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00:00 (typewriter ding)
00:03 - Hello everyone and welcome back to The Process.
00:05 On today's episode, we have a conversation
00:07 on the making of "Saltburn" with filmmaker Emerald Fennell
00:10 and production designer Susie Davies.
00:12 Enjoy.
00:13 (upbeat music)
00:16 - Hey everyone and welcome to The Process.
00:21 I'm Emerald Fennell, the writer/director of "Saltburn"
00:24 and I am here with our incredible production designer,
00:27 Susie Davies to talk about the making of this film.
00:30 Hi Susie.
00:31 - Hey Emerald, how are you doing?
00:34 - Very good, thank you.
00:35 I like your lamp.
00:36 - Thank you.
00:37 Yeah, I set dressed.
00:39 - Did you bring it in?
00:41 - Yeah, I did.
00:42 I had to make the lines of the curtain sit nicely.
00:46 - Quite right.
00:48 I mean, to start from the very beginning,
00:51 what are you looking for when you get a script?
00:55 What is the thing that you're looking for
00:57 to kind of connect with?
00:59 - That's a great question because what I really like
01:07 looking for now are character-based stories.
01:10 I don't want to, of course I will,
01:13 but in the ideal world-
01:15 - You can do anything Susie.
01:16 - Yeah, exactly.
01:17 In the ideal world, I want to create environments
01:19 that are part of our character's world.
01:23 So not just recreating.
01:24 I want to create the world that the story inhabits.
01:29 So rather than just doing a period piece
01:33 and recreating the 18th century,
01:37 I want the characters to live in the 18th century
01:39 and it to be about their world and the detail
01:43 rather than just like a documentary
01:46 sort of making it up sort of thing.
01:50 So yeah, character-filled worlds.
01:53 - I think that's what you're so expert at as well
01:55 is making something humane.
01:57 That doesn't mean kind of,
02:00 I don't mean necessarily sort of kind or challenging,
02:03 as something kind of very human about the worlds
02:06 that you create from their design,
02:11 from the planning and into the kind of execution.
02:15 The thing that struck me when I first spoke to you
02:17 was that when you were talking about this film,
02:23 I spoke to a lot of people about the kind of beauty,
02:25 about the kind of house,
02:26 but you kind of were the first person who came in
02:30 and said, yes, but it smells a bit.
02:32 And yes, but there's dog hair or there's a kind of dodgy,
02:35 you know, there's watermarks on everything.
02:38 And I'd love to talk to you a little bit
02:40 about how that kind of layering,
02:43 how that started for you in your career
02:46 'cause it's something you've done again and again.
02:49 - So, I mean, I guess the main pivoting point for me
02:54 is working with Mike Lee,
02:55 which enabled me to really look at design
02:57 in a completely different way.
03:00 And the main take from that is to,
03:03 and I haven't found the word yet,
03:05 but to respect the actors' representation
03:09 of their characters more,
03:11 so that they can turn up on set
03:14 and they don't have to worry about the set, it's theirs.
03:16 They feel it's authentic, they live in it already.
03:19 They, you know, the chair that they all sit in
03:22 has got a groove in it from them,
03:24 that they know where they're,
03:26 what mug they drink from, what car they drive,
03:29 where the bedroom is, so they can inhabit that world
03:32 so it doesn't feel other,
03:33 'cause I think for an actor's process,
03:35 and I've only really realized that,
03:38 you read the script and they turn up and say their words,
03:41 but it's about enabling the authenticity
03:44 so that it's effortless where they live.
03:47 They're not thinking about that colour of the curtain
03:51 is wrong, it sort of just feels supported
03:55 and so they can tell their story and say the words
03:59 without having to worry about the set.
04:02 I want them to feel completely inhabited about that.
04:05 And that comes from working with Mike
04:07 and working with the actors who bring their characters
04:10 to life during the process of prep.
04:13 So, I mean, it's indulgent with Mike
04:15 to have six months to talk with the actors.
