Théodore Pellerin is the kind of actor who can unsettle you with a look. Not a glare, not a smolder — just a faint flicker of expression, a kind of emotional Morse code you feel before you understand it. In Lurker, the indie thriller where he plays a retail worker who inserts himself into the inner circle of a pop star, those flickers turn into earthquakes.
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But sit down with him in a hotel café, and the energy flips completely. Pellerin is thoughtful, soft-spoken, and — dare we say — a little shy. Not shy like he can’t handle the spotlight. Shy like he still can’t quite believe the spotlight showed up in the first place.
“I auditioned so long ago,” he says of Lurker. “I did a tape in 2021.” It took three years to get from casting to camera — not unusual for indie film, but rare in how good it turned out. The final product is a sharp, queasy satire of celebrity worship with a darkly funny undercurrent, and Pellerin’s performance is the magnetic center. Is his character Matthew a victim? A sociopath? A baby gay with main character syndrome? The answer changes minute by minute — and that’s the point.
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Still, it’s not the character’s duplicity that draws you in. It’s how Pellerin, 27, plays every scene like he’s discovering it for the first time. That openness is very him.
“He’s a shell who takes on whatever is in front of him.”
That’s how Pellerin describes Matthew, the character he so hauntingly brings to life. He talks about the role with curiosity, not judgment — the way a methodical actor would dissect a scene, or a therapist might try to understand a self-sabotaging client.
“To me, there’s something quite childlike and innocent and green about him,” he says. “Especially at the beginning, with how he wants to be a part of that group of people and [is willing to] be confronted with their humor and their humiliations.”
He compares it to elementary school: Are you in the group, or are you out? Will they like you tomorrow, or pretend you don’t exist? And beyond the social dynamics, there’s a class angle — Matthew bikes around LA, lives with his grandma, and works a dead-end job. “He’s going through the humiliations of learning these codes [as a] class defector trying to change his social situation.”
Pellerin sees it all with rare empathy. Even as Matthew’s behavior veers from sketchy to outright sinister, he never plays him as evil. He plays him as human. Confused, lonely, and slowly realizing that you don’t get close to power without getting a little dirty.
Yes, the tension is real. No, it’s not all about sex.
Lurker’s queer undercurrent is unmistakable — you don’t film a scene where two men “wrestle” shirtless in a bedroom without raising a few eyebrows — but Pellerin is less interested in labeling Matthew than in understanding his motives.
“Matthew would always be willing to do it if that’s what needed to happen,” he explains, of his character’s more charged encounters with Oliver. “It becomes an offering.”
There’s a real pleasure, he adds, when power flips hands. When Matthew realizes he can make Oliver squirm the same way Oliver once made him feel small. “Matthew is just so excited to have all that power,” he says, likening the scene to a dog over-excitedly chewing a shoe. “There’s also this desire to act on that physical closeness.”
It’s messy, it’s queasy, and it’s totally intoxicating — like many queer-coded stories are. But Pellerin doesn’t feel the need to explain or sanitize it. He knows the thrill lies in the ambiguity.
The gay roles he plays are complex — and that’s the point.
Pellerin has quietly been building a résumé full of interesting, layered queer characters — from Xavier in Boy Erased to Jacques in Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, to now Matthew in Lurker. None of them are defined solely by their sexuality, and that’s very much by design.
“It was never about ‘a queer person,’” he says. “The heart of the story was never that. I feel like that’s changed a lot in the last 15 years. Before that, it was like a queer character was ‘someone with HIV’ or ‘someone being bullied’ or ‘someone having to come out.’”
That’s not the world he wants to portray. Instead, he’s drawn to characters who are already living in their queerness — and doing other things, like falling apart, getting messy, or committing mild acts of emotional terrorism. In other words: queer people being people.
He’s played dangerous men — and sometimes it stays with him.
From a violent drug dealer in Family First, to a loner in Incel, to the emotionally unraveling Matthew in Lurker, Pellerin has a knack for tapping into volatility. But he admits it’s not always easy to shake off.
“I remember getting a little scared during Family First,” he says of a scene involving violence. “That sadistic thing was staying there [in my body]. I was like, Oooh…that’s scary a little bit.”
These days, he finds himself even more sensitive after filming. “It took more time — not to get rid of the character, but to get rid of the movie and the themes that I’d been sitting with.”
But don’t worry — he still finds it fun. At least… for now. “At some point, the tank would be empty,” he laughs. “But it’s definitely part of each of us, of course.”
He’s humble, maybe to a fault. But he’s paying attention.
Earlier this year, Pellerin won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award at Cannes Critics’ Week for his performance in Nino, a quiet film about a man diagnosed with throat cancer. But instead of basking in the spotlight, Pellerin used the moment to praise the film’s director — who wrote the script after a personal loss.
“She really wanted that character to be seen, so to win an award, it comes back to her. It’s like the movie is winning.”
It’s a classic Pellerin move: stay grounded, redirect the praise, and make sure the work speaks louder than the ego.
So what’s the difference between love and obsession, anyway?
He doesn’t hesitate.
“Obsession is an unhealthy feeling while love is an exchange,” he says. “Obsession is one way into something, and love is both ways.”
A pause. Then, with a gentle grin, he adds, “Is it a Joni Mitchell song that says ‘Love is touching souls’? That’s such a beautiful thing, and I don’t think that obsession is that at all.”
In Lurker, Théodore Pellerin plays a young man slowly consumed by his own obsession. In real life, he’s as self-aware as they come — an actor with a deep respect for the characters he plays and the messiness they contain.
And if there’s one thing gay audiences love, it’s a performer who gets that. Someone who knows that queerness, like acting, is often about transformation. Not performance, not illusion — but the ability to hold contradictions with grace.
Pellerin doesn’t need to be the loudest in the room. He just needs you to keep watching — and wondering.
Lurker is in theaters now. Bring your friends. And maybe your therapist.