so than a leather leash at a movie premiere? Not quite. Sometimes an ensemble simply comes along that is so perfectly sacrilegious that you can't help but smile and accept the look as nothing less than a balanced work of art. Skarsgård might not directly be disobeying the Cannes dress code—he's adhered to wearing evening dress or a bow tie (as per the official guidelines) for the red carpet—but he's definitely toeing the line, not unlike his character Ray, and perhaps is setting the standard for others to do so too. You Might Also Like The 15 Best Organic And Clean Shampoos For Any And All Hair Types 100 Gifts That Are $50 Or Under (And Look Way More Expensive Than They Actually Are)
South China Morning Post
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Alexander Skarsgård's method dressing at Cannes 2025: the Pillion actor donned Loewe leather pants, thigh-high boots and Bianca Saunders sequinned trousers – thanks to stylist Harry Lambert
Alexander Skarsgård has taken method dressing to a whole new level, a trend previously embraced by Zendaya and Margot Robbie during their promotional tours for Challengers and Barbie, respectively. The actor's bold fashion choices at the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival are certainly making waves. Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling at the Cannes Film Festival this month. Photo: AFP In director Harry Lighton's directorial debut Pillion, Skarsgård takes on the role of Ray, the leather-clad leader of a queer biker gang who begins a dom/sub sexual relationship with the meek Colin, played by Harry Melling. One of the more provocative offerings at this year's festival, the A24 film, adapted from Adam Mars-Jones' novel Box Hill, received an eight-minute standing ovation at the Cannes premiere on May 18. Advertisement Working with celebrity stylist Harry Lambert, who counts the likes of pop star Harry Styles and The Crown actors Emma Corrin and Josh O'Connor among his clientele, the Swedish heartthrob has spent the festival wearing a series of audacious ensembles that reference his character in the BDSM-focused film. Classic biker chic Alexander Skarsgård for the Pillion photocall at Cannes Film Festival 2025. Photo: WireImage Skarsgård's first noteworthy outfit was for the Pillion photocall on May 18. The 48-year-old's white T-shirt, leather trousers from Loewe and biker boots might have passed for an edgy but otherwise unassuming outfit – if it wasn't for the suggestive graphic on his T-shirt, featuring a black boot stepping down on a man's mouth. Skarsgård completed his outfit with a pair of aviators from Linda Farrow Boots for days Alexander Skarsgård on the red carpet for The Phoenician Scheme at the Cannes Film Festival this month. Photo: WireImage
