Summary

Collider’s Steve Weintraub sits down with the cast and creative of Lurker at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Debut feature director Alex Russell’s thriller explores celebrity obsession and unhealthy aspirations.

In this interview, Russell is joined by cast members Théodore Pellerin, Archie Madekwe, Havana Rose Liu, Sunny Suljic, and Zack Fox to discuss the challenges and creativity of indie filmmaking.

Debut writer-director Alex Russell has produced some of the most popular and acclaimed television series in recent years, Beef and The Bear, but now, at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, he is showing his chops as a singular visionary with his film Lurker. The thriller, starring Théodore Pellerin of Beau is Afraid fame and Saltburn’s Archie Madekwe, examines the darker side of celebrity obsession.
In the movie, Madekwe plays a renowned pop star, Oliver, who draws the affection of Pellerin’s Matthew. When Oliver invites Matthew to hang out with his friend group, shady dynamics are revealed, as well as Matthew’s frightening obsession with the rising star. Havana Rose Liu (Bottoms), Sunny Suljic (The Killing of a Sacred Deer), and rapper, actor, and comedian Zack Fox (Abbott Elementary) round out this talented ensemble.
At the festival, Russell, Pellerin, Madekwe, Liu, Suljic, and Fox stopped by our media studio at the Rendezvous Cinema Center to chat with Steve Weintraub. During the conversation, they discuss the musical influences on the film, working with a major YouTube music producer, guerrilla filmmaking at LAX, and contemporary culture’s fascination with celebrity life. You can check out the full interview in the video above or read the transcript below.
Alex Russell’s ‘Lurker’ Is a Dark Side of Celebrity

“He knew this world so intimately.”

Image via Sundance Institute

COLLIDER: I saw a lot of movies before I got to Sundance, and you were my favorite, and that is Lurker. I’m sure you’re feeling some nerves being at Sundance with your feature debut. You do not have to worry. The premiere is going to go amazing. Everyone watching this, though, will have not seen it, so how have you been describing the film to friends and family?
ALEX RUSSELL: I’ve been trying to be very vague about it so as not to give too much away. I’ve been saying that it’s two guys hanging out, or when two guys hanging out goes wrong. That seems to be compelling enough for people to buy tickets. What else have I said? I wanted to make Mean Boys. It’s also hard to do. Do you feel like you understand what the genre is of this movie?
No, I don’t think I know a specific genre, but can I do you a favor? I would say for people who are watching, it’s about an up-and-coming musician who meets someone who works at a retail store and invites that person into his circle. And what happens?
RUSSELL: That’s when two guys hanging out goes wrong.
100%.
RUSSELL: They become best friends. They become intimate and close collaborators. Matthew, played by Théodore, really locks in. He also starts to see other people as threats to his positioning in the crew. We watch him on the journey.
I won’t say anymore about the specifics of the film. I don’t want to spoil anything. I’m sure all of you have read multiple scripts. What was it about this one that said, “Oh, fuck, I need to be in this?”
RUSSELL: Great question.
ARCHIE MADEKWE: For me, you read so many scripts that try to encapsulate a version of this world, but it feels like it’s on the outside, or it feels corny or just doesn’t feel authentic. For some reason, I knew, without knowing too much about Alex’s background. More and more I learned, the more we worked together, that he was an amazing music journalist. All of his friends are in music. This is his world and the world that he has lived inside his entire life. It read like he knew this world so intimately. It felt so grounded and real. I hadn’t read something like that before. I pursued this for a long time. It was such a special script.
ZACK FOX: Me and Alex have known each other for about a decade now. We’ve seen a lot of the same experiences, people in music through Atlanta and LA. When we got to LA, we were having a lot of these similar conversations and stuff from different POVs. I think a sentiment that I started to feel early on in LA got reflected so crazy when I read just the first draft of the script during COVID, and it’s that our parents really lied to us when they said that the real world is not like high school. That’s some bullshit. It’s just different degrees and different scales of it, and it’s just all high school with different levels of access. There are high school private jets. People act like high school if they work at Best Buy. You know what I’m saying? People form hierarchies; sometimes, they’re just perfectly fine and justified, and sometimes they’re toxic. This film really reflects that.

