Jacob Elordi was ‘really excited’ when he read that ‘Saltburn’ bathtub scene

Jacob Elordi was feeling salty.

The Australian “Euphoria” actor, 26, has opened up about his reaction to the most controversial scene in his new movie “Saltburn,” now streaming on Prime Video.

Spoilers for “Saltburn” below.

The movie follows Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan), a misfit college student at Oxford, who feels out of place among his wealthy classmates, especially the uber-cool Felix (Elordi). When Felix invites him to spend time at his family’s estate, “Saltburn,” Oliver’s obsession with Felix soon spirals into depravity and death. 

In one eyebrow-raising moment, Oliver drinks bathwater after Felix has ejaculated into it. 

In an interview with “Stream Wars,” Elordi said, “I was just really excited when I read that scene. Because… you don’t really see things like that in sort of mainstream movies… a lot of the time.”

He added: “So it’s just great that [director Emerald Fennell] was allowed to kind of push those boundaries and expose people like that.”

Ironically, Elordi told GQ in November that he was asked to read for the role of Superman – since he was in talks to replace Henry Cavill, before David Corenswet was chosen – but he declined because, “That was immediately, ‘No, thank you.’ That’s too much. That’s too dark for me.”

But somehow, the bathwater scene was not “too much” or “too dark” for the actor, compared to a superhero movie. 

Fans have reacted to “Saltburn” – and the bathwater scene – on TikTok. 

One video showed viewers reacting with shrieks and cringes as they watched the infamous bath water scene, another commenter said, “Legit was going to see it with my dad today but TikTok saved me,” while another fan replied, “DO NOT GO WITH YOUR DAD.” 

Another TikToker said, “I watched this and for the first, like, 20 minutes, “I was like, ‘Yass, I need a Saltburn summer,’ then the rest of the movie I felt sick to my stomach.”

Elordi confessed that he’s avoided looking at fan reactions. 

“I haven’t really heard too many because I try to hide away from it,” he said. 

“But I went to a screening of the picture in Brisbane [Australia], when it sort of first played and it was unbelievable because everybody was engaged and sort of gasping at the screen and yelling at the screen and everything like that.

“And I haven’t been in a movie like that in a really really long time. So, I haven’t heard any of the really — I mean, I hope there’s no terrible stories, but yeah.”

Director Fennell has been having a moment as of late. She also wrote and directed the 2020
Carey Mulligan-led “Promising Young Woman,” played Camilla Parker Bowles on Netflix’s “The Crown” for seven episodes and played Midge in 2023’s blockbuster smash “Barbie.”

In November 2023, Fennell told Polygon that she sees “Saltburn” as a “lick the rich, suck the rich, and then bite the rich, and then swallow them” type of film.

“It’s really about having sympathy with everyone, always. Certainly for me as a writer and director — and for the actors, too — it always has to be an exercise in empathy. None of these people thinks of themselves as a bad person. It was the same with ‘Promising Young Woman,’” she continued. “It’s not interesting for me to make things that make moral judgments about people — all I’m interested in doing is understanding.”

“So for me, the first thing about the Catton family was that we understood why Oliver would be, against his better judgment, completely and utterly beguiled,” she concluded.