Oh Saltburn, will the world ever truly escape your perverted grip?
Our best guess? It’s unlikely. Even if the fascination with grave-humping, blood-soaked cunnilingus, and the timeless subgenre of rich people behaving poorly dims a bit as time goes on, Saltburn will forever be remembered as the definitive star-making vehicle for Barry Keoghan, and if he keeps up this pace, Saltburn will probably be impossible to forget by extension.
It seems as though we learn more and more about Keoghan’s commitment to the craft and how he came to so fully inhabit the shoes of Oliver Quick specifically every day. In a recent interview with Business Insider, Saltburn production designer Suzie Davies revealed the true recipe of the semen-laced bathwater that Keoghan drank up in that stomach-churning bathtub scene. Spoiler alert: No semen was actually involved, but the truth still makes Keoghan’s straight-face ability impressive all the same.
[He drank] yogurt and a bit of milk and some water. He did it four times and really went for it. Every one he did was a different kind of slurp. Often, when you film things like that, there are 20 people in the room. It’s quite tense. But the cast can bring something that’s so extraordinary that you can hear a pin drop. So when Barry was doing his stuff, it was amazing. He had no inhibitions.
Okay, so a yogurt, milk, and water smoothie isn’t quite as bad as a sperm smoothie, but you really have to consider just how unappetizing it would be to drink watered down yogurt or milk, to say nothing of the fact that they’re mixed together, nor of exactly what flavors/types of yogurt and milk could be involved there. (Skim milk and plain yogurt? No thank you) Knowing this, the fact that Keoghan managed to convince us all that he was consuming the purest nectar in the known universe is yet another testament to his acting chops.
Keoghan’s next film role will be in Chris Andrews’ Bring Them Down, another psychological thriller in which Keoghan will take the lead role of Jack, and which will follow an Irish shepherding family as they contend with volatile family ties and a rival farmer. We already know the heights Keoghan is capable of reaching when powered by some decidedly Irish chemistry (the actor was nominated for an Academy Award for his supporting role in The Banshees of Inisherin), so we greatly look forward to what lies ahead for the young actor.
Saltburn is available to stream on Prime Video.
(featured image: Amazon MGM Studios)