Image by Photagonist

That’s why we don’t hang out. You’ve never invited me.
THÉODORE PELLERIN: A script is hard to read because it’s obviously meant to be something else afterwards. It’s rare to read a script and be like, “Oh, this is a great piece in itself of a great piece of literature. I’m really enjoying reading this. I’m seeing things, and I’m feeling things, and I feel like everything is clear and tangible.” That was the case for Lurker. It’s just great writing. It’s funny. You feel the humiliations that Matthew goes through and the aspiration of success and connection that he wants. It was just very clear and exciting. It only happened, like, three or four times in my life to read a script and be like, “Oh, amazing. I feel like I understand everything.” Even though you don’t—you will understand more as you work on it—it’s just very exciting to encounter great writing. That’s always very exciting.
SUNNY SULJIC: I got introduced to the whole project through Archie because we worked on a music video shoot. I was just really excited about the idea, even just based off of what [Archie] explained. Then I met Alex…
RUSSELL: We went to IHOP.
SULJIC: Then Alex showed me a rough draft.
RUSSELL: I remember very vividly, actually. You were like, “Oh, yeah, this sounds cool. I’m down. Whatever.” Then Archie was like, “We should show him the proof of concept,” which is something we shot a few years back, maybe within a year of writing the script—just a zero-dollar budget, amateur, two-minute thing—and I could tell after that, you were actually like, “Oh.”
SULJIC: My eyes lit up, I remember, after watching the proof of concept.
RUSSELL: You were like, “Oh, I actually might read this.” [Laughs]
SULJIC: Which was a rare thing for me at the time. I fell in love with the script immediately. Usually, I procrastinate super heavily, maybe because it’s my ADHD or whatever. But it was such a smooth read, and it had such a good comedic sense. It was fucking amazing.
HAVANA ROSE LIU: I remember I was in a moment of my life when I was really trying to understand… I had just had a movie come out, and it was like the first one that had been actually very successful in my life, and my relationships to everyone in my life had changed. Everything all went through this other lens of curiosity of the reason why people were trying to be close, or trying not to seem as though I was trying to be close to anyone for any particular reason. I was more aware of the transactions of relationships when you’re in this world of more visibility, let’s say.
I think in that state, I was trying to metabolize, also, the morality around that—if it’s okay to have relationships be transactional, if it’s okay to have somebody approach you for your work and appreciation for that and then build a friendship off of that, or if that’s actually slippery and uncomfortable. The script came in, and I remember reading it and feeling like it allowed me to metabolize that experience in a way that was with humor and joy, and a little bit of fear, and a little bit of intrigue, and posed a lot of the same questions that I sort of hoped to figure out in my own life. I am happy that, in some ways, watching the film feels like that, too. I don’t know if I have the answers, but I feel like I have more perspective on what those dynamics mean.
‘Lurker’s Script Changed Post-‘Saltburn’ Success

“I was so much more ready to play Oliver than I was when I first read the script.”

Image by Photagonist

[Archie], I have an individual question for you. The last few years, you’ve obviously grown in terms of your acting ability, but also higher profile projects. Especially after Saltburn, how did all the things you’ve worked on as your star has grown help you play this character? What did you want to infuse from your real life, as you were just saying, into this?
MADEKWE: It’s interesting. I relate to a lot of what Havana just spoke about. I first came in contact with this script before all of those things had happened, probably the beginning of COVID. Then, the idea of me playing Oliver came to fruition way later, post all of those things happening. I was in a very different place in my life, and I had kind of dealt with something a little bit similar to what happens in the story. That felt very real and present at the time.
It’s interesting. I think that all of those experiences of your “star rising,” I think people expect actors to be a version of Oliver, but that is a character that I never really related to, the kind of extrovert, overly confident, walking into a space and taking up space. That’s not someone that I ever want to be, and it doesn’t come easy to me. It felt like a real challenge to play that part. But also, with so many people that I’ve met and so many people that I’m around constantly, I know those people on a day-to-day basis. I’ve seen so many of them this weekend at the festival. It’s a character and an archetype that we know. The more I work, the more these spaces that I’m in where I’m meeting people that I admire, the more I see versions of Oliver in those people.
In our first meeting, we discussed a bunch of those things. I was like, “This line that Oliver says, I heard this person say, and this part, and this line and this line.” That’s just something that I didn’t have as much contact with pre-all of those things. The journey of me initially reading the script, and then when I eventually came to play it, I was so much more ready to play Oliver than I was when I first read the script.

