At just 36, British actor Harry Melling has already displayed an extraordinary range. He defines a character actor; not a bad place to be.
After clocking five “Harry Potter” titles as the titular hero’s bullying cousin Dudley Dursley — and getting so much taller and leaner during drama school LAMDA that he had to add a fat suit for the last two iterations — Melling’s breakout role was the Coen brothers’ “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” in which he played The Artist, a tragic Shakespeare-spouting man with no arms and legs stuck in a chair.
“Getting validation from Joel and Ethan was a huge moment for me as an actor,” said Melling on Zoom, “getting them to say, ‘We want you to do this movie, we think you’re going to be able to do it.’ I’d done a year of Shakespeare. The character is speaking sonnets and doing ‘Ozymandias’ as well. They gave me free rein, which was lovely. So I came up with these performances on the chair, and they filmed it. And it was the most joyous, wonderfully exciting experience. It opened me up to a lot of other directors, a lot of other creative people.”
It set Melling on his path. “I want to work with people like this,” he said to himself. “I want to make work that is eccentric and unusual.”
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Tim Blake Nelson, Bill Heck, and Harry Melling at ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’ photocall, 75th Venice Film Festival, ItalyAlberto Terenghi/REX/Shutterstock
That certainly includes his latest role in first-time British director Harry Lighton’s BAFTA contender, the BDSM relationship comedy “Pillion.” Melling stars opposite Alexander Skarsgård as the strapping Ray, a dominant biker who makes his sub Colin, who is learning the ropes, wear a dog collar and sleep on the bedroom rug and do all the shopping, cooking, and cleaning. “It’s all new and it’s all ahead of him,” said Melling. “You’re constantly watching Colin receive information and work out what to do with it, and that’s where a lot of the humor comes from. It’s him trying to second-guess, ‘Oh, what do I do now? What does Ray want now? Was that good? Did that please him?’ The humor comes from someone who’s trying to get it right.”
Colin has a cozy family to return to, which helps to normalize the film. “That was important to have that warmth that acts against the more shocking, confronting moments in the movie,” said Melling. “The tone of it is always moving between those two spaces.”
Colin is learning about himself: he didn’t know that this world was going to turn him on. “He knows that something in this territory,” said Melling, “something in this arena of BDSM, this dynamic, and this sub-dom dynamic, is right for him, and that’s what he’s pursuing. He knows at the end of this story, he’s going to arrive somewhere. And that’s what happens when you get to the end of the movie.”
Melling was confident that his “dream scene partner” Skarsgård would deliver as Ray. “We were game,” he said. “It was on, you know? It was fantastic. I knew he was going to be fun. He was not going to be shy in any way in terms of the sexual elements of the movie. Alex’s character is very experienced in this world, and knows exactly what he wants. And my character, Colin, doesn’t know what he wants, but he knows it’s somewhere here.”
The two actors did not talk prior to shooting. “We just said, ‘Let’s see what happens when we get in front of the camera and see what discoveries we make then,’” said Melling, “as opposed to trying to thrash it out, talking.”
‘Pillion‘Courtesy Everett Collection
Their first interaction was a wrestling scene in which Melling winds up spreadeagled in the air. “We shook hands, and then we just jumped on each other and started,” said Melling. “That took a bit of time. It’s called the Mexican Surfboard Move. It was a lovely way of getting to know the world, and Alex, and the characters, and how it’s going to work between us.”
Not unlike “Fifty Shades of Grey” or “Heated Rivalry,” intimacy builds into longing and emotion that isn’t just about sex. “The reason why I was so excited about the sex was because I felt that it was held in some kind of love story,” said Melling. “That’s what people hook into when watching those intimate scenes. They’re not interested in just being shocked. They’re interested in the development of the characters. You’re engaging with who these people are, and what they want from each other, and that is what makes it sexy.”
Being a character actor “is always what I wanted to be,” said Melling. “All actors are characters. Christian Bale describes himself as a character actor. People who are interested in the nuances and the details of human beings and how they operate is always going to be my true north. The most interesting characters are fighting for something, trying to prove something, or are… sensitive. I understand how the industry works, and what roles people see you as. Rather than fighting it, I want to challenge it and use it, and hopefully have as mature a career as is possible.”
Another juicy role came when Scott Cooper cast Melling opposite Bale in 2022 period mystery drama “The Pale Blue Eye.” “Playing someone as iconic as Edgar Allan Poe,” said Melling, “at a younger age, which is not how a lot of people see him — they see the more morose, depressed, dark figure. But it was fascinating to try and explore what he was prior to that mythology. I loved the Gothic world-building. I remember getting on set the first day and thinking, ‘I can either be scared about this whole adventure, or I can enjoy myself, and have fun and play.’ And the latter took hold.”
Harry Melling and Anya Taylor-Joy in ‘The Queen’s Gambit’Phil Bray / Netflix
Anya Taylor-Joy proved a worthy first romantic interest for Melling in the hit Scott Frank TV series “Queen’s Gambit.” “It took us all by surprise,” said Melling. “It was about chess, so we always knew it was going to be niche subject matter. But it came out during lockdown, and it exploded.”
During Season 2 of “Wolf Hall,” Melling took on Thomas Wriothesley, a lawyer who worked for Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance) in the court of Henry VIII. “You get the costume on, you feel very Tudor-y,” Melling said. “And then you get to the locations, and it’s old countryside England. And then you start playing the scenes, and you realize, no, you’ve got to forget all about that, forget what you’re wearing, forget where you are, and just play the scenes, because the scenes felt so real. Although the language is somewhat heightened, what was going on between these people felt so real and grounded. That was the fascinating discovery: you just have to play the scene for what it is.”
Up next: Based on a 2021 short, Theo Rhys’ gothic horror musical “Stuffed” stars Jodie Comer as a taxidermist who decides to stuff a human being, but falls in love in the process. “It’s a musical set in the U.K.,” said Melling. “I can hold a tune. I wouldn’t say I’m a fully-fledged musical theater singer, but I feel confident singing. And I loved the challenge of it.”
A24 releases “Pillion” in theaters on Friday, February 6.