04:19 And I know on more recent films, I might have six minutes.
04:24 But the beauty of working with you, Emerald,
04:27 is that you wrote the script as well.
04:29 So the writer-director combination is pivotal,
04:32 I think, for a designer.
04:34 It helps, it speeds up.
04:36 I think you get a better end product.
04:39 You can answer my questions via,
04:41 you've created the characters in your mind
04:43 and as much as it would be great,
04:45 probably you'd love that,
04:46 to have six months of developing the characters
04:50 in rehearsals.
04:51 But I think because you've developed,
04:53 you've probably had this script in your mind
04:55 for years already, so you know
04:57 what colour Elsworth's bedroom would be
05:00 or what flavour knickknacks Felix would favour.
05:05 (Emerald laughs)
05:06 - Totally, and it is sort of the same thing
05:08 'cause I kind of am the opposite.
05:10 I don't really rehearse very much or like to,
05:13 but it's exactly, as you say,
05:14 I think all of the conversations that we had all the time
05:17 during prep and then in production,
05:20 they are all character-based questions, right?
05:23 - Ollie!
05:24 Thank God you're here.
05:26 Duncan, I'll show him to his room, don't worry.
05:28 Oliver, try not to be too terrified of Duncan.
05:30 Duncan, stop being so frightening in front of my friends.
05:33 - Well, I'll try.
05:34 - Come on, mate.
05:35 - Felix.
05:35 - Come on.
05:36 - He's terrified.
05:37 - Oh, he's all right, he's just on.
05:39 Okay, so...
05:43 Red staircase.
05:45 I accidentally fingered my cousin here.
05:47 Henry Seven's cabinet.
05:51 Ghost of Granny.
05:53 Hi, Granny.
05:54 Green room, garden, some fucking hideous Rubens.
06:00 Broken piano.
06:01 Blue room, it's blue.
06:05 And King's bedroom.
06:10 Actually, the bed still has some of Henry VIII's spunk on it.
06:13 This is the long gallery.
06:16 Dead Relly, Dead Rellies, Daddy's Old Teddy,
06:20 Shakespeare's Folio, and Mace.
06:23 So yeah, we're just through here.
06:25 Okay.
06:26 My room.
06:29 You'll be staying just next door.
06:31 Bathroom.
06:34 Oh, by the way, we're gonna be sharing a bathroom.
06:36 I hope you don't mind.
06:37 - Oh, no, no, no, no.
06:37 - I'm just kidding.
06:38 We're gonna be sharing a bathroom.
06:39 I hope you don't mind.
06:40 Otherwise, you'd be miles away.
06:41 I'm gonna go into the house.
06:43 Dressing room.
06:45 And...
06:48 Your room.
06:51 Wow.
06:54 I'm glad you're here, mate.
06:59 - But I wanted to talk to you a little bit
07:00 about the kind of design process that you do
07:06 because you're so brilliant at kind of...
07:11 For somebody who's so character-based,
07:15 so sensitive when it comes to character,
07:16 so perceptive,
07:18 you also design incredibly beautiful rooms
07:23 and maison scene,
07:27 and you are, I would say, really kind of quite genius
07:32 at sort of texture and color.
07:35 How do you start?
07:37 Where do you start when you start with a design?
07:40 - I'm a magpie and a stealer
07:44 of other people's ideas and thoughts,
07:47 but that goes all the way back to artists and painters,
07:50 photographers, all the way through.
07:53 And I think on Saltburn, we use that
07:55 because it's a historic family living there.
07:57 We went back to Caravaggio, Pre-Raphaelites,
08:01 all the way through to contemporary art, modern art,
08:04 tat, bad art, and everything in between.
08:08 So it's about getting that and then starting to feel,
08:12 especially from...
08:14 We didn't spend that amount of time recceing,
08:16 but I think you're constantly changing it.