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Keoghan also discusses the many layers of Oliver and that unforgettable (and relatable?) final scene.

Creating the Music for ‘Lurker’

The cast worked with Kenny Beats and musical artists to find the sound for Oliver.

Image by Photagonist

One of the things that’s very important about the movie is the music, and the shooting of the music videos, and there’s a documentary being shot. Talk about coming up with the music. What was the genre going to be? What were the songs? What were going to be the videos? How are you going to shoot them?
RUSSELL: The ideas for the videos were already in place in the script when there was still some range of the kind of artist he was. Once I cast Archie and once we started talking, I think we put together a playlist of songs that we thought would relate to this character and made an amalgam of the kind of artist that he is. Then we landed on him being British, as well. It wasn’t written that way, but it became sort of flexible. Then, I also have to admit that I didn’t think the music would be as important as it ended up being.
MADEKWE: That’s what he told me. “No singing,” he said. [Laughs]
RUSSELL: We cast Archie several, several months before we started shooting, maybe a year even. From time to time, he’d be like, “What’s the deal with the music? When are we going to do the music?” I’m like, “It’s not about the music. It’s about everything outside of the music. It’s about what happens right after the concert.”
MADEKWE: Because I knew this would happen. [Laughs]
RUSSELL: Then, he was like, “I think we should do something.” Actors love to fill in the rest of the picture as much as they can, and I was very supportive of that, ultimately, down to the wire. It was during prep, and we have this friend Kenny, who’s a producer who literally has a YouTube show where he makes a song of any genre with random artists, and by the end of a 30-minute session, he has a whole song with them. He was an easy pick for us to just get Archie in the room with him for a couple of days while we’re doing prep and see what they come up with.
MADEKWE: I mean, it’s Kenny Beats. He’s one of the best producers in the world. You’re really downplaying that.
RUSSELL: [Laughs] He’s our friend. I think I was distracted. I was thinking about other stuff, but I was like, “I know Kenny can handle it. He’s going to make this great.” I had already had him in mind to do the score, so I just sent Archie in there. We had some other songwriters who Kenny oversaw. In a couple of days, I heard all the songs that are in the movie, almost in their finished form.

Image by Photagonist

MADEKWE: It was really amazing. It was a bit of a weird, second-life dream where you’re like, “Oh, in another life, I would’ve loved to have been a musician, but I guess that won’t happen.” Then I was in the studio with Kenny and we were writing songs. I was like, “Maybe there are horns in this?” He was like, “Yeah, give me 20 minutes.” There was a whole group of trumpet players and saxophone players. It was so much fun and so creative. I’d say, “I love this artist, Dijon,” and he was like, “Great. I made 20 songs for him last year. There are about 15 that we’ve got in the back pocket that we can use.”
I know an artist called Rex Orange County, and he’d sent me this song that ended up being a really key piece of “Love and Obsession.” He wrote this song for his album, and I spoke to him a lot just prepping for the film, and he said, “That story’s really stayed with me. There’s a song that’s supposed to be on my album, but I feel like it should be in your movie.” He sent it to us, and I listened to the lyrics and I said, “My god, this just feels like the film.” I sent it to Kenny, and he played around with it, and then all of a sudden, the song grew out of that. It was so collaborative and fun, but [the song] was not supposed to be in the film initially. It was a really fun bonus.
I don’t want to do any spoilers, but the third act has a big song that really moves the story.
RUSSELL: It’s critical to the story.
When did you realize this song needs to kick ass?
RUSSELL: I was just hoping for the best, to be honest. There’s so much to keep your eye on. You have to trust the people that you’re working with and give them a chance to do their thing. In the case of Kenny, he’s so seasoned as just a studio recording producer. Giving him this chance was such a no-brainer. The score we did together, as well, was so smooth.
I completely agree.

