Jacob Elordi, Barry Keoghan’s Bathtub Scene Is the ‘Sexiest Thing I’ve Ever Seen,’ Says Saltburn Director (Exclusive)

Emerald Fennell knows – better than anyone – that her new film is as cheesy as it gets.

Among the provocative speeches that Saltburn the audience’s excitement is the scene in which Oliver, played by Barry Keoghan, spies Felix, played by Jacob Elordi, taking a bath. After witnessing his friend’s moment of intimacy in the bathtub, Oliver proceeds to drink the leftover bathwater flowing down the drain.

“What I’m trying to say with this scene,” Fennell, 38, tells PEOPLE, “is that I think that scene is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life… And I’m saying that anyone else is sure to feel that.”

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The film contains plenty of other eyebrow-raising moments, including Oliver, an Oxford University student who is invited to Felix’s family’s lavish estate for a summer vacation in 2007. As an Oscar-winning writer-director A promising young woman tells PEOPLE, the shock value of such a scene is inherent in its design.

“I wonder how that makes you feel. Did you feel something you’ve never felt before in a movie? And if that’s the case, then the film is effective, and it succeeded, and that’s what we wanted to do.”

Spoiler alert: drinking the bathwater marks just the beginning of Oliver’s alarming fixation on Felix and his wealthy family (played by Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Alison Oliver and Archie Madekwe). With later Saltburn scenes involving late-night encounters and graveside masturbation, Fennell says, “We wanted to convey the feeling of that grasshopper love: impossible, carnivorous, forever, impossible vampire love. I think that’s what we did and every single person who made this movie did the most amazing job.”

(Left to right:) Emerald Fennell, Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi filming “Saltburn”.

Courtesy of Prime

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Her leading man’s willingness to lick the bathtub drain in close-up is also part of the desired effect, she adds. After meeting the “amazing” Keoghan to discuss the role, she recalls: “He sat down and said, ‘I’m Oliver.’

“And I said, ‘I know. Me too.’ Because we are. That’s the thing, Oliver is my imaginary friend, he is me. Then I meet Barry and suddenly Barry’s Oliver. And then we have this thing where – and it’s the same with all the characters – you can hold hands and know. That’s what’s so exciting, you’re always pushing each other to be more interesting, more complicated, harder, tackier, sexier, all of that, because you’re in it with them.”

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And if some audience members aren’t “in it with them,” as Fennell says, “okay, whatever.”

“Not everyone will like it,” he jokes. “But for the people who do it, the people who connect with it, it’s such a deep connection. It’s such a deep feeling to be seen – that we all felt when we were actually doing it.”

Barry Keoghan in “Saltburn”.

Courtesy of Prime

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The two audience members who had to decide whether to feel that connection, Fennell adds, were her mother and father. “Imagine sitting between your parents watching this movie,” he says with a laugh, “if you were the person who made it.”

As he points out, “it’s not like my imagination came out of nowhere… Fortunately, my parents are incredibly freaking cool. But there are a few moments in the movie where I say, ‘Sorry, Dad!’”

Saltburn it’s in theaters now.

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Source: HIS Education