08:19 I think you need to keep everything in the air
08:21 for as long as possible to enable
08:23 the actual clarity of the design to come
08:26 because it comes through conversations with you,
08:29 reading the scripts, going on location,
08:31 or perhaps building a set, or whatever we do,
08:33 is how that develops and organically manifests
08:37 and how you can react to things that are given in reality.
08:41 So we know Saltburn, their property,
08:44 their location gave us so much
08:45 that we could then manipulate the story to tell things.
08:50 And I then bounce off that and then expand on textures,
08:54 on colors, on the color palette,
08:57 on the sort of storytelling aspects of everything else.
09:02 And we spoke about taste and smell and textures
09:06 quite early on.
09:07 It wasn't just about the look of the film,
09:09 it was all the other essences that are great
09:12 'cause they add to the look, the essence.
09:15 We're not creating something necessarily
09:17 that has to look amazing.
09:20 It's about telling that story through a feeling
09:22 and an essence, which encompasses all those aspects.
09:26 It'd be great if there was smell-o-vision,
09:28 if you went in, if they could pump out smell
09:30 when you're watching a movie.
09:32 - Think of how much Issey Miyake,
09:34 think of how much Issey Miyake,
09:36 load of Issey we'd get through from Felix's
09:38 "Hotel of Alone."
09:40 I think for-
09:41 - Yeah, and wafts of cigarette smoke as well,
09:43 would be that combination.
09:45 Ugliness, beauty, mashup.
09:48 - But I think really that felt like
09:50 it's what everyone on this had in common
09:52 was that kind of the,
09:53 because it is quite an expressionistic film.
10:00 It is quite, in many ways, it's looking to,
10:05 yeah, as you say, kind of Caravaggio and paintings
10:07 and more formally framed films
10:10 and more formally designed films.
10:12 But I think the kind of pursuit of the human in that
10:16 and the detail is something
10:18 that we were all very preoccupied with
10:20 and that you guys from the top down
10:25 just kind of expressed so beautifully
10:29 how do you go about choosing your team?
10:32 'Cause obviously you're in charge of so many people
10:35 and how do you direct them once you have them?
10:38 - Well, I have my favorites and I, you know,
10:42 I make them make the right decision
10:45 and I tempt them to come and work for me and with me.
10:50 And to be quite honest-
10:52 - For those of us who don't know, listening to this,
10:58 who are you tempting?
10:59 Who are the crew on this that you tempted?
11:02 - Okay, so I'm tempting all the art department,
11:04 in particular the set decorator.
11:07 We have to tempt her.
11:07 The thing is, as soon as I told them
11:09 that I was doing an Emerald Fennell film,
11:12 you know, I had them knocking on my doors, really.
11:15 Yeah, so yeah, we've got art directors, set decorators,
11:19 prop masters, standbys.
11:23 I mean, it's a dream team, this one.
11:24 It really was a dream team.
11:26 And I think that's something,
11:28 there was something special happened by,
11:30 when you go on location, isn't there,
11:32 when we all go and live in the wilds of the Midlands
11:37 and have mini wrap parties every evening in the pub.
11:41 Yeah.
11:42 - Well, some of us did.
11:43 Some of us had two very young children
11:44 and could not attend said fun.
11:48 - Yes, sorry, you weren't there.
11:51 - Very glad to hear that you were having
11:53 such a nice time, Susie.
11:54 - Thank you.
11:55 (both laughing)
11:57 - But so, yes, so you have this incredible team
12:00 at your disposal.
12:02 Everyone is unbelievably amazing.
12:06 Obviously, I'm kind of, you know,
12:08 the sort of megalomaniac at the top of things,
12:11 sort of kind of making everyone's lives misery.
12:15 How are you, how do you like to,
12:18 how do you like to work as a boss,
12:23 as the head of a department?
12:24 - Yeah, I'm really strict.
12:27 I take no, yeah, no fun in the department.
12:30 The thing is, the art department, I think,
12:32 have the most potential for fun.
12:36 Like, there's weird things that we had to make on this,
12:39 you know, a nine foot minotaur with a massive willy.
