Heated Rivalry star explains why he was drawn to "weird energy" of acclaimed new film Lunar Sway

Cliff (Noah Parker) floats around the small town of Mooncrest, scraping by with his fluorescent sign-making business. Yet it's not until a woman claiming to be his birth mother, Marg (Liza Weil), suddenly arrives that Cliff is suddenly confronted with a sign that something needs to change.

Lunar Sway, a clear standout at the BFI Flare film Festival this year, evokes a range of cinematic influences in its outlook, but the off-kilter, often dreamlike bisexual chaos at its core feels entirely unique to the work of writer/director Nick Butler.

"I've seen some people say Lunar Sway is like Paris, Texas meets David Lynch," says Butler. "It is very offbeat, quirky, with a lot of eccentric small town characters. But I would say my biggest inspirations from movies are probably the Coen brothers. They also write very colourful, eccentric characters."

Cliff encounters plenty of loveable weirdos in his journey, from a self-styled vigilante named Bailey (Grace Glowicki) to even his therapist, Neal (Andy Yu), whose note-taking skills leave a lot to be desired. But throughout it all, even after he embarks on a road trip into the weirder realms of mid-West America, it's a past encounter with an artist named Jovi (Kaden Connors) that haunts him most.

Through surreal dreamscape interludes, Cliff recalls posing nude for Jovi's art in what now feels like a past life. Memory and perception shift to the point where even Jovi's face can no longer be perceived - blurred beyond recognition. Each encounter is erotically charged as the creative connection they shared grows physical, yet fate still pulled them apart regardless.

Connors was immediately drawn to these "odd" moments, this "quirkiness" in Butler's script. "When there's a weird energy to something, I just feel like it's authentic," Connors told Radio Times. "It's not looking for approval. And I think those qualities are very admirable."

Take Jovi's facial blindness, for example, which leads to a chance reconnection between him and Cliff, except Cliff's the only one who realises they've actually met before.

"When I got the script and the breakdown for Jovi, I was like, 'This is interesting,' because there's so many layers. It's very complex. And as an actor, you can really sink your teeth into that."

While Liza Weil came into this project established already thanks to star-making turns in Gilmore Girls and How To Get Away With Murder, Connors has enjoyed what you might describe as the complete opposite trajectory.

"When we cast Kaden, Heated Rivalry didn't really exist," recalls Butler. "Before the world got Heated Rivalry fever, [Kaden] did an amazing tape for us and brought this really special quality to the character. We needed someone with a very strong, unique presence who could carry that character, someone who had that very special ethereal quality. Kaden has that."

This "ethereal quality" bleeds into every scene throughout the film. "I really wanted to create a world that feels slightly out of touch with reality, slightly heightened," says Butler, "because it's a movie about people who are lying," points out Butler. "The main character never knows who to believe."

But it's in these encounters between Cliff and Kaden's Jovi where we feel this disorientation most.

"Cliff keeps having these haunting memories of their time together that really taps into his pining and yearning. And it feels a bit like a nightmare, so we articulated it as like a dream-like nightmare. The highs of this romance are kind of like a dream, but it's also haunting you, and it's torture. I feel like sometimes we get so dramatic when we're in that state of mind, so the only way to represent that was this kind of over-the-top symbolism."

With this abstract symbolism also comes something more tangible, physical even, in the nudity and sex scenes that ensue.

"I knew from the moment I started writing, it's about intimacy," says Butler. "And we lean right into that… We had an amazing intimacy coordinator named Aryn Mott out of Vancouver who really set the tone and really made it a lot easier for all of us."

"Aryn is just so fantastic at what they do," adds Connors. "They just made us feel so comfortable by having those preliminary conversations. Sometimes just breaking the ice and having a conversation about intimacy really helps get rid of nerves and energy that you might not have control over."

While this was one of Kaden's first experiences with an intimacy coordinator, Heated Rivalry fans know that scenes of this nature also pop up there too for his character, Sasha. Butler notes that the success Connors has since found through that show has also generated more interest in Lunar Sway.

"We didn't know [Kaden] was going to become this famous, but it definitely helps. We had a bunch of Heated Rivalry fans come to the screenings at BFI specifically because Kaden was posting to Instagram." Having performers like him, Weil and rising star Noah Parker in the lead "adds a level of legitimacy to the movie in the eyes of programmers and distributors certainly. They do care about that. But for me, it really comes down to if the performances are good, the movie's better."

Just like Heated Rivalry, Lunar Sway is intrinsically queer, and not just when it comes to the emotional connection that Cliff once shared with Jovi. Everything from the film's approach to memory and relationships to tone and genre speaks to a fluidity that's queer in of itself. And that's a big part of why Connors signed up in the first place.

"I love working on queer stories. It's a big honour to work on something that feels like you're helping the world, making it a better place… There's nothing really better than that. I'm a huge supporter of queer rights and freedom and expression, so getting movies like Lunar Sway, not just being a part of them, but helping get them onto stages and onto screens so bigger audiences can see them? We need to continue to push to normalise things so that we can see equality."

Beyond the specificity of queerness in Lunar Sway and all the bisexual chaos that comes with it, Butler hopes that audiences "see themselves reflected in Cliff's yearning to find connection and love in all the wrong places, and maybe his dysfunctional way of looking for it."

"This is really about a character taking steps towards learning how to get out of that toxic habit in his life. I think a lot of people can relate to that and see themselves reflected in it." If not, let's hope Lunar Sway can act as a sign of sorts, just like the ones Cliff's made his life's work in the strange little town of Mooncrest where this all takes place.

The world premiere of Lunar Sway took place at BFI Flare 2026. A wider release across the UK is expected later this year.

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