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Get your groove on!

[Théodore], I don’t want to spoil anything about this movie, but I definitely want to give you props because you’re so fucking good in it. Talk a little bit about getting ready to play this role and your mental state. I want to know, specifically for you, what it was like getting ready for this part and that headspace.
RUSSELL: Can I say one thing right before you answer? He is so not like the character in real life at all. He’s the complete opposite. He’s not acting weird around anyone! He’s not trying to get anything out of you, or manipulate you, or play a game with you.
But the problem is, he is, but he’s very good at hiding it. No, I’m joking.
RUSSELL: He’s the best in the world. Have you seen Never Rarely Sometimes Always? His character in that is similarly displaying ambiguous intentions. I’ll let you answer the fucking question.
PELLERIN: No, thank you. That’s very kind. It’s weird because it was in two separate steps for me that I approached the film because I auditioned a long time ago. I was 23, and so that’s the first time that I came in contact with the script, and we shot a little teaser a year after. I got to spend some time in LA, and Alex took me to a few parties and had me be in contact with that world a little bit. It was the first time that I set foot in that world. It was interesting for me to then have to get ready to actually shoot the movie so long after reading it for the first time, and the first time in my life that I had such a long break between getting in contact with the project and then actually making it.

Image by Photagonist

It was strange because, of course, we change a lot, and I felt like I was someone different, but then I was still attached to some of the first perceptions and perspectives of when I was 23. I had to really work to kind of let the shift happen of who I was today, how I would read the script today, and how I would approach it, and not be stuck in something that was older. It was interesting to have an opportunity to do that. It also really scared me because I was very worried about going through the motions of the first instincts that I had that probably weren’t mine anymore.
RUSSELL: Fun Lurker fact: by pure coincidence, [Pellerin’s] was the first tape I saw out of hundreds. Just by pure coincidence, I saw his first, and I was like, “Oh, if this is, like, the floor…” It was my first time directing, too, so it was my first time evaluating tapes. So I saw this, and I was like, “Oh my god!”
PELLERIN: Maybe that’s the only reason why I got it! [Laughs]
He nailed the casting. You were the right one for this role.
The Cast of ‘Lurker’ Went Guerilla at LAX

“Those restrictions make you more clever and creative.”

Image by Photagonist

There’s a great bit at LAX, where you’re filming in the international terminal. Did you have permits?
RUSSELL: I’ll say this, Matthew having a documentary within the film is like a cheat code for me as an indie filmmaker. You just pull up to LAX with the van and throw all your actors in there with a camcorder. People go to LAX with cameras all the time that are bigger than the one we were using. I was thinking, “We’ll send them in there. They come back. That’s a take. We review the footage. They go back and do another take…” We just sent them in there, and they didn’t come back for, like, 45 minutes. I’m like, “Did they get arrested?” They came back with the footage, and it was perfect. They were rolling around in a wheelchair. They really looked like they were going to London.
I only ask this because I recently spoke to everyone in Inheritance, and they shot using iPhones, and they went to the airport and shot stuff on the plane and then at the customs in Egypt. They filmed in places you’re not allowed to film. I was curious if you guys at LAX had gotten on the plane to go to London and just shot [footage]?
MADEKWE: It would have been a good idea now that we’re thinking about that.
RUSSELL: We get the piece in LAX, and then we get the piece on the plane, but you really want to hear the dialogue on the plane, and it’s a little more intentional. The camcorder thing really came in handy for us. I think those restrictions make you more clever and creative. That feels more real than if we went in there and said, “Action!”
100%. I was watching the footage, and I was like, “This feels real. They totally didn’t have permits, and they were having the greatest time.”
‘Lurker’ Taps Into Society’s Obsession With Celebrity Lifestyle

The cast examines why celebrity culture is so prevalent.

