Alexander Skarsgård says Pillion originally had more graphic scenes but not everything was included in the final cut

Alexander Skarsgård is reportedly thrilled over his role in director Harry Lighton’s film Pillion, which is doing the rounds in the festival circuits and was released in the United States on August 30, 2025. Alexander stars in the film as Ray, a magnetic biker gang leader who enters into a dominant-submissive relationship with Colin, played by Harry Melling.

“I found that in this case, it’s not really relevant what my background is. I mean, I do have a kid, but what I’ve done in the past, who I’ve been with, men, women… To me, what was important was that this felt like an opportunity to tell a story about a subculture I hadn’t seen portrayed this way – with so much authenticity,” Alexander stated while doing press at the Zurich Film Festival.

“My experience of watching this on screen was through (Al Pacino’s Cruising), where it’s the dark underbelly of New York City—dangerous, murderous, and scary. Leather gays are portrayed as terrifying. I’m no Ray, but I’ve had a little experience with that world, and I know that’s not the truthful depiction.”

Robbie Taylor Hunt served as the intimacy coordinator for the film, ensuring the safe and respectful handling of its intimate and sensitive scenes.

Alexander noted that the purpose of the intimacy coordinator on set was not really about making the actors comfortable, as they were already very comfortable with each other.

Instead, it was to make the intimacy look authentic, as clumsy, weird, awkward, and funny as the real thing. 

Praising Harry Lighton’s handling of the subject, Alexander shared, “He embraced the awkwardness of it. All these characters were fully fledged, and the sex scenes weren’t for the sake of being graphic. We shot way more graphic stuff than you’ve seen just now.”
 

Alexander Skarsgård opens up about his reason for picking Pillion

Do you give? Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling star in PILLION, a love and leather dom-com from writer and director Harry Lighton. In theaters this February. pic.twitter.com/OVW0seZgYF

— A24 (@A24) October 1, 2025

Alexander Skarsgård had admittedly not seen any of director Harry Lighton’s previous work. However, it was the logline of Pillion that first attracted his attention. 

“It felt so original, and that’s quite rare,” noted the actor. “I’ve read great scripts where I’m like: ‘This is great, but it reminds me of 10 films I’ve seen.’ I was invited into this world with so much love and compassion, but he didn’t do it with too much reverence. Sometimes, when you portray a subculture, you’re so worried about offending (someone) or getting something wrong that you’re too precious about it. I immediately called my agents and said: ‘I wanna talk to this mad child.”

Throughout the entire movie, his character, Ray, is kept in suspense. The actor joked that this gave him the leeway of not coming up with a backstory for the character.

Throughout the film, Ray remains an enigma, and to Alexander’s great pleasure, his character’s reputation is never marred by revelations such as him having a secret wife. 

Alexander also joked about what usually attracts him to his roles, quipping, “Money. Yeah! Capitalism, baby.”

He later added that the subculture depicted in Pillion has so far embraced the film warmly, and recalled how the community’s response was evident right from its very first screening at Cannes.

“The bikers in the movie are members of GBMCC, the Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club in the U.K. Five of them drove from London to be there. We had the most extraordinary day and night celebrating together.” 

“If you’re not a (professional) actor, even if you’re proud of the end result, it can be really weird to sit in a movie theater with thousands of people, at the biggest film festival in the world, and watch yourself running around naked on screen. That they were just loving it and felt proud, it meant the world to me.” 
 

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