Harry Potter actor Harry Melling (L, with Daniel Radcliffe) is taking on a bold new role (Picture: Warner Bros)
A Harry Potter star is continuing to spice up his post-Wizarding World film CV with more varied roles after the announcement that he will be playing a submissive in a ‘kinky’ queer drama.
Harry Melling, 35, first found fame at 12 as Harry’s vile cousin Dudley Dursley in the eight-movie franchise, which kicked off in 2001.
He has since packed in stage and screen roles in projects as varied as The Queen’s Gambit for Netflix, the Coen brothers’ Western anthology film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and irreverent religion-based puppet comedy Hand to God on London’s West End.
However, his latest film, Pillion, is perhaps as far from Potter as he has yet strayed.
The actor will be playing a weedy wallflower sub to True Blood and The Northman star Alexander Skarsgård’s dom in a film described as a ‘fun and filthy romance with heart’.
Directed by Bafta-nominated filmmaker Harry Lighton, in his feature-length debut, Melling’s character Colin is letting life pass him by until he meets Ray (Skarsgård), an impossibly handsome leader of a motorbike club, who takes him on as his submissive.
Melling will play a ‘weedy’ sub in a new kinky motorbike drama (Picture: Jerod Harris/WireImage)
He first found fame as Harry’s cruel cousin Dudley in the Harry Potter films (pictured with onscreen parents, Richard Griffiths and Fiona Shaw) (Picture: Warner Bros)
Following Potter, Melling headed to drama school and has continued to act ever since (Picture: Allstar/WARNER BROS)
Pillion is the name given to the secondary padded seat for the passenger behind that of the main motorcycle rider.
Ray uproots Colin from his dreary suburban life, introducing him to a community of kinky, queer bikers and – as the synopsis says – ‘taking all sorts of virginities along the way’.
But as Colin dives deeper into Ray’s world, he begins to question whether the life of a 24/7 submissive is really for him.
Alexander Skarsgård will play Melling’s ‘impossibly handsome’ motorbiking dom (Picture: AFP/Getty)
Melling was recently seen opposite Christian Bale in The Pale Blue Eye for Netflix (Picture: Scott Garfield/Netflix via AP)
Pillion is based on Adam Mars-Jones’ prize-winning novel Box Hill and is set to shoot in the UK this summer after being launched at the Cannes Film Festival.
Melling has most recently appeared onscreen as a young version of Edgar Allan Poe opposite Christian Bale in 2022’s The Pale Blue Eye, and also made an impact as disturbed preacher Roy in 2020’s star-studded yet shocking thriller, The Devil All the Time.
Many of his other Potter co-stars have also continued their performance careers, with Daniel Radcliffe recently scooping a Tony nomination for his Broadway musical Merrily We Role Along, while Tom Felton – who played Draco Malfoy – is releasing music.
Matthew Lewis, who was Neville Longbottom in the films, is currently in season two of Romesh Ranganathan’s BBC comedy series Avoidance.
Other Potter actors still in the industry include Matthew Lewis, who played Neville Longbottom (Picture: Warner Bros. Pictures)
Speaking to Metro.co.uk recently, Lewis revealed he hated one of his character’s most iconic lines – and it’s one often quoted at him.
‘Recently, I’ve noticed a lot of love for the, “Oh my god, I’ve killed Harry Potter!” line, which I detest,’ he stated, bringing up the line from the fourth film, The Goblet of Fire.
‘I really hate that line. I don’t hate it because of its writing. I mean, it’s funny. I thought my delivery was… I just didn’t commit to it.’
Pillion is yet to receive a release date.
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