I’m Your Puppet: Alex Russell on Lurker

Alex Russell’s directorial debut Lurker is a story of doors. In the capricious world of the Los Angeles indie music scene, some get the backstage treatment, while others are stuck in the standby line. A fan with a plan, Matthew (Théodore Pellerin) crosses the threshold of online adoration into real-world contact with the charismatic Oliver (Archie Madekwe), a rising pop star with an entourage at his beck and call. To reach the object of his obsession, Matthew has to cycle uphill to Oliver’s swanky mansion, a temple of celebrity worship overlooking the glittering cityscape. Again and again, in wide shots, we see his lanky figure bobbing up and down on a bike with jagged determination, like a modern-day Sisyphus comically trapped in a meaningless quest for proximity. Yet, he is no puppet, to be played with and discarded at will. Weaving a web of cunning schemes, he slyly comes to hold all the strings.

The real-life location that serves as Oliver’s house was destroyed during the devastating Southern California wildfires of 2025. This tragic twist of fate is strangely tuned into the film’s portrayal of fickle industry relationships, ephemeral bonds built on likes and follows. A writer and producer for acclaimed TV shows such as Beef (2023) and The Bear (2022–), which revolve around the complex interpersonal dynamics of close-knit groups, Russell brings the same level of emotional astuteness to Lurker. While the 2010s setting is grounded by its precise art direction, along with a period-appropriate soundtrack by renowned producer Kenny Beats, the exploration of conflicts and hierarchies within male friendship is evergreen. One of Russell’s unlikely inspirations comes from chimpanzee documentaries, which depict the so-called “grooming” rituals through which an alpha male is decided. Within the entertainment industry, the in-crowd of LA also follow the rules of the animal kingdom. If you can’t make it to the top, you better make sure you don’t get kicked out of the forest. Like wolf packs, indie musicians need a leader too.

In a departure from other films that similarly deal with parasocial relationships, Lurker walks a taut line between gripping suspense and droll humor. Obsession is a destructive feeling, yet its irrationality also renders such a state of mind inherently ironic—funny, even. Diving into the paradoxes of transactional relationships, Alex Russell speaks about the trappings of fame and the visual architecture of desire.

MUBI: You started writing the script in 2020, when the pandemic just started. Was it always your plan to direct? 

ALEX RUSSELL: No, I didn't have ambitions like that. I also didn't know what directing was. That's what actually allowed me to finish writing. The stakes were pretty low, and I was just trying to write something longer than I usually do. There were a million reasons to give up halfway through. But the combination of not being able to leave my house and my not really thinking about it getting made helped. A lot of times on set, I had this running joke where someone would be shooting a scene or doing a line, and I'd be like, I didn't know I would have to answer for all this. So much of what was in that script feels like me writing inside jokes for myself. Like, Wouldn't it be funny for this to happen next? And then, when you're actually shooting it, you have to explain why it's there to a bunch of people, over and over again. Part of you went, Why did I put that there?

MUBI: Were you watching anything in lockdown that might have found its way into the script?

RUSSELL: I was probably watching a lot of TV. I was watching season two of Succession [2018–2023]. There's a very specific moment in that show that I was inspired by, when Kendall publicly betrays his father. When the dad watches it unfold on a TV on a boat, the camera pushes in on his expression and you see a smile forming on his face, almost like pride. That was in my head when I was figuring out the scene with Oliver on the tour bus, when he looks at himself on a laptop.

MUBI: What was behind your decision to set the film in the 2010s? It feels so specific to that time.

RUSSELL: It was an anchor, a way for me to not have to keep up with the times. Especially because I was writing it during the pandemic and I didn't know how much of a thing that was going to be in the public eye. I didn't know how to situate something in an environment where we were in the eye of the storm. Setting the film plainly in an era that I still understood helped me wrap my mind around the project. It wasn't necessarily that this type of story couldn't happen in 2025. A lot of people watch this movie and think that it does. For me, that period of the 2010s had crystalized. When I think about something that happened five years ago, it feels stuck in amber. And I can write about it.

MUBI: I like that the first in-person interaction between Oliver and Matthew took place in a clothes store. The atmosphere already feels transactional, even at the beginning of their relationship. So much of the film is about people thinking, What do you have? What can you do for me? What can I do for you?

