X-rated BDSM film starring Harry Potter actor edited down due to extreme sex scenes and nudity
One of the most critically-acclaimed movies to screen at Cannes this year has been edited down due to its graphic nature.
Pillion, which stars Alexander Skarsgard and Harry Melling, 36, who played Dudley Dursley, is a gay BDSM-themed romance from first-time feature writer-director Harry Lighton.
The movie received an eight-minute standing ovation, but Lighton admits that the version screened at the iconic film festival had been edited down significantly due to its graphic sex scenes.
'It was purely because I didn't want to push the audience into feeling they were being deliberately shocked by an image,' he explained to Variety.
'So for example, there was one close up of a d**k, a hard d**k … like down the barrel of the lens. And after watching the film on that "f**k-off" screen I thought, yeah, cutting it was probably the right decision!'
Skarsgard chimed in, 'There's definitely a raunchier version of this movie … what you've seen is the family friendly version… there's also the Alexander Skarsgard cut.'
Lighton admits that Pillion may need to undergo even more edits to ensure that it can get a US release.
The film explores the BDSM relationship between a gay biker and a parking attendant - with the project earning rapturous applause at the premiere.
A synopsis reads: 'Colin, a timid man, meets Ray, a confident biker gang leader, who initiates him into a submissive relationship, challenging Colin's mundane existence and prompting personal growth through their unconventional dynamic.'
Before the screening, director Lighton said he wanted the film 'to make you laugh, make you think, make you feel and make you horny.'
The film features explicit sex scenes and kinky BDSM costumes but Cannes audiences were still lapping it up.
Melling stars as shy Colin, whose humdrum life in the suburbs is blown apart when he meets Skarsgard's character Ray.
Ray strikes up a sexual relationship with Colin and integrates him into his queer biker milieu, injecting his life with a fresh dose of excitement and mystique.
However Colin eventually starts to feel stifled by the fact that he always has to occupy the submissive role in his dynamic with Ray.
Skarsgard has spoken freely in the past about how comfortable he is playing nude scenes, quipping to uInterview: 'I'm Scandinavian, godda***it! We love to be naked.'
The Swedish hunk is also no stranger to gay sex scenes, thanks to his star-making turn on the vampire show True Blood.
One of the scenes was with heterosexual actor Theo Alexander, whose anxiety Alexander had to help assuage before they shot the sequence.
'He's also a straight guy and he was nervous; he had never kissed a guy before,' Alexander explained in an interview with PrideSource.
He said to Theo, 'Look at the scene. It's this nemesis and he comes in and then it gets seductive and you think they're gonna make love and it gets into that and then suddenly my character stabs him in the back and he explodes.'
The actor added, 'In two minutes, look at this emotional rollercoaster we're taking the audience on. If we commit to this, it's going to be an amazing scene and we're going to be very happy with it forever. If we hold back, that's when it gets awkward.'
Skarsgard is himself heterosexual and is in a long-term relationship with Swedish actress Tuva Novotny, with whom he welcomed a baby in 2022.
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