Even over Zoom, Archie Madekwe projects the kind of quiet magnetism that first drew audiences to him in Emerald Fennell’s 2023 film Saltburn. At six-foot-five, with a resonant voice to match, the 30-year-old British actor has a poised but charming demeanor that makes him perfect for his latest role as Oliver, a charismatic pop star on the rise in Lurker, which opens in theaters August 22.
Like Saltburn, the thriller (the directorial debut of The Bear and Beef writer Alex Russell) carries a Talented Mr. Ripley undercurrent. In this case, Quebecois actor Théodore Pellerin plays Matthew, a striver intent on breaking into a tight-knit circle of Internet-famous “creatives” and ascending his lowly social standing as an anonymous retail worker. As aspiring singer Oliver, Madekwe believably plays the cult-like figure who becomes the object of Matthew’s obsession. Zack Fox and Havana Rose Liu lead the entourage of hangers-on orbiting Oliver as his budding music career takes off.
“It felt daunting to play somebody so confident—the ‘cool’ character,” Madekwe tells W. “You don’t always feel like that yourself, and it was intimidating. How am I going to convince this director that I can be those things?”
Madekwe pulls it off, though, playing Oliver as a commanding version of the “performative male” Zoomer archetype currently dominating TikTok discourse. For the film, Madekwe discovered a hidden talent for singing, performing for live audiences and recording several original songs for the film’s soundtrack, made with the help of beloved producer Kenny Beats. The super catchy “Love and Obsession,” Madekwe reveals, was a Rex Orange County track that the artist himself gifted to the production.
“That song becomes a character in the film,” Madekwe explains. Its lyrics—“What’s the difference between love and obsession?”—speak directly to the story’s central motif. The theme that fascinates Madekwe the most (one that also appears in Saltburn and Madekwe’s other breakthrough, Midsommar), is the dark side of masculinity. “What’s really interesting to me right now is exploring different kinds of male relationships and the complex ways they can manifest,” he says. “Sometimes male friendships can feel all-consuming.”
Madekwe and Pellerin in Lurker
Photo courtesy MUBI
In Lurker, the parasocial bond between Oliver and Matthew becomes so entangled that Oliver himself begins to need the obsession of his admirer to sustain his fragile ego. “We’re living in an age where possession is so much a part of our norm,” Madekwe says. “We feel ownership over people or things because of the connection we have to them online and through our phones. I know for Emerald, Saltburn was her Covid film about when you don’t get to touch something for a while, and what it does to you when that release suddenly happens. Alex wrote Lurker during Covid, too, and there is a throughline of things we don’t get to touch and the things we want proximity to that we don’t have.”
When Saltburn’s most provocative scenes—Barry Keoghan’s full-frontal nudity, Jacob Elordi’s bathwater—made it a viral sensation, Madekwe, too, was propelled to a new level of stardom. Raised in South London by a Nigerian-Swiss father and an English mother, he gravitated toward creative outlets early on. “That looked like me making magazines and being a writer, and putting on plays and being in the choir,” he says. “Anything that wasn’t academics or sport.” He went on to study acting at the lauded BRIT School (and later, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art) before landing a role opposite Damian Lewis in a buzzy 2017 West End revival of Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? Lewis became a mentor, helping Madekwe secure an American agent and leading to projects including Apple TV+’s See, Midsommar, Gran Turismo, Saltburn, and now Lurker.
“It has been a slow and steady burn of staying busy and trying to be specific in the projects I choose,” he says. “In the back of my mind, I’m thinking about projects where I haven’t seen somebody that looks like me, and I’m trying to be in those spaces.”
That confidence has extended to fashion, too. Madekwe has fronted campaigns for Prada and Loewe and become a fixture on the front row at fashion week. “I’m tall, and I usually have a hat on or I’m slouching, trying to make myself smaller,” he says. “There was something about a natural confidence that I definitely borrowed from Oliver, and not trying to hide myself in any way.”
The increasing glare of attention is still something he tries to keep in perspective. As to whether Lurker has made him rethink his relationship with social media and his growing legion of fans? “You try not to think about it too much or it’ll drive you mad,” he says. “On a pie chart of who you are, it’s such a small sliver. You have your work self and then your real self, and as long as you know that the two are different, you retain a little bit of sanity. I’m not trying to start a cult anytime soon.”
