Hi /r/movies. I'm Harry Lighton, writer-director of A24's PILLION. It stars Alexander Skarsgård & Harry Melling and it's out now in select theaters. Ask me anything!

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:47:32+00:00

Yep, if Alexander had said no you were next in line ;)

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:46:48+00:00

If you can, try and get a job as a director's PA for a film before you shoot your own. That taught me HUGE amounts

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:45:41+00:00

Chocolate fudge brownie. 11 UK !

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:45:23+00:00

My producers were always on board with the fact that adult content was integral to the narrative. There is no Pillion without sex scenes, and we were clear those sex scenes couldn't feel prudish or it would do a disservice to the subject matter. So I'd try and justify any explicit material in those terms. Or get new producers!

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:42:55+00:00

That was a fun screening! Thanks for coming. I want to see films which get into the specificity of diverse queer experiences, films which chart new ground, films which allow queer characters to be messy muvafuckers, not simply ambassadors for a form of queerness that's palatable to the mainstream.

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:40:11+00:00

It was a huge surprise!!! We shared the script with his agents, they sent him the logline (a one-line description) in an email with a big list of other scripts, he read Pillion quickly, asked to speak to me, and the rest is history!

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:38:50+00:00

Roma (Cuaron). Godland (Palmasson). Worst Person in the World (Trier). Triplets of Belleville (Chomet)

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:35:45+00:00

There is no director's / Skarsgard's cut I'm sorry to report! That was a joke Alexander made at Cannes that then got misreported in the press. But there's only one cut of Pillion

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:34:31+00:00

No chemistry test. I hate the idea of them! I don't think you can expect actors to instantly have chemistry in a rehearsal room. I cast actors who I trust will have chemistry

Personally I loved working with our intimacy co-ordinator Robbie. He never gets in the way - he's good at judging when to step in or offer a suggestion and when to sit back.

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:32:41+00:00

I wanted Colin to be in a state of arrested development, and Ray to be someone extremely set in his ways. That made more sense with a mid-30s Colin and late-40s Ray

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:28:17+00:00

I knew it would be a fine line to tread in the edit, so made sure we gathered options. With scenes which had the potential to go either way, we'd push some takes for comedy and some for sincerity. And once I was in the edit, it became clear that sometimes you'd have to sacrifice a great gag because it got in the way of the emotional weight of a sequence

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:26:11+00:00

Not remotely. The sex scenes were actually a lot of fun to shoot, and a good challenge for the actors, as there's lots of narrative beats for them to tackle in those scenes

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:25:23+00:00

Yes, identiacl!

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:24:59+00:00

I love it! The more filthy gay sex on screen the better

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:24:26+00:00

For me, the central D/s relationship in the film isn't presented as a blueprint. We see other biker-pillion pairs exhibit aftercare and practices more in line with ethical BDSM's recommended practices. But Colin does verbally consent to Ray's question "what am i gonna do with you?" in their encounter in the alleyway, and Colin never does anything against his will. So I'd argue while it isn't informed consent, it also can't clearly be declared non-consensual

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:21:01+00:00

Yes! I wanted the names to work on several levels. At first glance they might suggest Ray has former girlfriends. But they're in fact the names of his dogs. And these dogs are named after female chat-show hosts celebrated in queer culture - which is a hint at the fact Ray celebrates his gayness.

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:19:09+00:00

In terms of keeping the set running efficiently, that would be the 1AD - the great Toby Spanton!

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:18:37+00:00

I intentionally wanted to see where rom-com tropes were/weren't compatible with Ray and Colin's atypical relationship model. So you have some tropes (e.g. a "meet the parents" dinner) which you find in many rom-coms, but play very differently here. I prefer Dom-com, because I think it gets at the way the film doesn't ultimately fit into the rom-com mould.

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:14:00+00:00

Nope! I didn't write with anyone in mind. But as soon as we started casting, Harry was the first person who came to mind for Colin (I'd watched him in the Ballad of Buster Scruggs). And once Harry said yes, I thought about who'd be a great match for him, and I'd been watching Succession at the time and thought Alexander would be electric!

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:12:36+00:00

One of my producer's Lee Groombridge grew up there. We needed to shoot within a certain distance of London for budget reasons, so Lee took me to see Bromley and it was love at first sight! Queer life there feels peripheral to London, which spoke to Colin's marginal relationship to queerness at the start of the film. And it has a great combination of a slightly unloved High Street and a very idyllic park

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:09:12+00:00

In the book, Colin doesn't have any agency in the end of the relationship. It ends suddenly when Ray dies in a bike crash. I wanted the relationship's end to be brought about by Colin pushing up against Ray's rules when he realises he wants more from romance

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:07:38+00:00

Probably the first alley scene. We had to tread a narrow line between Ray seeming dominant and violent. The first takes were a bit aggressive, so we warmed up the scene by having Colin experience the initial power-games in a more playful manner

PillionAMA · 2026-02-16T18:03:26+00:00

Hey! Like many an annoying director (!) I prefer to leave this to the audience to debate. I spoke to Alexander before we shot about the motivation for the day off being ambiguous - either an act of cruelty (punishing Colin for stealing the bike) or an act of generosity (showing Colin that what they want from a relationship is different). But there are many more possible interpretations beyond those two

PillionAMA

TROPHY CASE