Image Via Case Study Films

One of the things that the film does so well is the way people act all of a sudden when they see actors and “celebrities,” or musicians. It’s like they’ve been injected with drugs, and they just change. I think the film does such a great job at that. Why do you think so many people just get so crazy when they see actors or musicians? They just become a different person.
FOX: I feel like we used to have religion. In the ’90s when I grew up, my mom was super Christian, right? We grew up Southern Baptists. My mom and her best friend and her kids, we would go down to Orlando and go to these megachurch conventions that T.D. Jakes and Creflo Dollar would have. These places are empty now. My mom watches church on [streaming] now. She doesn’t even have a physical church home. Nowadays, youth culture, Gen Z, doesn’t even ascribe to that anymore. Celebrities are the new sort of deities. That’s who they attach to now.
RUSSELL: You should see how they go crazy for Zack. Walking up Main Street, he’s getting full pitches, like full monologues. It’s wild.
MADEKWE: Thinking about it now, though, it’s a thing that we’ve had even when we were kids. It’s almost ingrained in us as humans. I’m thinking about being at Disneyland and going crazy over seeing Mickey Mouse and Goofy. It’s a weird thing that’s ingrained in our DNA as humans, and that has been from way back when. I don’t know what we’re constantly trying to find—something more exciting in our lives.
LIU: I kind of admire it. I never was a fan of something growing up, and I look at people who have that visceral, full-body reaction to having that much passion towards something, and I feel jealousy. That is so pure and wonderful. That much joy? That’s just unbelievably special. I think it’s really cool. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t have that gene, and I wish I did.
SULJIC: I feel like it’s like an emotional connection, especially when I would listen to certain music. I feel like I could connect to that person so much just based off of their lyrics. I don’t know them, but I feel like I know them so well. I feel like with movies, sometimes I feel like most people, or just myself, can get invested into a film and put yourself in those shoes. I feel like that’s my idea of when you get starstruck or something. It’s like seeing a friend you haven’t seen in five years or something. It’s like, “Oh, I fucking know you! We go way back.” That’s kind of my idea.
LIU: You’re right. It is about intimacy, too, right? There’s a piece of it where you feel connected through these people, the parasocial relationship. You feel like you had some deep relationship with this person, even if you don’t. I think you’re right. It is the vulnerability and intimacy. I think we’re so devoid of connection in our current times with social media, etc., that it probably plays a bigger role now than it did before.
SULJIC: Even when Michael Jackson passed away, it was a whole thing.
RUSSELL: Were you around for that?
SULJIC: [Laughs] I was, like, four at the time. I saw a lot of people affected. I wasn’t fully around at that time.

Image by Photagonist

RUSSELL: That’s why I don’t like to go to concerts. I don’t like that everyone else has the same intimate connection with the artist. I like headphones, or in the car, maybe with one friend. At a concert, I’m like, “Why do you know all the lyrics? This is between us.”
Havana Rose Liu Teases John Carney’s ‘Power Ballad’

“He’s brilliant. He’s so fun. He’s wild. It felt free.”

Image by Photagonist

I have to ask [Havana] an individual question. I’m a big fan of John Carney, and you’re in Power Ballad. What can you say about the project? He makes really cool films.
LIU: No one’s asked me about it! I don’t even know what I’m allowed to say. He’s brilliant. He’s so fun. He’s wild. It felt free, the way that this project feels free. I just believe in him so much as a creative, and it’s fun to ride on someone’s wave where they’re writing actively through the process, the way Alex does, as well. I’m very attracted to that kind of process because you feel so untethered and terrified the whole time. There are some parallels here. I’m excited. I have no idea how it’s doing. I hope it’s going great.
I’m sure there are really good songs in that as well.
LIU: Yes.
Special thanks to our 2025 partners at Sundance including presenting partner Rendezvous Capital and supporting partners Sommsation, The Wine Company, Hendrick’s Gin, neaū water, and Roxstar Entertainment.

Lurker

Release Date

January 28, 2025

Runtime

100 Minutes

Théodore Pellerin

Matthew