With Saltburn, Emerald Fennell has made one of the most shocking films of the past decade – and leading man Barry Keoghan is at the heart of it all.
It’s been 10 years since his breakout role as the infamous ‘cat killer’ Wayne in Irish drama Love/Hate, but the 31-year-old actor’s career has already featured the likes of Dunkirk with Christopher Nolan, Marvel stardom thanks to Eternals and an Oscar nomination for last year’s The Banshees of Inisherin.
Although Keoghan has always impressed with his range, as well as a flair for the darker side of humanity explored in Calm with Horses and Top Boy’s recent final season, where he played menacing gangster Jonny, Saltburn presents him with truly eyebrow-raising scenes.
Writer-director Fennell points out that, as Saltburn – which is now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video – tackles major themes such as obsession and desire, therefore she and the cast did ‘go to places that are quite extreme’.
That includes its sex scenes, dripping with bodily fluids, as well as a highly sexualised sequence in a cemetery that no film fan is likely to have anticipated… until it’s already unfolding in front of their eyes.
It certainly puts Keoghan into another realm of actors who have gone to the most depraved places for the sake of acting…
In Saltburn, Keoghan is scholarship student Oliver Quick at the University of Oxford, struggling to find his place until he is drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton (Priscilla actor Jacob Elordi); Felix then invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family’s sprawling estate, for a summer never to be forgotten.
Fennell explained how she approached the most intense scenes in her screenplay with both her actors and executives at the studios and production companies, which include MGM and Amazon Studios, as well as Margot Robbie’s Lucy Chap Entertainment.
‘We were all very, very dedicated to make something incredibly personal and unique and honest feeling, and in many ways, a lot of Saltburn is a little exposing or complicated,’ she told Metro.co.uk.
‘And I say that as the person who thought it in the first place! So if anyone should be asking any sort of questions about sanity, for example, they should leave them maybe at my door…,’ Fennell added.
However, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker, who picked up the screenplay trophy for Promising Young Woman in 2021 and is one of only seven women ever to be nominated for the best director Oscar, insisted that ‘nothing was a difficult conversation’ when it came to the more controversial elements of Saltburn.
‘Everyone who worked on it was completely dedicated and completely understood the sort of film we were trying to make – which is really exciting because it means there’s never a kind of awkward conversation to be had.
‘I wouldn’t ever want to have an awkward conversation. I’d never ask anyone, actor or anything, to do something they weren’t comfortable with.’
‘But when you’re talking about desire, when you’re talking about obsession, when you’re talking about power and love, then you do have to go to places that are quite extreme,’ the filmmaker and actress pointed out.
‘Luckily, it always felt right to us. And if it felt right to us, then when it came to the studio, whatever it was, they understood.’
On what she asked of Keoghan – which includes an extended sequence where he’s fully (frontal) naked – Fennell praised his ‘yes, and’ attitude.
‘But he also has boundaries like everyone else, and the thing with Barry, and all of the actors, is that if something feels real to them, if it feels honest, then they’re absolutely all in.’
Keoghan and Elordi, who sports an uncomfortably accurate public school drawl, are joined in Saltburn by Richard E Grant and Rosamund Pike as Felix’s bonkers parents, as well as Carey Mulligan in a cracking extended cameo as Poor Dear Pamela (literally how she is credited), and rising star Archie Madekwe as the Cattons’ relation Farleigh, whose cruel streak sees him clash with Oliver.
Another scene that is certainly going to make a mark on its audience is one that features menstruation in its full glory.
Despite discussion of periods in the likes of Disney-Pixar’s Turning Red in 2021 and utterly original action movie Polite Society earlier this year (both helmed by female filmmakers), it’s still something rare enough to be notable.
Fennell has already found the reaction to the scene interesting in and of itself, especially as it is likely to inspire backlash in some quarters.
‘I never, ever set out to make anything overtly thematic or that is a statement in its own right, I really am just looking to investigate the way that we all feel,’ she said.
No spoiler specifics, but the sequence in question involves a character who, in Fennell’s words, has ‘found out recently – and the protagonist has found out recently – maybe isn’t comfortable with their body or has maybe been told that their body isn’t good enough’.
‘Part of that, therefore, is a scene about not only why her body is perfect, but it is delicious. And there’s a lot in this film about eating, about consumption, about how we consume people and things,’ she pointed out.
However, for some, it’s already been categorised as something to be squeamish about.
‘It’s an interesting one because I was interviewed by a man recently, who said, “Oh, a lot of your gross-out sex scenes…” And I said, “Oh, I think maybe that’s more about you than it is about the scenes!”
‘Because they’re definitely supposed to be very, very sexy.’
Saltburn is available to stream now on Prime Video.
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