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Alexander Skarsgård says 'raunchier' version of Pillion exists
Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård attend the Pillion Headline Gala at the 69th BFI London Film Festival on October 18, 2025.
"What you've seen is the family-friendly version," he joked during an interview.
Alexander Skarsgård's highly anticipated BDSM rom-com Pillion is receiving widespread critical acclaim after its festival circuit run. The movie, which features male nudity, orgies, and various depictions of kink, casts the actor as a charismatic biker who develops a dom/sub relationship with a quiet, mild-mannered man played by Harry Melling.
In an interview with Variety published around the time of the film's premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Skarsgård and director Harry Lighton revealed that there were a lot of sexually explicit moments in the original cut of the film that had to be removed.
"It was purely because I didn’t want to push the audience into feeling they were being deliberately shocked by an image," Lighton told Variety. "So, for example, there was one close-up of a dick, a hard dick … like down the barrel of the lens. And after watching the film on that ‘fuck-off’ screen I thought, yeah, cutting it was probably the right decision!”
"There’s definitely a raunchier version of this movie…. What you’ve seen is the family-friendly version…. There’s also the Alexander Skarsgård cut," Skarsgård added.
According to Variety, there is the possibility of more edits before it's released in the U.S. in February, with the director-writer Harry Lighton saying he had to "de-shine" some ejaculation, saying, "Apparently that’s what pushes you over the edge!”
While the movie contains a lot of NSFW material, the team behind the movie maintains that the project is less about shock for shock's sake, but rather an endearing coming-of-age film about a young man learn about himself and this new world around him, which is what excited Melling about the character and the film.
"What’s so interesting about it, for me, was how it feels so relatable and familiar, but maybe dealing with a subculture that people aren’t so familiar with," the actor said. "It was how those two things interplay that I found so fascinating. You were taking romantic comedy tropes and subverting them.”
Moises Mendez II is an Out Magazine staff writer based in Brooklyn, New York. He covers internet culture and entertainment, including television, movies, music, and more. Before joining Out, he was a Culture Reporter at TIME Magazine, and he previously worked as a freelance journalist, with work appearing in The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Fast Company, and more. Moises holds a master's degree in Arts and Culture journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.
Moises Mendez II is an Out Magazine staff writer based in Brooklyn, New York. He covers internet culture and entertainment, including television, movies, music, and more. Before joining Out, he was a Culture Reporter at TIME Magazine, and he previously worked as a freelance journalist, with work appearing in The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Fast Company, and more. Moises holds a master's degree in Arts and Culture journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.