12:43 And then the other things that we had to make,
12:47 the, you know, there was lots of, you know,
12:50 making the baths.
12:52 I mean, I've just realised what you're wearing.
12:54 I love it.
12:55 I love the plug hole.
12:57 Come on.
12:58 (cat meowing)
13:02 (man shouting)
13:06 (cat meowing)
13:08 (birds chirping)
13:11 (door slams)
13:13 (ominous music)
13:19 (ominous music)
13:21 - You don't need to be told, do you?
13:36 - You already know.
13:46 You're just turning the handle on a jack in a box.
13:49 Walking towards the end of the world.
13:54 No one for any seconds.
14:14 (ominous music)
14:16 The ground is gonna fall away.
14:22 (ominous music)
14:25 (man screaming)
14:35 It's the end of everything.
14:43 (ominous music)
14:45 (woman vocalising)
15:11 - But it's only, you know,
15:12 you're only put, it's only possible for you to have fun
15:14 when you are, I mean, this is the thing I think in general
15:17 about making anything.
15:19 It's only possible to have fun
15:21 once you've done a lot of incredibly hard,
15:24 diligent, detailed work.
15:26 And that's, I think, where you and your team
15:28 are just completely exceptional,
15:29 is that we all have the freedom to have a good time.
15:34 We have, I have the freedom to call you up and say,
15:37 you know, I think the pig needs a hat and false eyelashes
15:40 and the man, you know, needs a pig mask.
15:43 And everyone says, yeah, of course, naturally.
15:45 Don't know why it didn't, you know, don't know why.
15:47 - Why didn't we think of that?
15:48 Yeah.
15:49 - It means you can be playful and you can,
15:52 and also everyone was so adept at thinking on their feet.
15:55 A lot of the time you get somewhere and I mean, you know,
15:58 you could probably speak better to this than I can,
16:01 but obviously we were wanting to make this place
16:05 feel lived in.
16:06 And as you kind of say, like,
16:08 I have that kind of character stuff to it.
16:10 So, you know, it was always about having access
16:13 to those sorts of, those sorts of,
16:16 for want of better word, gubbins.
16:19 - Gubbins.
16:19 Yeah, we love, we love the gubbins.
16:21 Yeah, we were sending the buyer out just about every day,
16:25 get brighter colored sweets, more of them.
16:28 They need to fill the biggest Leleque bars that we had.
16:31 We need to keep filling it, you know?
16:32 So it was the opportunity to do that though,
16:34 is once you engage, get a team behind you
16:39 and that actually comes from you as well.
16:41 'Cause I felt like the whole crew were supportive.
16:45 We all owned a bit of that, you know, it was our baby.
16:48 We wanted to get what you wanted
16:50 so that you can ask the buyer to go back
16:52 and get 10 more packets of those sweets
16:54 and some more crisps and Twiglets.
16:57 And it was, it didn't feel wrong, you know,
17:00 it didn't feel bad about, you know,
17:03 a vegetarian dealing with the pig's eye.
17:05 You know, they were up for it.
17:06 They got, they joined in, you know.
17:09 - The pig's eye,
17:11 so they weren't, you know, the pig had, you know,
17:14 the pig needed to look like a human.
17:16 So at least they weren't handling a real eye, I suppose.
17:20 - Yeah, but also we knew it was coming.
17:24 I have, you know, the pig on the spit
17:27 was on its way very early, I think.
17:30 We decided that was gonna happen.
17:31 And that was fun.
17:34 I was revisiting some photos today
17:37 of some of the recces that we went on.
17:40 And there are images there that end up in the film.
17:42 There's that image of Linus lying in the sun
17:45 in what became Felix's room that we end up with.
17:49 So it's great having that clarity
17:51 and that we're not just winging it on the day,
17:53 but it enables us to react on the day
17:56 when situations come up and everyone's up for it.
17:59 - Yeah, and you absolutely, I can't,
18:01 I think the thing is,
18:03 and there are also a lot of female HODs on this.
