“That was not because Harry Lighton got nervous,” Skarsgård’s costar, Harry Melling, says of the film’s writer-director.

Why Alexander Skarsgård’s (prosthetic) penis close-up got trimmed down in Pillion

"That was not because Harry Lighton got nervous," Skarsgård's costar, Harry Melling, says of the film's writer-director.

By Mike Miller

Mike Miller

Mike Miller is the executive editor on the movies team at . He previously worked as a writer-reporter for PEOPLE and TMZ.

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February 8, 2026 9:00 a.m. ET

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Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling in 'Pillion'. Credit:

Courtesy of A24

- An explicit scene from Alexander Skarsgård's new movie *Pillion *was shortened before its release on Friday, but not to appease censors or sensitive audiences.

- Instead, *Pillion* writer-director Harry Lighton, Skarsgård, and his costar, Harry Melling, confirm the sequence was shortened to preserve its dramatic tension.

- Skarsgård praises Lighton, who makes his directorial debut with the film, for deftly walking the fine line between gratuitous and honest depictions of sex onscreen.**

*Pillion*, Alexander Skarsgård's new movie about a BDSM romance, doesn't shy away from sex or nudity. Still, there is one explicit scene in the erotic dramedy that ended up getting shortened — but not to spare blushing audiences.

The scene in question takes place early in the film, when Skarsgård's macho biker, Ray, takes Harry Melling's nebbish Colin into an alleyway for oral sex. Shot from Colin's perspective as he nervously waits on his knees, we see a close-up of Skarsgård's crotch as he slowly unzips his leather pants and takes out his penis.

Initially, the camera was meant to linger there longer than what ended up in the final cut. But the cast and director confirm the moment was snipped purely for narrative reasons, and not because the shot felt too explicit for theaters.

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"There was one shot that went, and that was not because Harry Lighton got nervous. It was purely a narrative, storytelling moment," Melling tells * *in a joint interview with Skarsgård.

"In the alleyway scene, there was a close-up on Ray's penis as he sort of zipped down, and I think when they started to preview to audiences, they realized that this was a moment where the audience would react, and the tension would be released with laughter or what have you," he explains.

"And actually, you want to still be with Colin, you want to still be in the adrenalized moment of him about to do this thing," Melling continues. "So I think that's why that one moment got taken out of the movie."

Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård in 'Pillion'.

Skarsgård — who, by the way, used a prosthetic for the cut scene in question — previously joked in a separate interview that "there's definitely a raunchier version of this movie," now clarifies that "there were a couple of scenes cut, but not sex scenes."

He adds, "I think Harry did a terrific job in the edit room…I think he calibrated it beautifully, where it is graphic, but it never felt gratuitous or there to shock, which I would've found annoying. It wasn't like, *We're not prudish, look at this close-up of a dick for five seconds*.

"I think he wanted to avoid being coy and shy, and like the camera drifts off as soon as we start having a gang bang in the woods. No, we stayed with the characters, but only for as long as it's interesting, in terms of the dynamic between the characters."

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Finding the right balance between honest and gratuitous depictions of sex on screen is difficult, and, Skarsgård notes, can easily go wrong. "I often find it annoying when I watch stuff, when you shy away from it or when you stay on it too long, because it feels like you just want to get a reaction out of the audience. It's like shock value."

But in this film, which marks Lighton's feature directorial debut, Skarsgård says, "I thought he calibrated it beautifully."

*Pillion *is now in theaters. **

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