RUSSELL: Yeah, a place of transaction. And it all happens so quickly. Even to the point where the other character, Jamie, is like, What just happened? It's the buy-in for the movie, right? You have to accomplish a lot in those first few minutes, and I wanted to get right into it. I didn't want the opening to be about Matthew just lurking, or what his life was like before this moment. For him, his story really starts here. It starts with this coincidence. Another interesting way to think about that moment is, how much of a coincidence is it? It's played almost like a meet-cute.

It becomes clear immediately after that Matthew has prepared for that moment in one way or another. So much of this movie is the believability of these intangible things. Like how famous someone is, or how recognizable they are. I was trying to communicate Oliver's effect on people. There's one version of that scene where everyone's gawking and everyone's running up to him. But in this final edit, most people are trying to play it cool. You can feel the tension in everyone's awareness of him, rather than him getting mobbed. It's also a very specific location. It's the kind of place where people who listen to his music would shop. It wouldn't be like this if he walked into a CVS.

MUBI: Was it always the plan to use Nile Rogers's “My Love Song for You” in this scene?

RUSSELL: No, it wasn't. We actually had a different idea of the song that we wanted to use. It was always supposed to be an old song, a deep cut. We thought of Stevie Wonder at one point. But what we ended up with is actually a favor from a music industry person who reps Nile. He pitched that we use something from his catalog. I don't know if people know this, but the song in the movie is actually a re-recording, done by Nile himself. He remade it just for this movie, which was really cool.

MUBI: How about James and Bobby Purify’s “I'm Your Puppet”?

RUSSELL: That was something my editor David Kashevaroff threw in there as an idea. We just loved it, and we kept it. The later reprise of it was an idea from a friend, who suggested that I should bring it back when Matthew returns to the house. In this movie, there are many times where you can choose when to be on the nose and when to be more subtle. Even the lyrics, about love and obsession, are comically aligned with the story. With the music specifically, I felt that it was more powerful to just hit it over the head. It is in the performances, where everyone is sneaking around each other, that things were more nuanced.

MUBI: I watched the music video you directed for Zach Fox's “The Bean Kicked In”, and there's such a fun, spontaneous energy to it that reminded me of the sequence with the sheep, where Oliver's entourage is also shooting a music video. There's a feeling that anything can happen on the set. 

RUSSELL: I feel that around that time, and even to this day, there was this DIY approach to shooting because there were no budgets for music videos anymore. So everyone just got some kid to run around and film with them. That video for Zach was so fun because it was just us going to the location and coming up with stuff on the fly. We were just running around with a DSLR camera. It would be fun to do a real production of a music video at some point.

MUBI: How was it working with the sheep?

RUSSELL: It was pretty easy. We were worried, because when we checked out the location, it was raining. The wrangler was like, "Yeah, we can get to the sheep to do anything. It'll be easy.” Then when he tried to move the sheep, it wouldn't move. But on the day, everything was really smooth. The sheep was very obedient. We also didn't have to get it to do much. Part of the comedy of that scene is how this sheep is just, like, sitting there. So that was cool. That was definitely one of the most fun days on set. We finished early and just hung out at this random farm.

MUBI: The choice of using a camcorder for the documentary sequences, did that come from you or from Pat Scola, your cinematographer? There's an interesting contrast between the grainy texture of the image, which feels authentic, and Oliver playing up to the camera.

RUSSELL: The exact kind of camcorder, the Hi8, was something that my DP was really into. When we were trying to figure out if we were going to shoot on film, he showed me the 16mm and the camcorder footage side to side, and they just looked really good next to each other. They could exist in the same world and it would not be jarring to cut between them. But it was always in the script to start seeing things from the point of view of the camcorder, which feels like Matthew's id. It can zoom in really aggressively. There are times where Oliver can feel the camera, and it hurts. It's painful, and he's flinching from being captured by it. Everyone in this movie has some awareness of being on camera.

MUBI: There's another great zoom moment when Matthew is talking to someone outside of his shop, and they keep asking him, "What do you really do?” I write about movies for a living, and sometimes it feels like it's not a real job. It's a feeling that applies to a lot of creative jobs, that question of what we actually do.

