Barry Keoghan has been making waves with his role in Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, particularly for that ending scene that has everyone talking. As more viewers stream the film on Amazon Prime Video, curiosity is mounting about the now-infamous climax featuring Keoghan’s character, Oliver, dancing naked through the opulent manor. But what was the intention behind this bold and unforgettable moment?
Initially, director Emerald Fennell considered a vastly different conclusion. Keoghan revealed to EW that early script versions depicted a far more mundane scene: Oliver calmly heading to breakfast, anticipating runny eggs served by the butler – a subtle callback to a previous moment in the film.
Barry Keoghan, Riley Keough head shots
However, Fennell felt this lacked the necessary impact. Speaking in an interview in November, she explained that the film needed a sense of “post-coital triumph.” She wanted the audience to be complicit with Oliver’s actions, stating, “You don’t care what he does, you want him to do it. You are both completely repulsed and sort of on his side. It’s that kind of dance with the devil. It’s like, ‘F***. Okay, let’s go.’ And so at the end, it needed to have a triumph, a post-coital win, a desecration.”
Thus, the breakfast scene was scrapped in favor of the now-iconic naked dance sequence set to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s upbeat track, “Murder on the Dance Floor.” When Fennell proposed the idea, Keoghan embraced it wholeheartedly.
“It totally felt right,” Keoghan affirmed. “It’s ownership. This is my place. It’s full confidence in, ‘I can do what I want in this manor. I can strip to my barest and waltz around because this is mine.’ Yeah… it was fun.” This Barry Keoghan dance scene became a powerful visual metaphor for Oliver’s complete takeover and dominance of Saltburn.
Barry Keoghan, Riley Keough head shots
Despite his ultimate enthusiasm, Keoghan admitted to initial reservations about the nudity. “The initial thing was about me having no clothes on. I’m a bit, ehhh,” he confessed. However, any hesitation quickly dissipated after the first take. “But after take one, I was ready to go. I was like, ‘Let’s go again. Let’s go again.’ You kind of forget, because there’s such a comfortable environment created, and it gives you that license to go, ‘All right, this is about the story now.’”
Fennell, a perfectionist, pushed for multiple takes to capture the precise emotion she envisioned. They filmed the Saltburn dance scene eleven times. By the seventh take, she considered it “technically perfect” but lacking the crucial “absolutely devilish joy” she sought. It was Keoghan who delivered the extra spark in the subsequent takes.
“Barry, to his credit, did it four more times until the one that you see, which has this total f***ing evil joie de vivre that is impossible not to be on board with,” Fennell concluded. This final take cemented the scene’s place as a shocking yet undeniably captivating cinematic moment, driven by Keoghan’s fearless performance and Fennell’s unwavering vision for a truly triumphant – and transgressive – ending.
