written by DOUGLAS GREENWOOD
photography RICHARD DOWKER
styling SAM KNOLL
A couple of years ago, actor Archie Madekwe was sitting in a Los Angeles coffee shop. Someone was watching him. Filmmaker Alex Russell, riding high on the success of his writing and producing work on Beef and The Bear, was searching for a specific kind of pop star: one who carried the aura of an enigma—someone who could be, in turn, a symbol of love for his fans and furious, with a dark, unpredictable undercurrent. The pop star, Oliver, would be the co-lead of his debut feature Lurker, about a young guy who enters this pop star’s circle and latches onto it like an opportunistic parasite. Russell had already seen Madekwe on tape for the role of Matthew, the titular interloper, but watching him sip his matcha that day, he knew Madekwe could play Oliver—the powerful, famous one.
“I remember doing a chemistry test once, and the studio saying, ‘We know that Archie can act—that’s not the question—we want to see if he can be a movie star.’” Now, two years later, Madekwe is back home in London, sipping another matcha latte from a bakery he passes most days. (The barista, who knows him well, has sketched some “happy beaver” latte art for him.) That question of star power had lingered for him—at least internally—even as the rest of the world seemed to decide this tall, curly-haired, impossibly pretty man had the chops to be a superstar. “It’s more nerve-racking to play someone confident than introverted and shy,” he says. “It feels safe to fold into yourself.”
If that’s how it feels in front of the camera, in real life Madekwe has a knack for slipping into the kind of mainstream fare that earns cult status: he played Simon, one of the scarred visitors to Hälsingland in Ari Aster’s horror movie Midsommar, and gained a loyal following when Gran Turismo, his first big lead role, landed on Netflix. But things shifted—as they did for all of his cast mates—with Emerald Fennell’s biting, provocative Saltburn, in which Madekwe played Farleigh, the scapegoated cousin of the Catton family, all of whom (spoiler!) are consumed by the batshit visitor Oliver Quick, played by Barry Keoghan.
Given his sly sharpness and sensitivity in Saltburn, Madekwe might have been cast as the unsuspecting kid who ruins lives in Lurker. But despite his doubts, the star role suits him better. In fact, once he started working on it, his input became so pivotal that he signed on as a producer, too. “I’ve never done this before and I’m gonna have to lean on you,” Russell told him, “but I’ve never been more ready to do anything ever.”
Madekwe had a hand in lots of it— from helping to choose the cinematographer, to suggesting his co-star Sunny Suljic. He also helped shape Oliver’s look: his character’s hair is dyed pink, part of a big moodboard Madekwe put together. “We were spraying my hair pink to try and convince [Russell] it could be cool,” he says. In his head, Oliver’s aesthetic mixed Destin Conrad with sonic splashes of Omar Apollo, Bakar, and Dominic Fike. He worked with Kenny Beats (who also scored the movie) to write music for Oliver, and went back and forth with his friend Rex Orange County, who contributed the track “Love and Obsession.” By leaning in, Madekwe helped create the kind of enigmatic star who draws a crazed audience and keeps them guessing. It’s no easy feat for a filmmaker to conjure a believable fictional artist—but the commitment here makes it work.
Growing up in South London, Madekwe didn’t immediately have Oliver’s cool edge. “I was a bit of a chameleon,” he says: a “nerdy” deep thinker who, every so often, presented as the class clown, often to the detriment of his education. He wanted to fit in with the other lads at his all-boys rugby school, but he was also a performer, singing in choir and competing in public speaking. Fascinated by people who did that professionally, he applied to and got into BRIT school—the lauded institution that birthed stars like Adele and Tom Holland.
Two formative memories stand out: seeing Roy Williams’ play Little Sweet Thing in London’s West End, and watching Marion Cotillard play Edith Piaf in the 2007 biopic La Vie En Rose. (We even recite Cotillard’s Oscar acceptance speech together: “Thank you life! Thank you love! And it is true there are some angels in this city!”.) He has since met both Williams—after messaging him on Facebook—and Cotillard, at an Oscar party around Saltburn’s release. She gushed to him about his performance.
After BRIT, he spent three years at the prestigious drama school LAMDA, leaving a term early after booking The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? at the Old Vic—a play that his tutors advised him not to audition for. “I thought my career was going to look like that [forever],” he says. “Maybe I’d do a few plays in London, a couple of TV gigs in the UK, and maybe one will be popular enough for me to go to LA and try pilot season.” Instead, things moved quicker: in 2019, he landed a supporting role in Apple TV+’s sci-fi series See—the same year Midsommar came out. It’s been steep and relentless ever since.
He turned 30 earlier this year. “I’m enjoying it because it feels like the first year I consciously started a new decade,” he says. “When I was in my twenties, it was like I wasn’t thinking about time, but this year felt like getting a new journal at school.” He’s looking at it with fresh eyes. “Okay,” he tells himself. “I can do whatever I want in this.”
And so he is: Madekwe is in the middle of shooting his next, still-unannounced project, which he sounds very excited about. At the same time, he’s getting used to his producer hat, teeing up a project with Aster’s production company Square Peg. After Midsommar, “we just stayed really, really close,” he says. “I think we’re often told we have to pick one thing, and I’m realizing now that I kind of resent that. There are a bunch of things I’m producing and developing myself, or writing that I may eventually direct.” The hands-on experience of Lurker unlocked something in him.
“I have so many passions,” he says. “I just want to follow wherever my feelings go.”
‘Lurker’ is in US theaters from August 22. It will be released in the UK later this year.
Lead image: top MARTINE ROSE, pants DIESEL
grooming MAYA MAN at STELLA CREATIVE ARTISTS USING MALIN+GOETZ
styling assistants SIAN CUTHBERT DAVIS