On My Screen: ‘Saltburn’ Director Emerald Fennell On Her Desire To Play A Super Villian, The Most Fun She’s Had On Set & Her Wish To Remake ‘Jurassic Park’ As An Erotic Love Story

Following her Best Original Screenplay win for Promising Young Woman, Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s sophomore feature, presents a gothic tale of obsession and excess, starring Barry Keoghan as Oliver, a social-climbing Oxford student obsessed with the aristocratic Felix (Jacob Elordi). The multi-hyphenate Fennell also pops up as the pregnant Midge doll in Barbie and is co-penning the upcoming John Wick spinoff Ballerina. Here, she agrees to revisit some best memories, or, as she puts it, “rummage around those skeletons.”

Best Advice I Ever Received

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After the incredible surprise and joy of winning an Academy Award two years ago, I was lining up for the Porta-Potty because it was Covid times and things were like a wedding. Frances McDormand was queuing behind me, and I was holding the Oscar, completely shell-shocked.  She saw me and she leaned in said, “Do you want to know my advice?” And I said, “Yes, please.” And she said, “Ken doll clothes fit him exactly.” I was like, “Oh.” And immediately in the moment when I was so shaken, just her being funny calmed me down. And it was the best advice I’ve ever had.

The Part I’ve Always Wanted

I think it’s got to be a super villain, right? It’s sad they’ve just done The Little Mermaid because Ursula the Sea Witch is my inspiration and my muse. I’ve always loved her. I’ve always felt she deserves her own prequel where she’s misunderstood. She’s just going to the clubs, in that iconic outfit, stuffing souls into little bottles and then harvesting them.

My Dream Project

I honestly feel that I’ve been so lucky. I’ve been able to make my dream projects already. But my favorite film of all time is Jurassic Park, so I would love to get in on the dinosaurs. Well, first and foremost, it’s very erotic. I think humans and dinosaurs have gotten to that stage in their time together where things are starting to get quite thrilling. So, there’s a marriage between a  man and a velociraptor and it’s basically a domestic drama.

My Toughest Challenge Yet

I think with Promising Young Woman, it was just the best time of my life. We had so little time, 23 days in fact, and I was so pregnant. It was a ticking clock, not just because we had a finite budget, finite time, but I mean, I gave birth three weeks after we finished principal photography. It was definitely a bit of a tightrope walk.

The Character That’s Most Like Me

They’re all like me, unfortunately. They’re kind of like baby spider eggs. They live in your brain and then they get hatched and amazing actors come and make them even more interesting. Although these days, I really do feel like Oliver [in Saltburn]. His ambition and desire is a bottomless pit of want, and I can really relate to that [laughs].

The Movies That Make Me Cry

It’s a Wonderful Life. From the moment it starts, and Mr. Gower accidentally puts poison into one of the bottles at the pharmacy, and then slaps young George Bailey for not delivering the medicine. I cry the whole way through that film, it’s so beautiful. Also, it has one of my favorite things in the world, which is in the [parallel universe] where he didn’t exist, his wife is just a plain librarian who never married. Like everyone else is dead or drunk on the street, their lives destroyed, and her ‘terrible curse’ is just to be wearing a brown coat, glasses and she’s a librarian, which is just so funny as the worst fate for a 25-year-old woman.

The Most Fun I’ve Had On Set

I mean, I think watching Carey [Mulligan] and Bo Burnham dancing to Paris Hilton’s “Stars Are Blind” was one of my favorite days of all time. I’ve got to say Barbie is pretty spectacular. Walking into Barbie Land and seeing my whole childhood built with such diligence and care was so moving and amazing.

My Guilty Pleasure

I don’t believe in guilty pleasure. I love reality TV, so obviously I’m hugely invested in #Scandoval. I will be watching every iteration of 90 Day Fiancé, and I am equally as invested in both. U.K. reality shows tend to be less glamorous. We have less soft focus. I just love seeing beautiful women with immaculate hair tearing each other to pieces. That’s all I want.

Who’d Play Me In My Biopic?

Oh god. Well, if it’s a biopic, I’m just going to choose Margot Robbie and have everyone be like, “Wow, she was so much more beautiful than we remembered.” I’m just going to give myself a glow-up. Margot’s such an amazing actress and I would just make sure that in every scene she was in slow motion with a wind machine. So, every moment of my life will be remade, but with her looking and being perfect in it.

The First Time I Experienced Extreme Fandom

Someone got a tattoo of my character Nurse Patsy Mount in Call the Midwife. I remember that, very strongly being like, wow, that’s dedicated and cool and amazing. Again, they’d given me a significant glow-up, so I really appreciated that. I just looked like a million dollars.

My Karaoke Playlist

Well, it used to be Celine Dion’s “Think Twice”, which was a huge hit in England. And I found out when I did it in America that it was not a single in America. So, it was crickets and I’m not a good singer. Obviously, the thing of tackling Celine Dion when you’re not a good singer is a joke in and of itself. And then to sing to grave silence at an event with people you don’t know very well, that was quite tough. So now I sing the Bond theme, “Golden Eye” by Tina Turner. It’s a telling song. It really takes you on a journey. It also gets very much out of my range, which is minimal, but I think that only adds to things. And depending on the room, I like to do Enya. An erotic Enya routine.

The Song I Always Have To Dance To

I’m pretty sure we played “Murder on the Dance Floor” [by Sophie Ellis-Bextor] at our wedding. There’s never a time when I won’t listen to that song and dance to it. It’s all day, every day. When I wrote it into Saltburn, it was going to be a walk instead of a dance. But we realized it wasn’t going to have the same joy and gleeful evil. So, it had to be a dance [for Barry Keoghan]. These days, every time I hear it, which is all the time, because it’s usually playing just before I go out and do a Q&A, I will do a little dance.

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