18:06 We were, our crew was more women than men.
18:10 And I think that that too is kind of,
18:14 just fosters such a lovely feeling
18:16 'cause you're just, everyone's kind of equal.
18:19 There's not a sense of imbalance.
18:21 You're trying to kind of maintain this balance all the time.
18:23 And it just makes for a kind of,
18:25 maybe I hope a more egalitarian place that, you know,
18:28 as long as everyone is,
18:30 but we're all working really, really hard
18:32 and really, really diligently.
18:33 And so it means that people have the opportunity
18:36 to come and say to you or to me or whatever,
18:39 hey, would it be great, you know,
18:40 do you think we need to make a fake nuts magazine
18:44 and have it here?
18:45 - Yeah.
18:46 - And to be, to immediately say, yes, we must have
18:50 what became Jibbs, what became Jibbs magazine, RIP.
18:54 - Yeah.
18:54 (laughing)
18:57 But so how do you kind of like to work
19:01 with sort of other HODs
19:03 who are kind of gonna be working kind of
19:08 not necessarily with, but kind of adjacent to you?
19:10 You know, how are you working with costume
19:12 and how, and Lina's and those guys?
19:15 - I think it's the same thing.
19:16 Our department, we have our fingers
19:18 in everyone else's eyes.
19:19 You know, we need to be over
19:22 and be aware of what costume require,
19:25 what makeup require, you know,
19:27 DOP and lighting, practical lighting
19:30 has become such a bigger thing.
19:33 I mean, it was great that we filmed on film on this.
19:35 That was great, but it has certain, you know,
19:38 the lighting is slightly different,
19:39 what we provide, what Lina's enhances.
19:43 So yeah, I think, again,
19:45 that's part of the art department's fun
19:48 and opportunities that we know a bit about everything.
19:51 We're jacks of all trades
19:54 and just have to involve ourselves in,
19:57 you know, the colour palette, the textures,
20:00 you know, the water temperature when they're in the bath,
20:02 it's special effects, it's CG,
20:06 it's all of the magic comes
20:08 to a beautiful collaborative process, basically.
20:11 And you're in that as well, aren't you?
20:14 Delving in, I mean, that's the thing,
20:16 you have to lead all of us together.
20:19 Yeah, I was, yeah.
20:22 I was indeed there.
20:25 I mean, it was an absolute joy, an absolute joy.
20:29 And I wanted to talk about sort of something specific
20:31 'cause I think it's always really fun to talk about for,
20:34 well, for me too, to remember it,
20:35 but also for other people.
20:37 And I would love to talk about the maze at Saltburn,
20:42 if you want to tell us a little bit about that.
20:44 - So yeah, so the maze is smoke and mirrors.
20:48 It is proper filmmaking fun in that
20:53 there wasn't a real maze there,
20:55 there was an element of a beach hedge.
20:57 And we looked at another, Steadley Home, didn't we,
21:01 that was nearby that had this brilliant sort of grotto
21:04 that inspired us to make our grotto, but at the location.
21:09 And the development of that is really like
21:13 the whole development of the film in that
21:16 finding the balance between romantic and sinister,
21:19 'cause that sort of goal of the maze that we built
21:23 could have looked too whimsical, too beautiful.
21:27 And we found that those minotaurs inspired by Nicola Hicks
21:32 and just had those poses.
21:36 There's a whole family of them in that maze,
21:40 all throwing poses similar to Barry, to Oliver's character.
21:45 And also about then finding lovely Adrian Fisher,
21:49 where we had that serendipitous moment
21:52 and both found an international,
21:55 world-renowned maze designer who knew,
21:58 was sort of down the road and up,
22:01 so building a fictional maze for us.
22:04 - So there's sort of, for those who haven't seen the film
22:09 or kind of don't know that there's,
22:14 yeah, so there's a maze that's sort of very central
22:17 to the house and to the film.
