Jake Shears goes head-to-“head” with Alexander Skarsgård’s pierced prosthetic in acting debut: “It was shocking”.
These days, Jake Shears is running with Scissor Sisters around the world for the reunited band’s first live shows in over 12 years, but he recently had to contend with a different piece of hardware: Alexander Skarsgård’s Prince Albert piercing.
That’s right, for his official screen-acting debut, Shears will go head-to-“head” with a prominently pierced prosthetic in Pillion, the wild gay biker romance that made a splash at the Cannes Film Festival last month.
From first-time feature filmmaker Harry Lighton, Pillion is the surprisingly sweet story of gruff biker Ray (Skarsgård) and his new submissive, Colin (Harry Melling, of the Harry Potter series) as they work out some *ahem* kinks in their relationship.
Shears plays Kevin, one such “kink”—another of Ray’s subs who stirs up some jealousy in Colin, especially after he takes on that Prince Albert (and more) during an unforgettable scene on a picnic table.
“I gotta say that prosthetic was really realistic,” he confesses to Deadline. “To me, in real life, it felt very real. Literally and figuratively… it was so realistic that in the moment, when it’s happening and being filmed, it was kind of shocking in a really great way.”
It was all the more surprising because the penile piercing wasn’t in the script—at least Shears doesn’t remember it that way—meaning his on-screen reaction to it is genuine and unrehearsed. Thankfully, he had plenty of time to prepare for everything else the role called for.
Pillion‘s casting director reached out after seeing him play the Emcee in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club on London’s West End and offered the part. Though he initially worried he bit off more than he could chew, he felt more confident after a conversation with director Harry Lighton and Skarsgård, who he already knew socially.
