As he directs Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling in a thrilling sub-dom romance, Harry Lighton talks about finding connection through kink
November 28, 2025
Some filmmakers use their early work to process their formative experiences. Harry Lighton took the opposite tack: with his first short films, he was exploring on screen what he hadn’t yet been brave enough to try in real life. “On some level, I began making films because I wanted to explore my own sexuality,” the 33-year-old writer-director tells me. “In my early twenties, I would essentially soft-launch my sexuality [through] my shorts, and then go and do it myself.” If that’s still Lighton’s filmmaking MO, his sex life is about to get pretty interesting with the release of his debut feature, Pillion.
Adapted from Adam Mars-Jones’s 2020 novel Box Hill, Pillion follows the salty-sweet relationship that forms between Colin (Harry Melling), a mild mannered traffic warden, and Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), a strapping dom biker who’s looking for a sub, and reckons the inexperienced but eager-to-please Colin might fit the bill. Few among us would turn down a chance to wrestle in spandex with someone who looks like Skarsgård, but many might baulk at Ray’s other kinks, which include turning Colin into a domestic servant and forcing him to sleep alone on the bedroom floor like he’s an obedient dog. Colin, however, has an “aptitude for devotion” and is happy to fulfil his duties – initially, at least.
Pillion has been described as a sub-dom-rom-com, and indeed, its rhythms do sometimes resemble a Richard Curtis flick, if you ignore the boot licking, butt plugs and biker orgies. At times, it’s difficult to tell whether we’re meant to be rooting for these crazy, kinky kids, or become appalled as Colin leans further into his humiliation. “I wanted to ask that question and not fall too heavily on one side or the other,” explains Lighton. “It’s been interesting seeing people from all walks of life, all demographics, react to the film. Some are like, ‘Well, I fucking hated Ray.’ And some are like, ‘It really made me think about what I actually want from sex and romance.’”
One thing’s for certain: Pillion has some of the funniest and horniest sex scenes of recent cinema history. And like all the best sex in cinema, these carnal acts don’t just express their characters’ sexual appetites, but also their deeper desires. Lighton recalls gaining an early insight into the potential of sex on screen when he saw Andrew Haigh’s Weekend. “I remember watching that film and thinking, ‘Oh, there’s a lot that can be done with detailed approaches to sex,’ and I think that’s something I took on board with both my shorts and Pillion: this idea that sex doesn’t need to just be a quick, climactic point to a sequence. It can be an emotional set piece as well.”
Pillion, 2025(Film still)
It wasn’t the copious descriptions of kink-tinged sex that got Lighton interested in adapting Box Hill, though. What hooked him was the book’s unstable tone. Told in the first person, the story suggests a BDSM spin on an Alan Bennett monologue, with much of its humour coming from the bracing collision between the extreme details of Colin and Ray’s relationship and Colin’s matter-of-fact, almost quaint narration. “It reminded me of Badlands a bit,” suggests Lighton, “when Sissy Spacek’s character is watching a guy essentially go on a murderous rampage, but she’s treating it like it’s out of the pages of a teenage romance magazine. Adam’s book that had a similar dissonance.”
Lighton has done a stellar job of replicating this skew-whiff tone, despite making several changes to the story. Most noticeably, the period setting has moved from the 1970s to the present day, and Colin is now a shy man in his thirties, rather than a timid 18-year-old, as he is in the book when he meets the hunky older biker. One result of making Colin closer to Ray’s age is that it allowed Lighton to cast Harry Potter alumnus Harry Melling, who’s utterly adorable as this sensitive young man whose emotions are constantly oscillating between bliss and heartbreak. “Harry’s got such an expressive face,” agrees Lighton. “That’s one of the reasons why I was so desperate to get him. We’re watching Harry learn about this world, and he manages to be expressive without overacting. That’s a rare quality in an actor.”
Pillion, 2025(Film still)
Skarsgård’s performance is harder to read. What drew Lighton to the Swede? “I knew that the person to play Ray had to be able to do surprising things with status, rather than just be hot. Alex is obviously hot, but I remember seeing him in Succession as Lukas Matsson, and I was so taken by the way he exerts his influence and his power over the Roy children in surprising, nuanced ways that didn’t just rely on him being a hunk. That’s what I wanted for Ray: I wanted his surface hotness to give way to something more complex.”
Skarsgård is electric on the screen, but he’s also been sizzling off screen during Pillion’s press cycle. A few hours after my chat with Lighton, the statuesque actor turned up on the red carpet for Pillion’s UK premiere at the London Film Festival wearing a backless shirt paired with tight leather trousers fitted with a studded, lace-up fly, and he had a squad of leather-clad gay bikers in tow. Unlike many straight actors who take on LGBTQ+ roles, he seems incredibly comfortable celebrating Pillion’s queerness. “Well, Alex is Swedish, and he’s the son of Stellan Skarsgård, so he’s got a pretty relaxed approach,” says Lighton. “He genuinely doesn’t give a fuck what people think about him or his sexuality. I think that’s a brilliant quality, and a refreshing one for someone who’s a straight male pin-up.”
Pillion is out in UK cinemas now.