22:18 And me and Susie both on exactly the same day,
22:23 almost exactly the same time,
22:24 read an interview in the New Yorker magazine
22:26 with a man called Adrian Fisher,
22:27 who it turned out is the world's kind of only
22:29 and foremost maze designer.
22:31 And has designed not only every kind of stately home maze,
22:34 but every game maze and every big Halloween theme park,
22:38 he's created mazes online.
22:41 And what we felt, 'cause we knew that we were going to
22:43 have to build the maze at least in part,
22:47 but what we wanted was like with everything in Saltburn
22:51 was detail and something that even if it wasn't real,
22:53 it was real.
22:54 So it's a practical maze that if we pause,
22:57 if we pause the top shot, it can be done.
23:00 And we asked Adrian that he had,
23:07 that there were two ways of solving the maze,
23:08 that it was, that one was the hardest,
23:11 most diabolically difficult way to get in the center
23:13 and the other was the cheats route.
23:15 But you guys not only made the maze,
23:20 but you made the kind of,
23:21 you know, it was sort of layer upon layer
23:24 of kind of like family lore as well.
23:26 So as well as the maze,
23:27 there's the kind of little setup for the view,
23:30 the viewing platform, I suppose you could say,
23:32 from the Long Gallery where Oliver first sees the maze.
23:35 Do you want to talk about that and the game, the detail?
23:38 - The game, yeah.
23:40 Yeah, that was great to do
23:42 because making that little box of the maze really worked.
23:47 And we even gave a backstory to the maze
23:50 and the cheats route that it was a lover from 1852
23:54 that decided she wanted to cheat's maze
23:57 for the Lord of the Manor.
23:59 And that's, those little things really help.
24:01 And then we had the great graphics designer, Katie,
24:04 who made the plotting of the map.
24:08 Again, needed to feel maybe a hundred years old
24:10 when the maze was first established
24:12 and all those little elements.
24:14 So when you give us a note
24:17 or there's something in the script,
24:19 we can then sort of expand
24:21 and throw other elements into the mix.
24:25 And then we did the lovely views
24:27 through the window of the maze.
24:30 Brilliant VFX, I think, works really well.
24:34 - It is a bit, but also I think the detail is that,
24:36 so there's a window where you can see the maze,
24:39 but next to that window is what you have as a telescope.
24:44 So obviously the idea is like,
24:46 it's blinking, you'll miss it,
24:48 but this is a perfect example
24:49 of kind of what you and your team do.
24:51 It's about every single frame tells not just one story,
24:55 but kind of myriad, very detailed stories.
24:58 So there's a telescope so you can watch people
25:03 as they try and fail to get
25:05 through this diabolical maze.
25:07 And then next to it is, as you say,
25:08 a wooden maze game, which is the same maze,
25:11 but it has two pewter balls and two bells.
25:16 Push through ball bearings.
25:19 And because Susie thought we would have two,
25:23 we would have Elsbeth and Phoenicia be the pearls
25:27 and Sir James and Felix would be.
25:28 So even the kind of family exists within the game.
25:32 And then Katie did the beautiful maze kind of solve
25:35 as well that's in there.
25:37 So it's just a kind of,
25:38 it's a constant layering up of detail, isn't it?
25:42 And then Katie, I should say, who is so talented,
25:44 also then did the opening title credits,
25:48 which is a hand-painted stop motion,
25:50 incredibly difficult and time-consuming endeavor
25:55 that unfortunately for Katie could only be done by her
26:00 because her work was so beautiful
26:02 that it didn't feel right that anybody else would get
26:04 to do it.
26:05 And so she and India were stuck in a literal garret
26:09 doing thousands of frames of violence.
26:12 But people notice it because it feels
26:16 like a very specific, maniacal, beautiful,
26:20 relentless thing.
26:21 So, yeah, but it is.
26:24 Is there anything that you wish you could have added
26:28 to the film?
26:29 Is there anything that you thought,
26:30 "Oh God, I wish we had a huge fountain."
