Nobody has been enjoying a press tour this hard as Alexander Skarsgård. The Swedish actor is on the promotional trail for his steamy new film Pillion, culminating with an appearance on the Graham Norton Show tonight.
He’ll be parking his 6’4” frame on the sofa alongside Glenn Close, Miriam Margolyes and Nicola Coughlan, wearing leather trousers and a T-shirt proclaiming ‘Hot Buffet: Available All Day’. Those three brave women (and one brave presenter) will be the latest in a long line of people who have succumbed to the strange and beautiful genius of Skarsgård.
The reason for this press tour de force is Pillion, a brilliant new directorial debut from Harry Lighton, 32, which saw him receive the BFI & Chanel Filmmaker Award at this year’s BFI London Film Festival.
Adapted from Adam Mars-Jones’s 2020 novel Box Hill, it tells the story of Colin (Harry Melling), a shy young gay man who falls under the thrall of sexy mysterious motorcycle enthusiast Ray. Colin is quickly inaugurated by Ray into his BDSM biker club world and a lifestyle dominant/submissive relationship, with Skarsgård and Melling going all in on some highly explicit kink scenes.
It’s sweet, sexy, and a triumph for independent British cinema. So it’s wonderful that Skarsgård has thrown himself into promoting the project with such verve.
You thought the Barbie and Wicked press tours had the last word on themed dressing for the red carpet? Not on Skarsgård’s watch. Starting with Cannes Film Festival, the actor went all out with his outfits, with the help of stylist Harry Lambert.
He wore thigh-high leather boots by Saint Laurent over his suit trousers for the red carpet, and turned up to a photocall in leather trousers from Loewe and a vintage Jerks T-shirt with a bootlicking graphic. Then, when, Pillion received a seven-minute standing ovation at Cannes back in May, Skarsgård embraced the internet’s favourite ‘daddy’: Pedro Pascal. They had a big old hug over the seats and Skarsgård even planted a kiss on Pascal’s cheek.
On the red carpet for the London premiere he arrived wearing an incredible outfit by French designer Ludovic de Saint Sernin, featuring lace-up leather trousers and a backless halter neck shirt and leather tie, paired with Jimmy Choo boots. He posed with a motorbike (Skarsgård already had his bike license before signing onto Pillion, naturally) and the adorable Maggie, the Rottweiler who plays Ray’s (non-human) pet in the film. Also on the red carpet were members of the Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club, who also starred in Pillion and were central to portraying the very real subculture explored in the film.
Over at the Zurich premiere, the actor caused a stir by wearing a silk shirt from the Magliano spring 2025 collection. The print, which features chemsex paraphernalia including lube bottles, dildos, kitchen towel and G pipettes, was even censored by some news outlets. And for the red carpet in his native Stockholm? It was a sharp suit that flashed his collarbones paired with sexy leather gloves, perfect for posing alongside members of the Scandinavian Leather Men.
“I’m wearing a lot of black leather in the movie, so I thought it would be appropriate to have a little black leather on the carpet,” Skarsgård explained during an appearance on Lorraine, for which he wore plaid micro shorts by S. S. Daley. It’s a smart, sexy campaign that shows dressing to promote your project isn’t just for the girls.
Skarsgård has also been handing out banger quotes in interviews with gay abandon, and giving plenty of face time to magazines aimed at gay men. Obviously they’re a prime audience for Pillion, but it’s still important to see a leading man comfortable enough in his sexuality to chat about the brass tacks of filming gay sex scenes.
For Attitude Magazine, the actor discussed how they choreographed the emotional as well as physical beats of a group sex scene on a biker camping trip. “It’s not just a pile of bodies, or ‘hey, let’s shoot a crazy orgy scene in the woods’. There’s a lot happening,” Skarsgård explained. “It’s a rich sequence, visually, but also, story. There’s a lot packed into those three minutes.”
There was an iconic interview with Variety in October, where the actor dished on partying with gay bikers in pup masks and teased all the juicy bits that got left on the cutting room floor. “We shot way more graphic stuff than you’ve seen just now,” said Skarsgård. As the A-list movie star, he’s also been very keen to highlight how much he rates Lighton as a first time writer and director. He was hooked the moment he first read the script, he told Variety. “I immediately called my agents and said: ‘I wanna talk to this mad child.’”
The Swedes aren’t prudes, and Skarsgård has been happily telling any journalist who will listen that he thinks his mother will enjoy the film. And his grandmother, if she were still alive to go to a screening of a kinky BDSM film starring her naked grandson. “She would have devoured this movie,” Skarsgård told Esquire in November. “She didn’t give a fuck. She was incredibly sexually liberated and open. She’d be like, ‘I don’t care who you sleep with as long as you’re happy.’”
Clearly, the actor has been having a lot of fun on the Pillion press tour. Skarsgård is a tall, handsome and charismatic man to begin with, but with Pillion he’s clearly thrown all his passion into making sure it gets the reception it deserves.
Frank interviews and a coordinated fashion plan are usually hallmarks of actors jockeying for awards season recognition. But Skarsgård is doing it for the love of this film and what it represents to the queer director and community that co-created it. Rather than play the hunky lead, get his kit off and call it a day, he chose to go the extra mile to rep independent British cinema/ As a dom, his character Ray has a question he reiterates to his submissive — “Do you give?”. In bringing Pillion to as wide an audience as possible, Skarsgård has given his all.
