WATCH / THE WILD BUNCH Jodie Comer and Austin Butler get motors running in The Bikeriders. Director Jeff Nichols likes to say he cast Austin Butler in The Bikeriders before the heartthrob became a hunk of burning love in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis . It’s an easy boast, but you’d have to be made of stern stuff not to recognise the 32-year-old’s husky-voiced, pouty-lipped appeal.
Butler and his scene-stealing Bikeriders co-star, Jodie Comer (Villanelle in Killing Eve ), are part of a crop of young actors who are knocking on the door of bona-fide movie stardom without going all-in on the big-box-office, superhero route. Instead, they’re building their careers in mid-budget movies, which are now re-emerging in cinemas. Which is why The Bikeriders , a portrait of the rise of a motorcycle gang in 1960s Chicago, seen largely through the eyes of Comer’s character, Kathy, is betting on the pair’s star power to woo filmgoers back into still-struggling movie theatres.
Can Butler and Comer save cinema? Time will tell. In the meantime, they certainly know how to get motors running. In cinemas now.
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