Sophie Ellis-Bextor has admitted she “wasn’t quite prepared” to see Barry Keoghan dance nude to her 2001 hit in his newest film Saltburn.
The Irish actor, 31, stars opposite Jacob Elordi, 26, in director Emerald Fennell’s comedy-thriller about a student (Keoghan) who is invited to spend the summer at his aristocratic classmate’s (Elordi) sprawling estate.
In the final sequence of the movie, Keoghan’s Oliver is seen dancing around the stately home naked. The scene is overlayed with Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor”.
Speaking to People about the scene, the 44-year-old British singer-songwriter said that she had been clued into what would be happening onscreen while her song played, but she still “wasn’t quite prepared for the visual”.
“Seeing it written down as a premise is different,” she said. “I mean, Barry really went for it. And it’s, like, the whole song!”
“I mean, he’s never going to be able to hear that in the same way again,” Ellis-Bextor added, laughing. “And every time he’s out and that comes on, people are going to think he’s going to strip off!”
The “Can’t Fight This Feeling” singer explained that “whenever your music’s used, you get a little synopsis”.
Barry Keoghan in ‘Saltburn'— (Warner Bros/Amazon)
“So I saw Emerald’s name connected to the project and I already was familiar with her and how talented she is. I’ve seen Promising Young Woman and really enjoyed it,” she continued.
“This little synopsis described how the character would be dancing, but I didn’t have any context. I’ve got quite a quirky sense of humour anyway, so I was like, I think I have to see how this plays out.”
She said: “I didn’t really know exactly how it would play in terms of the role it was in the movie until I saw it at the screening, but I absolutely loved it.”
The Promising Young Woman director and actor’s latest movie has divided critics. At the film’s world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival in October, Fennell described the film as a “very British tale of excess”.
In her four-star review of the film for The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey called Keoghan “one of our greatest working weird guys”.
“Oliver is Saltburn’s very own Minotaur – an unnatural force birthed purely to gobble up the wealthy and spit out their bones. It’s a delight to watch him roam.
Saltburn is available to stream on Amazon’s Prime Video
