Alexander Skarsgard’s Kinky Leather Boots Are All the Talk at Cannes

The 2025 Cannes Film Festival rule book said no nudity, but it said nothing about BDSM. Enter Alexander Skarsgård.

The Northman actor has been all the chatter at the starry film fest this week, not only for his striking good looks and spicy acting in Pillion (which premiered in Cannes this Sunday), but for those kinky little boots he wore on the red carpet.

For the premiere of The Phoenician Scheme, the actor wore a double-breasted Saint Laurent tuxedo, a white dress shirt, and a black tie—all good, right? But then, he leaned into fetish glamour with a pair of thigh-hugging leather boots pulled straight from Saint Laurent’s fall menswear 2025 show. The shoes feature rounded toes, square low heels, and silver buckles high up on the thighs.

And that wasn’t all. For a photocall before that, Skarsgård wore skintight leather pants and chunky leather biker boots, further fueling the fire with his T-shirt, which featured a graphic illustration of a boot stepping on a submissive man’s face. (So, those boots were made for walking… all over someone.)

In Pillion, Skarsgård plays the leader of a biker gang, who becomes the dom to a young submissive—a role that evidently inspired his wardrobe for the French Riviera.

Once the screening of the film wrapped at Cannes, earning an electric seven-minute standing ovation, Skarsgard hugged a man dressed in a dog-like rubber mask and kissed Pedro Pascal, the original wearer of those Saint Laurent fetish boots.

Before the screening, Pillion director Harry Lighton said he wanted the film “to make you laugh, make you think, make you feel and make you horny,” per Variety. So, that explains a lot.