<\/p>\n
Fandom is a funny thing in the age of social media. Spend enough time scrolling and it\u2019s easy to feel like you really know a celebrity, and all their friends. The new film \u201cLurker,\u201d a Sundance<\/a> breakout in theaters Friday<\/a>, explores the question of what might happen if a certain type of fan got a foot in the door, and what they might do to stay there.<\/p>\n Archie Madekwe\u2019s<\/a> Oliver hardly knows what\u2019s coming when he walks into a trendy Los Angeles clothing shop. A rising music star, Oliver seems already accustomed to a certain amount of attention wherever he goes, with asks for selfies and autographs just part of the deal. So of course he\u2019s taken aback when one of the employees, Th\u00e9odore Pellerin\u2019s Matthew, doesn\u2019t seem to know or care who he is. Oliver doesn\u2019t see that it\u2019s an act and is soon asking this stranger to come around and hang with his entourage.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the beginning Matthew thinks Oliver has this god-given place of celebrity and success,\u201d Pellerin said. \u201cHe quickly understands that he will have to give things to serve a certain purpose in Oliver\u2019s world and his ego. But also that they\u2019re not dissimilar. They\u2019re both playing by a certain rule book that is written by Oliver. If the power becomes Matthew\u2019s, he can also write the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n A hot script and a first-time filmmaker<\/p>\n The film is the directorial debut of Alex Russell, whose own star is rising. He wrote \u201cForks,\u201d widely considered one of the best episodes of \u201cThe Bear,\u201d<\/a> and won an Emmy for co-executive producing the Netflix series \u201cBeef.\u201d<\/a> His script for \u201cLurker,\u201d which he wrote sort of as a challenge for himself during COVID lockdowns, immediately became a hot commodity. Madekwe remembers being bummed when he didn\u2019t hear back after he put himself on tape to play the hanger-on.<\/p>\n A few years later, Madekwe\u2019s agent called and said Russell wanted to meet him. Not for Matthew, but for Oliver.<\/p>\n \u201cI had to completely rethink the film and the structure and the what it was about,\u201d Madekwe said. \u201cBut it was most daunting to imagine myself needing to go and meet Alex and convince him that I could play somebody like this cool character.\u201d<\/p>\n He needn\u2019t have been so worried. Unbeknownst to Madekwe, Russell had been doing some stealth behind-the-scenes work. After someone recommended his name, Russell saw Madekwe in a coffee shop one day and just watched him for 20 minutes. His conclusion: This is Oliver.<\/p>\n A charmed production of young creatives<\/p>\n Russell was cognizant of the limitations he was faced with as a first-time director making an independent film, where things like casting and hiring are often rushed.<\/p>\n \u201cMy goal was to get what I felt like were underrated actors,\u201d Russell said. \u201cPeople who could come in and really hit it out of the park. Then people would look at this movie and be like wow they really took a step up here. That\u2019s kind of where you can punch above your weight if you\u2019re making your first movie and don\u2019t have a huge budget.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t just his leads either, but the full ensemble including Sunny Suljic, Havana Rose Liu, Zack Fox and Daniel Zolghadri \u2014 faces you might recognize, but names you might not yet know. Putting it together was hard work, with strict limits on budget and time, but Russell said the experience of \u201cLurker\u201d was charmed nonetheless.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s only because I got so lucky with decisions I made early on with casting and hiring,\u201d he said. \u201cSo much of it is like I\u2019m just a kid with a screenplay and everyone else has to be really good at their job.\u201d<\/p>\n When it came to directing the actors, he had a simple litmus test: \u201cDo I believe it?<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re watching the monitor and like do I buy that? Because everyone else is going to have to,\u201d he said. \u201cI just think my cast was very good. I didn\u2019t have to force any performance.\u201d<\/p>\n Often times Russell\u2019s friends in the music world would come around set, giving the off camera times a bit of a meta quality.<\/p>\n \u201cIt didn\u2019t feel a little like the movie sometimes, like just like a group of like young creatives,\u201d Pellerin said. \u201cThere was a real LA film and music scene that was very present. That was helpful for me \u2014 it was like the fun aspect of the movie, not the hard-core humiliation.\u201d<\/p>\n Many involved describe the process as uniquely collaborative. Madekwe also stepped up as a producer, which wasn\u2019t just a vanity title. He was actually involved in many major creative decisions, including recommending Suljic, who he\u2019d just worked with on a music video, and finding locations and some of the music for the film, including a song called \u201cLove and Obsession,\u201d written by Rex Orange County.<\/p>\n An obsessive thriller for the parasocial age<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an incredibly important film for now,\u201d Madekwe said. \u201cThe relationship that we have with people that we don\u2019t know? I think that conversation is really interesting and exciting. But most importantly, I think it\u2019s really exciting to be at the beginning of Alex Russell\u2019s career and to invest into a filmmaker that I think is gonna be making incredible films for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n The film shares some DNA with what Russell calls \u201cobsessive thrillers\u201d like \u201cWhiplash\u201d and \u201cBlack Swan.\u201d In \u201cLurker,\u201d he wondered \u201cwhat if the drumming was social climbing.\u201d<\/p>\n The power shifting power dynamics between Matthew and Oliver aren\u2019t just relevant to celebrities and hangers on. It could apply to any group of friends.<\/p>\n As Russell explained: \u201cYou get a text from your new shiny friend and a text from your old friend: Who do you text back first?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fandom is a funny thing in the age of social media. Spend enough time scrolling and it\u2019s easy to feel like you really know a celebrity, and all their friends. The new film \u201cLurker,\u201d a Sundance breakout in theaters Friday, explores the question of what might happen if a certain type of fan got a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1970498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[350364,350365,348488,350366,350367],"class_list":["post-1970497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-alex-russell","tag-archie-madekwe","tag-independent-film","tag-lurker","tag-theodore-pellerins-matthew"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/What-happens-when-a-fan-gets-too-close-\u2018Lurker-explores.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1970497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1970498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1970497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1970497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1970497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}