Barry Keoghan talks about the Saltburn scene that brought him closest to death on Hot Ones
Barry Keoghan likes to be pushed to his limits for his craft, he explains on the latest Hot Ones
Aux News Saltburn
“I’m gonna sound cocky, but they don’t really cut my scenes,” Barry Keoghan smirks in a viral clip from the latest episode of Hot Ones. “They keep ’em in there and they wish that they had more.” Given what a hot commodity Keoghan is in Hollywood these days, this cocky admission isn’t much of a surprise. It’s also not a surprise to see another buzzy young actor struggling through a round of hot wings across the table from the Internet’s favorite celebrity interviewer, Sean Evans.
Noting that Keoghan has talked about the danger of pushing a character to their limits, Evans asks if there had ever been a role where he felt “unsafe.” Keoghan responds: “I mean I shagged a grave in Saltburn, right? Can’t get closer to death or getting mud diseases in your…” he trails off meaningfully. “I should get that checked.”
While the “licking the drain” scene got a lot more attention (and, presumably, would be a bigger risk for disease), the “grave shagging” scene is one of Saltburn’s most defining images. As a continuous shot, it’s also one of the longest. At a Q&A attended by The A.V. Club earlier this year, director Emerald Fennell shared, “[In] terms of cutting away, of course everyone wants you to, you know, of course the producer and the distributor says a lot of, ‘Are you going to cut away? Can you cut away there? No, you will cut away there,’ and I said, ‘No.’ Because when I saw it, it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
Fennell observed that the scene “goes from funny to horrible to terrible to sort of weirdly sexy to awful again,” and said Keoghan’s passionate embrace of the grave was inspired by a scene in Wuthering Heights “where Heathcliff tries to dig down into Cathy’s grave, and the sort of implication, subtext there is very much made text, I suppose, in this film.”
In Keoghan’s opinion, “Saltburn really pushed it,” he tells Evans. “Every role pushes it, and I like to be pushed. I don’t want something to be comfy. I want to really artistically go there, and there’s moments on sets and movies where you lose sight of camera and you kind of get this, it’s only for two seconds or so, but it’s like this kind of this nauseous feeling… you’re so present. It’s what we chase, I feel—we, as actors, chase every time we go on set.”
24 Comments
av club went from reviewing TV shows to recapping podcast episodes. shut it down
This comment discusses, inadequately, why the AVClub should be shut down.
Didn’t they cut his scenes in The Batman?
He studied at the Leto school of acting.
He was jokingly bragging. Right after that, he said they obviously cut his scenes, and any other actor scenes, if they don’t fit the movie or are unecessary. In Saltburn there was at least one, he explained.
Was it when they burned his nose with salt to make it even more bulbous? Guy looks like WC Fields but without the gin blossom.
Did I miss something with saltburn? All this talk of a shocking racy movie and it was… A thing I guess? It happened? I was bored?
“Given what a hot commodity Keoghan is in Hollywood these days”
Add in that bold faced lie and you quickly realize Mary Kate actually just has weird taste in ugly white men and is getting her shit off here. Do you honey…. but this guy is already 2.5 minutes into his 5 minutes and I’m pretty sure nobody of note is beating on this guy’s door.
This is an odd comment. His face is not conventionally pretty but he’s got a conventionally hot body, two critically acclaimed movies with Colin Farrell, one Oscar, two Baftas and even a small role in a Marvel movie. This year he’s got three movies and a tv show coming out. That’s about as in demand as an actor can be!
Thank you for acknowledging my point. A conventionally hot body in 2024 as a celebrity is the easiest thing in the world…. ESPECIALLY for guys who do work for Marvel because they buy you the best trainers….or the best needles… to make sure of it.
Critical acclaim has very little to do with success in Hollywood considering most of the most critically acclaimed work flops completely which is exactly what Hollywood DOESN’T want from their projects, or their leading cast. You people whine every year about who wins those awards anyway….. so what do these couple awards even ACTUALLY mean?
He is a working actor with multiple projects in the works…. like pretty much EVERY actor, but atleast you are keeping track. I think your comment is infinitely weirder than anything I have said here because I’m confused what your point even is. But I appreciate that you came to speak.
This reads like a chatGPT generated response in that it has many semi-coherent sentences but does not present a single logical argument that actually responds to my post.
Oh boy do you sound ugly and jealous
Congrats, you’re more depraved than most other people. Shame about the movie, though.
I am an American and I liked Saltburn but I think you must be British to experience the movie’s full impact. The Brits respect aristocracy to a degree that even other Europeans find excessive.
I really need to rewatch MacGruber.
Strangest thing. I did not realize the movie had a narrator the first time I watched it. Either I didn’t hear it or something was wonky with the player?
I hated the voice-over narrator. I had no problem understanding the action. It was annoying and distracting and ruined the experience.
Harrison Ford would love you (to the extent that Harrison Ford, the ol’ curmudgeon, would love anyone).
Wait, Saltburn had a narrator??
Yes. Apparently it’s Oliver narrating from the future (movie’s end). Awful. I don’t remember if he explains what everyone is thinking and feeling (bad rookie mistake), but what the characters are doing is perfectly clear.Ok. I just checked. Somehow “Audio Desciption” got turned on the second time I watched so you don’t have to hear it.
The movie is a frame story. Oliver is recounting the story to someone, then we see what happened in the story he’s recounting, similar to The Great Gatsby, Wuthering Heights, and Forrest Gump.
Why are we still talking about a movie that came out a while ago that was basically aggressively mediocre?Although I guess that also describes current AV Club.
Really? You can’t possibly be that dumb.
I can do anything if I don’t put my mind to it!
He is a very odd looking little man. Looks like AI fucked up a text-prompt image.