Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling brought Harry Lighton's Cannes prize-winning debut Pillion, a Bromley love story on two wheels, home to London as a festival gala.
Alexander Skarsgård of Succession and Harry Melling brought Harry Lighton’s Pillion to the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank on Saturday 18 October 2025. Its UK premiere was a Headline Gala of the 69th BFI London Film Festival.
Skarsgård was born in Stockholm in 1976, the eldest son of the actor Stellan Skarsgård. A lead role in a television drama made him famous in Sweden at thirteen, and he then quit acting.
He served in the Swedish Navy and returned to the screen with a role in Zoolander. True Blood gave him his international breakthrough, and Big Little Lies won him a Primetime Emmy and a Golden Globe.
Lighton adapted Pillion from Adam Mars-Jones’s 2020 novel Box Hill. Melling plays Colin, a shy parking attendant who lives with his parents in Bromley. Skarsgård plays Ray, the biker who takes him on as his submissive.
The film won the Best Screenplay prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in May.
The director and cast joined the two leads at the gala. Picturehouse Entertainment and Warner Bros. released the film in British cinemas on 28 November.