RUSSELL: I would say that almost the entire movie is in that scene. Especially in LA, it feels like no one has a real job. Everyone is a creative director or something. I just love that idea of Matthew not really having had to answer this question before. When he's doing it, it sounds like he's coming up with it for the first time. He's trying to convince himself that he does something substantial. You see him changing his answers and refining them throughout the conversation. He's trying to legitimize himself over and over when, in reality, all he cares about is proximity to Oliver. Then on the other side, the other guy is shamelessly exposing both of them. His admiration just comes from pure clout chasing. He can't point to something and say, oh I like this cool thing that you did. He's probably just seen Matthew, like, tagged in a photo.

MUBI: There are a lot of mirror shots in the film which seem to echo that idea that everything is very illusory in this world.

RUSSELL: Yeah, for sure. I wish there were more. Even certain subtle moments like in the recording studio scene, where there's a pane of glass between them. You can see that when we're on Matthew's side, we can still see Oliver's outline in the reflection of the glass. I don't know how clear that is, but it was something we thought was cool. There's a similar shot in The Talented Mr. Ripley [1999] when Matt Damon is on the train, and he tries to overlay the reflection of his face onto Jude Law's face. A lot of these things that you're pointing out are cool, but they were also subconscious. It was probably in our minds, but in a way that we probably would not have articulated at the time. Still, it pointed us towards a particular shot instead of a different one. 

MUBI: It's interesting because Oliver is, in many ways, an LA transplant. He's coming from outside. Matthew looks like he could have grown up in LA, and yet he's the outsider. He spends the entire movie trying to get with the in-crowd.

RUSSELL: I kind of see all of them as transplants in a way. Even with Matthew—maybe only I can hear it—there's still a tinge of a Québécois accent. Just a little bit. Just enough where you can tell he's learning the language, learning the lingo, and trying to keep up with it. It's as if a lot of what he's saying comes from watching people talk online, in YouTube videos, or even on Instagram. It's where he's getting his personality from.

MUBI: Havana Rose Liu's character is fascinating. She's the only woman in this male entourage. She's also the only person who seems to be actually working. She's sort of watching over people. How did that character fit into this very specific male dynamic for you? 

RUSSELL: There were a couple of things I thought of when I wrote the character. She's an audience surrogate for the first third of the movie, where you're still trying to figure out the tone of the story, and how self-aware—or not self-aware—these characters are. All it takes is one glance from her to show the audience where the fakeness lies between these characters. Her tone, even when she's happy for someone, is so loaded. You could tell that either she's onto Matthew or she's trying to figure out who to protect from whom. It's because she has probably seen several Matthews come and go. You even see her kicking someone out of the group at the beginning of the movie. So her sympathy is always shifting. When we meet her, she's also the only character in the movie who is already a little bit over it. She's seen the other side, and she's sick of this world, and perhaps even of Oliver. If there's any moral compass in this movie, it's her. What does it mean when she has left the crew? How do things start to work now that she's not even there anymore? What happens when it's literally only boys in the room?

MUBI: There's something really timeless about the dynamic between the men here. The setting of the indie music scene is specific, but they might just as well be in high school.

RUSSELL: Yeah, I agree. It is very high school. These guys are still boys. They're thrust into a scenario where there's this intangible glory to be found. They're all grasping at it at an age where you're supposed to be figuring out your life.

MUBI: You translate some of that tension through the use of social media and personal screens. Apart from the text messages, there's a scene in which Matthew sends Oliver an email to worm his way back into the group. He pauses to swap an exclamation point to a smiley face before hitting send, which is one of the most menacing moments in the film.

RUSSELL: If the stakes around seeing text on screen are high, then it can be a very powerful thing, as long as you make it specific and meaningful. For a lot of people these days, they receive the best news and the worst news they could get via text on a screen. If you lose your job, or if you're being embarrassed by the entire public world, that's how you're going to see it. Not by walking around outside. In the first scene where Matthew tries to send a text to Oliver after hanging out, I don't think he even ends up sending it. It's just him struggling.

MUBI: In terms of screens, there's a kind of visual bookending to the film. At the beginning, you see Matthew staring at Oliver's Tumblr. His face is lit by the screen, and he is enraptured. Near the end, you have Oliver looking at the music video of himself, directed by Matthew. The compositions are very similar.

RUSSELL: I love that. That was very intentional. In the latter scene, one of the last shots is his face on the screen which cuts to him looking at his own face. It was like the ultimate narcissist dream: I see myself through your eyes.