{"id":2176900,"date":"2025-11-25T20:05:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T20:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2176900"},"modified":"2025-11-25T20:05:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T20:05:21","slug":"lurker-explores-fans-obsession-and-modern-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/lurker-explores-fans-obsession-and-modern-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Lurker explores fans, obsession and modern fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

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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.”<\/div>\n
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Matthew becomes an “agent of taste”. (Supplied: Universal Pictures<\/span>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\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

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“And then it comes back many times in the movie \u2014 the idea of fans being like a slur, almost.<\/p>\n<\/div>\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<\/h2>\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

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Madekwe says there are a few things holding Oliver back from super stardom, including a lack of “sincere artistry”. (Supplied: Universal Pictures<\/span>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\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.”<\/div>\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.”<\/div>\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.<\/span><\/div>\n

‘Being famous isn’t cool anymore’<\/h2>\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

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Matthew infiltrates Oliver’s inner world. (Supplied: Universal Pictures<\/span>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\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

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“I feel like I was just writing what I knew as far as the LA scene,” Russell told ABC News.<\/p>\n<\/div>\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.”<\/div>\n

Lurker is in cinemas now.<\/strong><\/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 www.abc.net.au \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. Th\u00e9odore Pellerin (Beau Is Afraid, Never Rarely Sometimes Always) plays Matthew, a retail clerk who edges his way into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2176902,"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":[350364,350365,352327,351651,317204,419082,22860,350366,419081,419080,419079,411744],"class_list":["post-2176900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-alex-russell","tag-archie-madekwe","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-theodore-pellerin"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Lurker-explores-fans-obsession-and-modern-fame.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176900","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=2176900"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2176903,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176900\/revisions\/2176903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2176902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2176900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2176900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2176900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}