Alexander Skarsgård kisses Pedro Pascal in ovation for ‘raw and carnal’ Dom/Sub film Pillion
Alexander Skarsgård celebrated the standing ovation for Pillion at the Cannes Film Festival by smooching Pedro Pascal. (Getty Images, @The_Upcoming/ X)
Alexander Skarsgård celebrated the standing ovation for Pillion at the Cannes Film Festival by smooching Pedro Pascal. (Getty Images, @The_Upcoming/ X)
Pillion lead Alexander Skarsgård planted a kiss on Pedro Pascal’s cheek during a standing ovation for the kinky gay biker romance at Cannes Film Festival.
Starring Skarsgård and Harry Potter‘s Harry Melling, kinky queer Sub/Dom biker romance Pillion received an seven minute standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival and ‘magnificent’ reviews – with Skarsgård planting a kiss on Pedro Pascal’s cheek
The film was premiered along with a flurry of other queer flicks over the weekend (18 May) at Cannes, and is based on Adam Mars-Jones’ 2019 novel Box Hill.
Following the Harry Lighton-directed film’s climax, which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section, the theatre erupted into a reported seven-minute standing ovation, during which Skarsgård, dressing in leather trousers and biker boots, gave none other than Pascal a smooch.
We’re not jealous.
Alexander Skarsgård embracing Pedro Pascal at the end of the PILLION screening!#Cannes2025 pic.twitter.com/27QZaGVfaE
— FilmLand Empire (@FilmLandEmpire) May 18, 2025
ALEXANDER SKARSGARD AND PEDRO PASCAL HOLD ON HOLD ONNNNN pic.twitter.com/W0KUoqgNV9
— Sarah | materialists era (@sydglenx) May 18, 2025
The film’s synopsis details that Pillion follows Colin (Melling, best known for his role as Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter series) as a weedy wallflower, “until Ray (Skarsgård), the impossibly handsome leader of a motorbike club, takes him on as his submissive.”
It continues: “Ray uproots Colin from his dreary suburban life, introducing him to a community of kinky, queer bikers and taking all sorts of virginities along the way.
“But as Colin steps deeper into Ray’s world of rules and mysteries, he begins to question whether the life of a 24/7 submissive is for him. Has he found his calling, or simply swapped one form of suffocation for another?”
Reviews for Pillion have been glowing. Deadline writes that “Skarsgård understood the assignment, slipping seamlessly into his role as the sexually dominant yet elusive Ray, who’s fearless in communicating his every desire, but emotionally closed off to any real intimacy as the leader of a gay biker gang.”
The Hollywood Reporter adds, “Both Melling and Skarsgård show an intimate understanding of how the power dynamic between their characters works, but what gives Pillion its kick is the friction sparked when Colin starts wanting more.”
Really rapturous reception for the queer, hilarious and heartfelt Plllion. Extended standing ovation here for Alex Skarsgaard and debut director Harry Lighton. pic.twitter.com/BieaP71w2d
— Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) May 18, 2025
#12 • PILLION (Harry Lighton)
— Ali Benzekri (@Alibenzkr) May 18, 2025
Alexander Skarsgård burns through the screen as a dominant top with the fragility of an emotionally unavailable man, tall in stature yet somehow small with yearning. The film is a gay fever dream: raw and carnal. Harry Melling is magnetic. A… pic.twitter.com/Zz4qxjoLp6
The Guardian reports that “Pillion is a real love story, and the movie amusingly and touchingly takes us through the final stages and out the other side, to where Colin has grown or at any rate changed as a person who has come to terms with what he is and what he wants, the way that Ray clearly did long ago.”
And happily, the Daily Mail have said that the film contains several “graphic sex scenes” Nice.
Other queer films to be screened at Cannes include The History of Sound (starring Challengers’ Josh O’Connor and All of Us Strangers’ Paul Mescal) and The Chronology of Water – Kristen Stewart’s highly anticipated directorial debut.
The 2025 Cannes Film Festival runs from 13 to 24 May.
