🎧 The Death of Sex on Screen Was Greatly Exaggerated

‘Pillion’ actor Harry Melling is a breakout thanks to the sweet (yes!) BDSM story as romance in all forms revs up

RIGHT MAN Harry Melling, right, with Pillion star Alexander Skarsgård. “It’s so assured in how it moves through the action,” Melling tells me of director Harry Lighton’s new movie. “I knew the second I met him that this guy is onto something.” (The Ankler illustration; A24)

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As recently as four months ago, people would tell you with a straight face that Gen Z doesn’t want sex scenes in movies and TV, and that it’s impossible to mint new stars these days.

Now, basically everywhere you look, there’s sex and romance and exciting new faces — from the still-going Heated Rivalry boom to Emerald Fennell’s new take on Wuthering Heights to the BDSM coming-of-age story Pillion. That last film is finally in U.S. theaters after its U.K. release late last year earned star Harry Melling a British Independent Film Award nomination for best actor.

Melling is not exactly a new face — you may remember him as a child in the Harry Potter films playing Dudley Dursley, or for scene-stealing roles in films like The Ballad of Buster Scruggs or The Old Guard. But the London-born actor steps into a thrilling new gear in Pillion, the ambitious first feature from director Harry Lighton, in which Melling plays a shy young man who begins a BDSM relationship with a strapping biker played by Alexander Skarsgård.

Full of transgressive sex scenes and at least one prosthetic penis, Pillion may get plenty of attention for its shock value. But its real beauty lies in its surprising sweetness, much of it carried by Melling, who plays his character, Colin, as someone smitten even in a relationship so unconventional he doesn’t share a bed with his partner — instead curling up on the floor like a dog.

“One of the things we always said from the get-go was it’s so important to see Colin want this desperately,” Melling, 36, tells me on today’s episode of the Prestige Junkie podcast. “He’s fighting for this. There’s an optimistic stubbornness to his need to fulfill something.”

Melling delved into research with members of the London-based Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club (who appeared on set as extras), and he, Lighton and Skarsgård worked to represent their world as accurately as possible. But of all the challenges that required — from riding a motorcycle to wearing leather to some very intimate sex scenes — there was one that Melling really wasn’t sure he was ready for: shaving his head.

“My friends said, ‘You do realize that you never quite know if it’s going to look good or not until you do it?’” Melling says. “I remember taking a moment in the dressing room, going, ‘Oh my gosh, this could either go well, or this could be game over in terms of Colin’s look.’ But luckily, I think people have been very complimentary about the shaved head.”

RIDE OR DIE Melling, right, with his head shaved in a scene from Pillion. (A24)

Unconventional as it can be, Pillion is very much a love story, allowing Melling and Skarsgård to build distinctive characters and allowing the audience the joy of watching them learn how to be with each other. I thought about Pillion, as well as the tiny handful of other romantic movies that have come out in recent years, when talking to film critic Katie Walsh in the first half of this week’s podcast episode, in which we tackled the romance phenomenon that’s been dominating Instagram algorithms, group chats and bookstore shelves for the past two months thanks to Heated Rivalry.

Yes, that’s a lot going on in a single episode of the Prestige Junkie podcast — and would you believe there’s a whole bonus episode coming this Saturday with exclusive interviews from the Oscar nominees luncheon? Listen to today’s episode now, and for much more where this came from, you can always subscribe to Prestige Junkie After Party, with brand-new, subscriber-only episodes every Friday.

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