26:33 Or is there something that you like,
26:35 "Oh, I really would have loved to have built a..."
26:38 - Yeah, that's such a good question.
26:42 - The next one.
26:44 - Well, yeah, do you know what?
26:46 Because part of me wants to say that the whole of Soulburn
26:49 was on a back lot, the Pinewoods, and I built all of it.
26:53 That's what I wished I'd done.
26:55 I mean, the location was amazing,
26:58 languishing in the environment that we found it.
27:01 And to build that would have been just fucking amazing.
27:07 Would have loved to have done that, yeah.
27:09 But I think-
27:10 - So really it's about kind of making something practical,
27:14 building something practical on a soundstage.
27:16 Yeah, like the old school.
27:18 - My, yeah, like the old school.
27:20 Although I think locations do bring an idiosyncratic nature
27:25 and something, a boundary that you have to work around
27:27 that sometimes forces your car to go in a certain direction.
27:31 It's like the budget and the time.
27:34 As much as they're boring to deal with,
27:36 they actually are good boundaries
27:39 to force the direction that you go.
27:42 Yeah.
27:43 - I don't think there's anyone in any department actually
27:46 who benefits from, I mean, obviously we always want,
27:49 you know, you want to be in that position
27:50 where you always want a little bit more time
27:52 and a little bit more money.
27:54 - Yeah.
27:55 - The idea of having a limitless amount of money
27:57 and time, especially when it comes to something
27:59 like reshoots, actually fills me with horror
28:01 because I just think it means you're not,
28:04 you can't be, you can afford to be sloppy
28:07 in a way that I just don't.
28:09 You know, we actually made this film.
28:11 I think people would probably be surprised.
28:13 I would say, you know, less than it,
28:15 less than it looks.
28:17 - Less than it looks.
28:18 - Every, yeah, everyone was like,
28:20 we're all pretty kind of reasonable, you know,
28:23 not, it wasn't-
28:24 - Yeah.
28:25 - And-
28:26 - It wasn't crazy, but it's like making those decisions,
28:29 you know, when we were trying to decide
28:31 what car Felix would have at the end.
28:33 And it became, it became very clear very quickly
28:37 when the ones that we wanted were either too expensive
28:40 or not available.
28:42 Well, so this is better anyway, this option.
28:45 - Obviously it's an old Land Rover and it,
28:48 - Yeah.
28:49 - Those, you know, just the ability to,
28:51 as everyone loves to say over here
28:55 where we are in Los Angeles, pivot the opportunity.
28:59 - Pivot.
29:00 - Is only possible when, you know,
29:03 when you've got kind of that really clear path
29:06 that you did that nobody freaks out when you have to,
29:09 because you're quite a community.
29:11 - Yeah.
29:12 - So the next one you're gonna build,
29:14 it's gonna be a full build.
29:16 - Yes, please.
29:17 Yeah.
29:18 Either a sci-fi or a Western or a combination of the two,
29:21 a sci-fi Western, you up for it?
29:25 - You've literally named the two things
29:26 that I'm most inept at and know the least about.
29:29 So, so yes.
29:31 - Yes.
29:32 - So alien, alien, okay, got it.
29:37 Alien Bordello.
29:38 - Alien, yeah, exactly, there we go.
29:41 - Budget is $10 billion.
29:43 And it will have,
29:45 - Yeah, budget's nice.
29:46 - And it will be in French.
29:47 - Yeah, love it already.
29:50 I can see it.
29:52 - Really, I haven't asked you any questions yet.
29:55 - Ask me any questions.
29:56 You don't need to ask me anything.
29:57 - Oh, I wanted to know what your favorite sweet was.
29:59 - Okay, fine, that's fine.
30:00 - That's really important ones, yeah, cool.
30:02 - Okay, my favorite sweet on set,
30:04 given that we spent a lot of time,
30:07 as you say, filling the frame with cigarette butts
30:09 and what's-its and iPod nanos,
30:12 as well as all the beautiful market tree
30:14 and perfect wallpaper.
