Unless you’re a glutton for punishment, no one really wants to get shot with a paintball gun, and that includes Lurker‘s Archie Madekwe. Yet on set, the Saltburn actor agreed to be pelted with dozens of the colorful bullets.
“[Lurker‘s director, Alex Russell] called me one day and was like, ‘By the way, I have this crazy idea. I want to shoot you with a paintball gun,'” Madekwe remembers while chatting with Parade at the Crosby Street Hotel in New York. In the psychological thriller, Madekwe plays Oliver, an up-and-coming Los Angeles musician who befriends an obsessive fan/videographer named Matthew (Théodore Pellerin). The paintball stunt was to be a part of one of Oliver’s music videos.
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“[Alex] was like, ‘Well, what do you think about it?'” Madekwe continues. “And I’m like, ‘Well, I’ll do it if you do it.’ And then he did it.”
When the day actually came to film the paintball stunt, Russell did in fact stand in front of the camera while being obliterated by paintballs. “And they rolled on it, so I’ve got [the footage],” he teases.
In the film, the paintball scene features Madekwe being repeatedly shot while singing the lyrics to “Love and Obsession,” one of several Oliver tracks that Madekwe himself recorded and are now available to stream.
“Paintball day was one of the worst,” he says with a laugh.
“Also one of the best days ever,” Russell says. “But that was an exercise in trust.”
Ahead of Lurker‘s premiere, Parade sat down with Madekwe, Russell and Pellerin to chat about the musical influences behind the film, building on-set chemistry and strapping a camcorder to the back of a sheep.
Read the full interview below:
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VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images
Matthew Huff: You wrote Lurker during COVID and based it loosely off your time in the Los Angeles music scene. What was the germ of the idea that made you want to turn this into your first feature film?
Alex Russell (AR): It was pretty low stakes, and I was just kind of experimenting with characters, and I obviously had all the time in the world. There was a point where I was wanting to write a movie from the artist’s perspective, but it wasn’t until I got into the hanger-on mentality where it really started to be fun to write. I was like, “All of these scenes are so funny to me.” It was this guy trying to impress these people in every moment…so I think that was the germ. I was like, “Oh, somehow I’m still writing this. Somehow this is now 100 pages. Should we make this a movie?”
There are so many deliciously awkward moments.
AR: That was the stuff that allowed me to keep writing because I was like, “Oh, I can do another one. I can raise the stakes and make it even more cringe.”
It’s a movie about a musician, and there is a lot of original music in the film. Who were the inspirations for both the character of Oliver as well as his music?
AR: I’m very proud that we were able to work on Oliver enough and give him enough dimensionality so that people are not like, “Oh, this is based on this individual artist,” but it’s all the artists you’re probably thinking of.
Archie Madekwe (AM): Dijon, Omar Apollo, Steve Lacy, Rex Orange County, Dom Fike, like that world of people.
AR: We made a playlist.
AM: A big ole playlist.
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Mubi
What was it like playing a pop star?
AM: So alien and scary. My initial introduction to the film was auditioning for Matthew, so I saw the film through that lens initially. Then, to reconfigure that and have to play someone not necessarily extroverted — but that perceives themselves as cool or alpha — was kind of daunting.
The music was something that I didn’t know I’d be really doing until I was there because Alex swore I wasn’t going to do that, and then I made a whole EP and did live shows, but it forced me out of myself and into the world of Oliver. I’m in the studio with [record producer] Kenny Beats and songwriters, and they’re just looking at you like, “OK, what we doing today?” And you’re like, “What are we doing?” I was just winging it and throwing myself into the world. As soon as the music started happening, it unlocked the world for me.
Was that an experience that you enjoyed? Do you want to make more music in the future?
AM: It was an experience I really loved. It was so fun. Who knows? Never say never.
AR: Let’s see how these songs do. Also stop acting like being a charming, confident person is so out of the realm of possibility.
AM: Yeah, but it’s not always how you feel naturally. You’re those thing. Do you always feel like that about yourself?
AR: I’m not those things.
AM: You are, though. We’ll talk about that later.
AR: The confidence that [Archie is] portraying, I think it has a depth to it because even Oliver, the character, probably feels like he’s performing most of the time.
AM: Totally.
AR: His aloofness and the vulnerability that comes later in the movie is all still of a piece with that confidence that you’re seeing him perform. He didn’t necessarily ask to be in this position where all the attention is on him all the time, so I think he has to deflect a lot.
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Mubi
This whole movie is built around the relationship between Oliver and Matthew? What was it like building that chemistry on set?
Théodore Pellerin (TP): It’s all in the writing. It’s hard to build dynamics. It’s easy to follow great writing when it’s there. So I never think, “Oh, this needs to happen in order for us to be able to do that.”
AR: [Jokingly.] I was puppeteering it all, completely orchestrating their relationship the entire time. No… when I introduced them, I was like, “The moment they start laughing and hanging out without me is when I’ve done my job.” They played Fortnite together.
AM: I was like, “We got on so well, like, from off,” and [Théodore] was like, “I think week three.” I was like, “Riiiiight, okay.” But I think what really helped was, one, the writing, and two, that there was an instant, for me, chemistry between the two of us that made me feel safe and like I could trust him. It’s less about creating the dynamic you feel on screen and more the two of us making sure that you feel safe and can trust each other and play and try things and not feel judged.
What was it like filming the music video sequences of the movie, especially the one with the sheep?
AR: Highlights. Sheep day was one of the most fun days ever. It was like, “I don’t know if this is gonna work,” but we did what they were doing in the actual movie, which is kind of meta. We figured out a little contraption. It was very DIY, like covered the camcorder with cushions and put it on the sheep. We wanted to make it roll over.
This interview was edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Lurker is currently playing in theaters.
