You may know Harry Melling from the “Harry Potter” movies or his roles in Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” Scott Cooper’s “The Pale Blue Eye,” or Scott Frank’s “The Queen’s Gambit.” But there is something extraordinary, something career-defining about his portrayal of Colin in Harry Lighton’s unconventional love story “Pillion.” A world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, a little over eight months ago, A24 is finally dropping it in theaters just in time for a semi-wide release on Valentine’s Day.
The film has played numerous festivals over the past year and earned a slew of accolades, such as Best British Independent Film at the British Independent Film Awards, Best Adapted Screenplay at the Gotham Awards, and British Film of the Year from the London Film Critics’ Circle. Lighton is up for the prestigious DGA Award for First-Time Theatrical Feature Film, and the movie earned three BAFTA Awards nominations, including Outstanding British Film. Yet, somehow, even in a super competitive year, both Melling and his co-star, Alexander Skarsgard, didn’t get enough love for their work (at least in our opinion). In fact, when the film hits theaters over the next month, and eventually HBO Max through A24’s output deal, we can already see the social posts from moviegoers going gaga over this heartbreaker of a love story. And much of that is due to Melling. In hindsight, everyone is gonna wonder where his nomination was. Where that statue was. But what a performance for the resume.
The film centers on Colin, a quiet parking enforcement officer who still lives at home with his parents on the outskirts of London. When he randomly meets mysterious biker Ray (Skarsgard) at a neighborhood pub, his life is forever changed. What starts as a surprising power dynamic, a BDSM relationship, ventures into an emotional connection that neither may be prepared for.
During our long conversation about the film, Melling went into details about how he and Lighton agreed on making sure Colin wasn’t portrayed as a sad sack or desperate, the moments he and Skarsgard found on set that weren’t in the script, how he forgot he’d actually need to learn how to ride a motorcycle, the lack of dramas over filming the sex scenes, and much, much more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Oh, and vague spoilers ahead.
_____
The Playlist: Now that more and more people are seeing the film, what has struck you the most about their reaction to it?
Harry Melling: I think the thing that I’m really pleased with is that from some of the screenings, it feels like I get the feeling that people are moved by it. And I must say, when I read the script, I kind of was confident that it was funny. I kind of knew that it had funny bones. I also knew that it could be moving, but I thought that was a far harder thing to get in terms of the balancing the tone of it and the fact that people are coming away from this movie feeling moved by the story and by this relationship and these characters, that to me is something that I seem to be most proud of, I think.
This is not conventional material. This is one of the things that’s so great about this movie is that many people don’t know this world exists. Do you remember how your agent or manager prefaced it before sending you the script?
What was great with this was that I knew Harry Lighton’s short film, “Wren Boys,” quite well, and I loved it. And then I remember I got the email, it said, “New film by first-time feature director Harry Lighton.” And I was like, “I know that name. Why do I know that name?” And then I did a quick little Google [and saw the “Wren Boys” connection]. And in a weird way, Greg, I kind of knew from that, “O.K., this is going to be intriguing.” And then I remember my agent, there was a little blurb about “Gay biker World BDSM” kind of thing. And I read it, and honestly, I knew immediately that if Harry wanted me, I would love to have a go at offering something towards this kind of beautiful creature that is Colin. So yeah, luckily I knew Harry’s work, albeit a short film, but I think you can tell a lot from shorts and a director’s sensibilities and what they’re into. And I met up with Harry, and then from then on it was like, “Let’s do this.” And it all sort of came from there.
When I spoke to Mr. Lighton, he said that there’s very little character description for Ray’s character. Based on what you originally read and then how you guys shot the film, in your mind, how different did Colin and Ray’s relationship play out as compared to what you originally thought it might be? Did it evolve? Or was it pretty much what was on the page?
Well, it definitely evolved, which I think is what was so intriguing about the process. The script was very detailed in terms of the beat-by-beat moments. But in terms of descriptions of Ray, certainly, that was very vague. And in a way that was wonderful because it meant that I was coming into this with no real preconceptions of who this person is. And any preconception I did have was just quickly shifted because of what Alex was doing. I mean, Alex speaks about this a lot. We’d turn up to set, and we’d have a vague idea of what the day would look like, how the scene would play out. And by the end of the day, there’d be little moments that just surprised you that you didn’t quite factor into what you thought would be there on the day. And that was great. And I think Harry’s script allowed that to happen. It was a very finely tuned script in terms of what the moments were, but it also had that room for Alex and me to just find stuff, which is for me the best. The things in movies that I’m looking for are those moments of surprise or those moments that are alive. And I think Harry’s script allowed for them.
One of the things that I love about Colin’s character is that someone could look at where he is at the beginning of the film and think, “This guy must be so depressed and sad.” But he still seems to have a positive outlook on life. Was that in the script? Was that something you brought to him?
I think that was one of the first conversations I had with Harry Lighton was about how do we not make him this sort of sad, lonesome figure. Yes, he is in terms of he hasn’t quite happened yet. I think that’s what we kind of coined for him. He’s on the precipice of doing something. And then in comes Ray, and you’re right, I mean, Harry Lighton coined this phrase. We call it stubborn optimism. Do you know what I mean? He becomes very determined about what he wants and about trying to work this out for himself. And that’s the kind of thing that I found moving about him is the fact that he makes the decision to jump. And I think that’s the thing that I find so inspiring about Dear Old Colin. Right? It was important for us that his loneliness or his closedness not be based on some kind of trauma or some kind of family-related thing. It actually comes from a family that is incredibly warm and loving, and that was important in terms of understanding where Colin is and what he wants. But yeah, I think it’s his zest to try and work it out and to try and understand this dynamic. And it’s exciting to watch someone come into themselves. And I think that’s what Colin does throughout the duration of the movie. He sort of understands what he needs from this kind of relationship.
