Stuck on a Feeling: Interview with ‘Lurker’ Writer-Director Alex Russell

When a twenty-something retail clerk encounters a rising pop star, he takes the opportunity to edge his way into the in-crowd. But as the line between friend and fan blurs beyond recognition, access and proximity become a matter of life and death.

Lurker is one heck of a directorial debut from Alex Russell (The Bear, Beef). It offers a complex and emotional ride between the films two characters, Matthew and Russell. Leaving us, the audience, feeling uneasy, unsettled, and fully consumed - but all in for the ride. The feeling is key.

Alex Russell discusses with Script focusing on the characters’ complex emotions, how he drew from personal feelings, his writing process involving character development and the importance of grounding the story in reality to enhance relatability.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: Where did the seed of this story come from? Did it initially start with these two characters?

Alex Russell: The seed of it, I think, just came from a feeling I had. Maybe a feeling of sort of disgust and shame around people my age and kind of the environments I was in in LA, obviously, sort of crystallized and taken to an extreme in this movie - but something I was feeling that I couldn't articulate at the time. I don't know if this is the correct quote, there's something I saw that was [Paul] Schrader talking about writing Taxi Driver, and it was something about how ‘I'm writing this about the guy I'm trying so hard not to be.’ I think that applies to, in a way, how I was feeling about these characters, and at the same time, I wanted to play with sympathy.

I wanted people to always be wondering, 'Am I rooting for this person? Am I on someone's side? Am I relating this to this? Am I invested in this? Have I been betrayed now by this character I've invested in? Am I now, kind of, maybe feeling something for this other character?'  That's the kind of thing I really like to watch. When I'm watching, I'm always calibrating and recalibrating where sort of my sympathies lie, and if, by the end of that, your sympathies have traveled or come back around, that's a very satisfying journey for me.

Sadie: Yeah, you definitely did that with this film. And then that ending, this perfect cherry on top. I was immediately thinking, ‘Oh, my God. Where's the sequel? Where is this taking us?!’

Alex: [laughs] Yeah, what I really like about the ending is that the sequel takes place in your head right after. You're kind of like, 'Oh, I can kind of see or imagine what the next several years looks like for these people.'

Sadie: What was your process behind sketching these two characters out? Were you breaking these characters in tandem?

Alex: I think it was happening in parallel. And the things that I wanted to put Matthew through had to come from what Oliver was doing and his behavior, right? That's some of the aloofness early on, or sort of the hot and cold stuff that you're feeling with Oliver, that was something I want to put Matthew through. And then, on the Oliver side, especially as you get into the second half, you want to think about, what is Matthew putting him through? And that's more of a logical, I think, explanation than it truly was.

I started to have a feel for these characters after a while. I don't know how much of the story I outlined. I probably outlined half, or had an idea of where it could go, but you really just wanted these characters to get tightly wound around each other. And then once they're in your head and you've spent enough time talking to them and watching them talk to each other, there's this moment where you're kind of like, 'Oh, I think this is what he would do next.' And then maybe the expected thing comes to mind, or you're aware of what the cliche is here. What's the trope here? People have seen a movie like this before. What is the audience kind of waiting for in this moment? And is there a third thing that still makes sense but will surprise the audience?

I was often trying to think on that level of what's so not easy, but simple about writing characters who are obsessed is like. They're going to do the extreme thing for the thing that they want. You always know what they want, and ratcheting up that tension, seeing how far they will go, listening to your characters.

I always reference that wrestling scene, because the expectation there is that either it turns sexual, finally, because that's what's being offered, or it turns violent. That's kind of the tension that you feel as they get closer and closer. And what is the third thing that still makes sense is that wrestling scene. It's sort of juvenile and funny, and kind of makes sense for Matthew, and is emblematic of where their relationship is. And by the end of the scene, Oliver is on top in that Matthew has manipulated him to be pinned himself by Oliver. We see in Oliver's face he is the one who's pinned mentally, and Matthew is the one who's pinned physically. And that was the kind of thing where it's like, it's almost helpful that this is a tried-and-true type of story, because then you can have moments that a little bit catch you off guard.

What's supposed to happen here? How can we just pull the rug out, just a little bit, and still deliver something that's satisfying? Not to take a left that just takes you out of the movie. It still needs to make sense.

Sadie: The story is grounded in a really weird way that made me feel uncomfortable, but it makes sense but at the same time, makes you feel icky, yet you can’t stop watching.

Alex: I think the groundedness is something that was really important to me, just because, for example, if Matthew just killed everyone, right? Sure, that might be like a cathartic thing for the audience, but what does that even mean? What is that saying? Even the human-to-human interactions throughout the movie are pretty grounded, and in landing it that way tonally, the implications, I think, are more insidious, because you have more distance as a viewer from a character that blows up Oliver's house or something like that. You're like, 'OK, great,' but now I'm not in your shoes anymore, really. So, the more I could sort of keep the audience in someone's shoes, the more I think it causes people to feel sick in this kind of relatability way, or it just being invested in the characters the more realistic it is. Obviously, we still need to turn the screws, but for at the end of it, for nothing to have happened, that's out of the realm of stability, I think, was a challenge. [laughs]

Sadie: There’s a quote-unquote third character in this film, which is the camcorder, which is Matthew's POV through this specific lens. There’s that very symbolic and metaphoric scene when they’re shooting Oliver’s music video with the sheep. Utilizing that device, was that originally on the page or something you came around to once you put on the director’s hat?

Alex: I don't think I overthought it on the page. When it came to shooting it all, though, it was so useful to us in the ways that you're talking about, like getting just a little bit too invasive, right? Like a zoom in on Oliver's face, where it's like we could do that with our normal camera, but for some reason, doing it with the camcorder, it feels like Matthew's gaze or something. It feels as if his eyes could pop out. [laughs]

This is not necessarily a script-related answer, but there were so many things we were able to do, given our low budget with this thing, that actually, I think, made the world feel more real. We were able to go shoot at LAX in the international terminal, because it's being seen through Matthew's travel documentary of this trip. And practically, for me, that just meant throwing my actors in there, giving them the camcorder, and having them act like they're about to get on the plane - that wasn't scripted.

The sheep thing I love so much because it's a combination of this sleight of hand and the writing is a very structured, themed sequence, but it feels so naturalistic and like they're just hanging out and doing this thing, and the camcorder gets involved, and now it's on the sheep, and now it's falling. [laughs]

That was something that I came up with very quickly in writing - here's some funny thing that they could do, but then it works really well cinematically, I think, with shifting from camera to camera. There's even a shot that's from the DSLR at the top of that scene, where it's a wide of Oliver and the sheep, right when they go from like music video mode into the actual scene, we see a wide of Oliver and the sheep. Getting to feel all of these different image types, and it all still feeling like we're in a movie - I wasn't sure if that would work - I really like how it turned out.

Lurker hits Theaters August 22, 2025.