When a retail employee infiltrates the inner circle of a music artist on the verge of stardom, it sets off a sequence of events where access and proximity become a matter of life and death.<\/p>\n
Th\u00e9odore Pellerin (Beau Is Afraid, Never Rarely Sometimes Always) plays Matthew, a retail clerk who edges his way into the in-crowd in the new film Lurker, which is in cinemas today.<\/p>\n
Pellerin says in Los Angeles, where the film is mostly set, fame can seem paramount in determining a person’s self-worth.<\/p>\n
“The idea of fame, or the idea of proximity to fame, can force some people to feel like it is the only thing that matters,” he told ABC News.<\/p>\n
“And it is the only thing that constitutes an idea of something fulfilling and grand.<\/p>\n
“So, that’s kind of what I tried to understand from Matthew, that it’s not about fame, it’s about the fact that there is no other option.”<\/p>\n
Matthew becomes an “agent of taste”. (Supplied: Universal Pictures)<\/p>\n
Matthew pretends to be unfamiliar with budding star Oliver (Archie Madekwe) when Oliver walks into the clothing store where he works, which serves to bring the two of them closer.<\/p>\n
“[Matthew] becomes kind of an agent of taste,” Pellerin said.<\/p>\n
“So, that’s the only way, really, to have access to Oliver to make it seem as if he’s not a fan.<\/p>\n
“And then it comes back many times in the movie \u2014 the idea of fans being like a slur, almost.<\/p>\n
“So, he doesn’t want to be seen as a fan.<\/p>\n
“He has to be someone who has real taste and is not just going to gobble up everything that he does, so that he has an importance for him.”<\/p>\n
The world, and the industry, has changed<\/p>\n
Madekwe (Saltburn, Midsommar) concedes the fan\/star dynamic is a tricky one.<\/p>\n
“You need fans in order to do this job,” Madekwe told ABC News.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Madekwe says there are a few things holding Oliver back from super stardom, including a lack of “sincere artistry”. (Supplied: Universal Pictures)<\/p>\n
“In an ideal world, I guess you have a normal life, and you have a sense of anonymity, and you can also do your job.<\/p>\n
“But that’s kind of not the way that the world or the industry works.”<\/p>\n
He says even the biggest stars struggle these days to sell a movie.<\/p>\n
“Leonardo DiCaprio was doing TikToks the other day for One Battle After Another, and now [the film has] done great at the box office, but there’s barely anyone that people will come out in hordes to see for just that actor,” he said.<\/p>\n
“There are very few actors that are reliable anymore in that way.”<\/p>\n
He says, in the film, Oliver is held back from super stardom by the same things holding back most young artists with no real support system.<\/p>\n
“It’s kind of a lack of confidence, lack of belief, but also a lack of, for Oliver, I think, actually a lack of sincere artistry,” Madekwe said.<\/p>\n
“He’s finding himself being stuck, as a lot of artists do, of trying to make their next cool thing, and isn’t maybe making something from a sincere, vulnerable place, or it doesn’t feel like anyone’s perceiving that.<\/p>\n
“That’s kind of why when he’s with Matthew, it feels like he’s receiving it as this sincere, genuine art; it fills him up so much.”<\/p>\n
He says people can get caught up in a mental rat race about their careers, and it can get a bit heavy.<\/p>\n
“I think he’s standing in his own way a lot of the time,” Madekwe said.’Being famous isn’t cool anymore’<\/p>\n
Lurker is written and directed by Emmy-winning TV Writer and producer Alex Russell (The Bear, Beef) in his feature film debut.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Matthew infiltrates Oliver’s inner world. (Supplied: Universal Pictures)<\/p>\n
Russell says he found the music scene in LA darkly comic, and chose to tell the story from the point of view of one of the many hangers-on he sees latch on to burgeoning stars.<\/p>\n
“I feel like I was just writing what I knew as far as the LA scene,” Russell told ABC News.<\/p>\n
Lurker offers his take on modern fame, online fan culture, social status, and social disorder.<\/p>\n
“I feel like fundamentally being famous isn’t cool anymore,” Russell said.<\/p>\n
“It’s sort of un-mysterious.<\/p>\n
“And people who have a big audience end up having to serve that audience more and more in the modern era, lest they be punished by that audience.”<\/p>\n
Lurker is in cinemas now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a retail employee infiltrates the inner circle of a music artist on the verge of stardom, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[175331,175332,64,63,134,175328,82477,1635,19658,1973,66331,175334,175333,175329,344,175330],"class_list":["post-308401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-alex-russell","tag-archie-madekwe","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-fan-culture","tag-fandom","tag-fans","tag-film-review","tag-hollywood","tag-lurker","tag-lurker-cast-and-crew","tag-lurker-cast-interviews","tag-modern-fame","tag-movies","tag-theodore-pellerin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}