‘Saltburn’ producer Margot Robbie wasn’t that shocked by the infamous bathtub scene

Margot Robbie has revealed that Saltburn‘s infamous bathtub scene “didn’t feel that shocking” to her when she read the script.

The Barbie star was one of the producers on Emerald Fennell’s divisive black comedy, which was recently released on Amazon Prime Video. Robbie’s production company LuckyChap Entertainment was also behind Fennell’s last film, 2020’s Promising Young Woman.

The scene in question sees Barry Keoghan’s disturbingly lustful Oliver Quick slurp water from a bath drain, just minutes after Jacob Elordi’s handsome aristocrat Felix Catton has finished pleasuring himself in the same tub.

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Speaking to Variety about the scene, Robbie said: “It didn’t feel that shocking in the script, because Emerald immerses you into a world so quickly. She’s so masterful at tone and plot; she gets you into it so quickly — you’re just immediately like, ‘I’m in this world.’

“So by the time you get to something like the bathtub scene, she’s primed you for it. She’s got you. You’re, like, picking at a scab; you’re like, ‘I can’t help myself.’ Or like popping a pimple: ‘I know I shouldn’t squeeze but I’m gonna.’”

Saltburn
Barry Keoghan plays Oliver Quick in Saltburn. CREDIT: Warner Bros.

Robbie went on to say that she felt Fennell’s script was “intentionally disgusting and satisfying,” adding: “I think she wanted you to be equally as disgusted as you are titillated, and equally as shocked as you are by finding that depravity in yourself.

“She gets in your brain and she kind of taps into the most depraved parts of it, so that you’re complicit in the story. That’s the watercooler moment — the thing that people are talking about two weeks afterwards.”

In a four-star review of SaltburnNME wrote: ‘Fennell’s rich tapestry gradually unravels, and we lurch, bow tie askew, half-empty bottle of Dom Pérignon clutched in one hand, towards a gripping finale. Saltburn isn’t the most talked-about party of the year, but you shouldn’t miss it all the same.”

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Elsewhere, a recent TikTok trend has seen many social media users mock rich people for “missing the point” of Saltburn.