30:17 My favorite sweet.
30:17 - Yeah, simple stuff, what sweets?
30:20 - Haribo straw.
30:22 - Okay, nice.
30:24 Haribo straw, love it.
30:28 And what food do you think we could have had
30:32 if we, the next dinner party in Saltburn,
30:34 what would they have eaten?
30:36 - That's a really great question,
30:37 'cause food was something we talked about a lot
30:39 and the food design is brilliant.
30:41 'Cause there are a lot of things that are,
30:43 as with everything in this film,
30:45 borderline delicious, disgusting, visceral.
30:49 - And some octopuses on top of strawberry jellies.
30:53 - Yeah, so we had the kind of seafood feast
30:57 where a crab sits, accusingly staring at Oliver.
31:01 And octopus tentacles kind of hanging down
31:07 rather viscerally over beautiful kind of yellow-y cup glass,
31:12 like vases.
31:13 And we had the eggs, the breakfast eggs that are,
31:17 and it had to have a kind of a chick.
31:20 - Not bit, yeah, a snotty bit.
31:22 - A tiny little red chick that would never be,
31:27 which was obviously quite,
31:28 that sort of thing is really complicated to make.
31:31 'Cause I think in the end we went for a grapeseed.
31:33 So all of the food was incredible,
31:36 the dried shepherd's pie, of course.
31:39 What would we have had?
31:40 It's always something,
31:42 the thing that is important about Saltburn
31:45 and in everything is it's never the thing that,
31:46 it's never the first, it's never an obvious thing.
31:50 Because they always-
31:51 - No, it's not an obvious thing.
31:52 It sort of is obvious when you say it.
31:54 - It's obvious when you say it.
31:55 It's obvious when you say it,
31:56 but it would have been,
31:58 you know, my first instinct is something like
32:00 toad in the hole,
32:01 but of course they would never have something
32:02 like toad in the hole because it's too British
32:03 and it's too on the nose.
32:05 But also it would have been hilarious
32:06 to have shot very erotically a toad in the hole.
32:08 - Yeah, I love it already.
32:10 - Yeah, other people,
32:11 which are people who don't know is the sausage
32:13 in kind of sticking out of batter, really.
32:16 - A British specialty.
32:18 One of our classic-
32:20 - Just thinking of the shapes of that, I'm loving it, yeah.
32:23 - Classic, a classic dish.
32:25 I think it would have been something 2006,
32:29 which would have meant it would have had pomegranate seeds
32:31 and it would have been a kind of,
32:35 or it would have been Elspeth eating a
32:41 Marks and Spencer's ready meal lasagna
32:46 out of the package and gossiping with Duncan.
32:49 - Yeah, in the library.
32:52 Yeah.
32:55 - It would pain Dunk,
32:56 but she would like to,
32:58 so she sort of slightly likes to eat sort of,
33:02 yeah, dodgy ready meals.
33:05 - Do you think Duncan has a story there to be told?
33:10 Where would you have gone with Duncan?
33:13 Yeah.
33:14 - I think Duncan's story is too dark even for me to tell,
33:17 or for you.
33:18 - Yeah, true.
33:20 Was there anything in the film that you wish you'd had
33:25 that we didn't shoot
33:27 or that ended up on the cutting room floor, so to speak?
33:31 - I think everything on the cutting room floor
33:34 is sort of on there for a reason, even if I love it.
33:36 But I would have loved to see you make an orangery.
33:42 I think the one thing I would have missed
33:46 would have been a really beautiful sex scene
33:49 in a very kind of dilapidated orangery.
33:53 - Yeah.
33:55 - But next time, that can be in the space, Western.
33:59 This has been amazing.
34:01 Thank you so much for doing this, Susie.
34:03 As always, it's just a pleasure to talk to you
34:06 and to be reminded of what a wonderful time we had
34:09 on "Saltburn."
34:10 So thank you very much to the process for having us,
34:13 and I'll see you soon.
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