Last Thursday, on an autumnal evening at Paul Smith, Beak Street, I interviewed actor Archie Madekwe. 

With a backdrop of tailored suits and the label’s signature stripe, the in-store talk marked the first in a series of ‘in conversations’ with creatives at Paul Smith and A Rabbit’s Foot. This intimate chat, in the heart of Soho and at the peak of the London Film Festival and Frieze, wove together the colourful threads of film, fashion, art and style.  

Archie, 30, is a Londoner whose star is on the rise. At 6 ‘5 with the face of an angel and striking charisma he is a versatile combination of ultra-cool and vulnerable, able to play both sweethearts and shits; moving between genres and periods with grace. After the BRIT School and LAMDA he kicked off his career with Teen Spirit directed by Max Minghella. In 2017 he was named as one of the ‘Screen Stars of Tomorrow’ and has gone on to do theatre and TV and films such as Midsommar (2019), Beau is Afraid (2022), Gran Turismo (2023) and Saltburn (2023). 

Archie now stars in Lurker, the debut feature from writer Alex Russell (The Bear, Dave and Beef). It’s a gripping film: a Talented Mr. Ripley for the Age of Instagram and comes to UK cinemas on 12th December. 

Genevieve Gaunt: Lurker hit the London Film Festival this week. How has it been?

Archie Madekve: The premiere marked the end of this year-long press journey which has been fun and also killed us… We’ve been all over the world and so it was really lovely to end in London with my family seeing it and my and my dad’s in the audience here tonight. 

GG: Tell us about Lurker. Who do you play and what’s the film about?

AM: I play Oliver, a singer on the cusp of stardom. Lurker is about a young man, Matthew (Théodore Pellerin) who manipulates his way into Oliver’s inner circle. Lots of people have compared this film to Saltburn but I actually read the script before I read Saltburn. It was on The Black List, where people send scripts and get rated and all that. 

GG: Straight offer or audition?

AM: Not an offer, still a hustle! I auditioned during Covid. It was one of those scripts that everybody was auditioning for. I originally taped for the part of ‘the lurker’. I thought I’d put in this unbelievable self-tape. But then, crickets. Years go by. One day my agent calls me: ‘they want you to audition for the part of Oliver, the singer’. Oliver is the essence of coolness and I thought, ‘how do I go into the room and convince this director that I can be cool?’ 

GG: What happened next?

AM: The director Alex Russell saw me in a coffee shop in LA. Saw me through the window and just watched me for like, 45 mins. You could say…a bit like…a lurker. 

GG: What was Alex Russell like to work with?

AM: It was Alex’s first film. He wrote The Bear, Beef, Dave, so he’s a really accomplished writer.  With first-time directors, you’re taking a leap of faith. Alex said to me ‘There are so many things I’m going to get wrong but I’ve never been more ready to do something in my life.’ I really loved that. So many directors pretend they have the answers. 

GG: You were also a producer. How did that come about?

AM: I like problem solving and Alex and I started this relationship where we’d say ‘we need this piece of music but can’t afford it’ or ‘we need to talk to these DPs’. So I started saying ‘let me call this person and that person.’ And so they offered me a producer role. It was an education as much as it was a collaboration. I learnt about sales, distribution. All of those things that actors really don’t have a look into. 

GG: How did you find playing Oliver? 

AM: I had to make music and perform live shows and I’m not a singer… So it was a challenge but a fun one. 

GG: You say you’re not a singer… but both your voice and your credibility as a pop star is so believable. What’s the story behind the music? 

AM: Funnily enough, when I started the film, Alex said, ‘There’s no music in this film, you won’t be singing’. Then we start prepping and Alex goes, ‘yeah, we’re going to want you in the studio.’ I said, ‘you’ve never heard me sing!’ and he went, ‘you’ll be fine!’ 

Kenny Beats [aka Kenneth Blume] is one of the best music producers in the world. He did all the music for the film and did the score. He has this incredible YouTube show called The Cave where he brings huge people in like Doja Cat and he’s able to make a complete song in 30 minutes. I’d get in the studio and he’d say, ‘Okay, what are we going to do today?’ And I’d say, ‘I kind of want a song that sounds a little bit like Dijon’s ‘The Dress’’ And he’s like, ‘Cool. I just made 20 songs with Dijon. Pick one.’

I also spent a lot of time with the musician Rex Orange County. He gave us his song ‘Love and Obsession’ which sounds like it was written for the movie but it was just this really beautiful kind of serendipitous gift from Rex.  

GG: You once said that your favourite sound is that of a piano…

AM: I do love the piano. If I’m on my deathbed and I can’t play the piano, I’ll be so disappointed in myself. 

GG: Fashion and film often go hand-in-hand. Daniel Day-Lewis shadowed Paul Smith when he was preparing for Phantom Thread (2017). For your roles you’ve worn everything from black tie to bear skins. Does costume help you find your character?  

AM: Costume designers on modern projects sometimes don’t want the clothes to be a distraction. But with the Apple+ TV show See, which I was on for three years, you’re wearing bearskins every single day and you’re in -20 degrees on the top of a mountain. In Saltburn we were in tuxes for lunch. Emerald (Fennell) helped me by saying ‘put your feet together’ and that tiny little note unlocked the entire character for me.

GG: Speaking of Saltburn, you’ve got this sweetness on screen but then you also played that gorgeous prick, Farleigh so well. With this versatility of yours, what’s your dream role? 

AM: It’s less a dream role. It’s always dream directors. Steve McQueen or Kantemir Balagov, Ruben Östlund, Yorgos Lanthimos… I would love to be a part of their worlds. There is a dream role I’ve been developing with Ari Aster that’s finally coming to fruition. 

Sometimes roles are unexpected. Like Gran Turismo based on the real life story about the gamer Jann Mardenborough who became a racing driver. I didn’t take that part because I love PlayStation or cars. I didn’t even have my driving licence a week before I started the film.  Sony was giving so much money [$60m] to a huge studio film to tell a story about this young mixed race guy from Wales. 

GG: What’s the ultimate dream role?

AM: Riz Ahmed has this powerful essay ‘Typecast as a Terrorist’ in The Good Immigrant [a collection edited by Nikesh Shukla] and he talks about the three levels of casting types for people of colour. Playing a terrorist is level three. Level two is the subverted stereotype where he’s playing a doctor.  Then there’s level 1, the dream role: the everyman. It’s important for us to tell stories about people of colour that don’t exist in spaces of trauma. I’ve been lucky to play a lot of those level 1 everyman roles.

GG: It’s Frieze week. I know you love art. If you could have a blank cheque and buy any painting in the world what would it be?

AM: I love Reggie Burrows Hodges and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye…. My favourite painting could be the Kerry James Marshall ‘School of Beauty’ in the hair shop with the floating Sleeping Beauty head… It’s stunning. 

Or the Noah David unicorn painting. I love that picture so much because it kind of relates to what I was just talking about, like finding those unicorn acting parts. This young boy, on a unicorn, hunting for something magical.

GG: What are your three favourite films? 

AM: Number 1… La Vie en Rose (2007). I remember seeing that film and googling to find out the names of the three actresses who played Edith Piaf throughout the ages and my mind being blown that they were all Marion Cotillard. 

Number 2… for the stories and the camera work and the craft: Children of Men (2006) by Alfonso Cuarón.

Number three… Beanpole (2019) directed by Kantemir Balagov. It was so moving and arresting it stopped my breath. I had to turn away. 

GG: If you weren’t an actor or director or producer, what would you do?

AM: I love music so much, I think A&R. Or maybe an art curator.  

GG: You’re a Londoner born and bred: do you have a favourite spot? 

AM:I moved out of South London for the first time to live in East London. My family reacted like I moved to Australia. I still love Crystal Palace, Brockwell Park, Dulwich, so many places feel nostalgic. I love London in general. It takes leaving and coming back to realise how magical and special this city is.

GG: Where in the world would you most like to travel?

AM: South Korea is top of my list. I’d love to spend more time in Japan. Once I went backpacking when I was 18 for a month. Then I shot a film there. Also, Brazil, South America…

GG: Would you do more voice work and animation?

AM: Absolutely. I did Love, Death + Robots for Netflix. I did my first Audible project this year. Sometimes my dad jokingly asks me ‘what Disney character would you most like to play?’ which is his way of reminding me I used to dress up as a Pocahontas as a kid. 

GG: Any tricky auditions? 

AM: Oh, I’ve got a really terrible audition story. I was auditioning for Game of Thrones. My friend is there auditioning too and I hug him and think, man, he stinks… And I then get into the room and the smell is even worse. Is it the casting guy? I keep forgetting my lines because this smell was really distracting. Later I go to a party and the smell is back. I look down and there’s dog shit all over my shoes. It’s safe to say I did not get the job.

GG: What advice would you give to somebody who’s just graduated? 

AM: See everything: plays, films, develop an opinion, make stuff. As an actor you’re constantly waiting for permission, waiting for an agent to call. 

GG: Any mentors?

AM: Many. Like Roy Williams. It was one of his monologues that got me into drama school and then got me an agent. I saw Roy at a press night and I went up to him and told and since then he’s been such a champion of my career. 

GG: How much of your career can you shape?

AM: At a certain point you have to start saying ‘no’ to roles that you would have said yes to before. It’s chess. I might nowadays turn down a film because the part is too small or the gamble feels too big. Or a TV show when there are options and you sign away 7 years of your life. 

GG: Can we talk about your upcoming project, Hyena?

AM: Hyena was, insanely, one of the last things that David Lynch was working on. I have these crazy emails that David Lynch had written about casting me in the film, which is very special. Lynch and the director-writer Scott Coffey, developed it together. It’s definitely got a Lynchian quality… 

GG: On the note of Lynchian qualities, Lurker is out in UK cinemas on 12th December. Thank you, Archie.