David Remnick: Emerald Fennell was an accomplished actor before making her début as a writer and director with Promising Young Woman. Fennell's second movie comes out this month, and she sat down to talk about it with Michael Schulman, who covers culture and entertainment for The New Yorker. Here's Michael.

Michael Schulman: You might know Emerald Fennell for her acting work. She played Camilla Parker-Bowles on the middle seasons of The Crown. I actually couldn't talk to her about any of her acting because of the SAG strike, but she has emerged in recent years as a really provocative, hot-button-pushing filmmaker. Her first movie, Promising Young Woman, came out in 2020, and it was just a movie that people loved to argue over. It was a feminist revenge thriller and chances are if you saw it, you either loved it or hated it, but she won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Now she's back with her second film, Saltburn. It draws on the Evelyn Waugh novel, Brideshead Revisited, and it follows a middle-class Oxford student played by Barry Keoghan, who falls in with a handsome aristocratic classmate played by Jacob Elordi. The Barry Keoghan character goes to spend the summer with this guy's family at their luxurious country estate, also called Saltburn, and more or less infiltrates their lives. Emerald Fennell does not do things halfway. She really goes dark. She's not a crowd-pleaser. I have a feeling that Saltburn is going to get people talking just as Promising Woman did.

I imagine that it was really important not only just to cast the actors, but to cast the House of Saltburn. You found this place that dates back to the 14th century. Can you tell me how you found it, how you chose it?

Emerald Fennell: It was really important to me, and it's funny that you say casting because it absolutely did feel exactly as important. It is a character, and me and Linus, the wonderful cinematographer, talked a lot about shooting the house as a sex object, as a kind of fetish. We're always sliding up and down staircases, and it's sort of part of the erotic texture of the film, really, the house. So many of these houses have been in-- because we're so successful at exporting the aristocracy abroad, so we've seen them all. We've seen Gosford Park, and we've seen The Remains of the Day, and we've seen Downton Abbey.

All of those are usually within a certain area of shooting near London, so we knew we'd have to go much farther out to find it. Then part of it, we shot- because of all of the oners and the way I like to work, it had to be one place. It also meant we all became immune to the beauty immediately, and you need that feeling of like [mimics awe]. You're just walking through it and after a couple of weeks, you're like, [groans] "Oh, it's so big. How am I getting from it?" It's no longer the most beautiful, overwhelming thing you've ever seen. It's suddenly just another thing.

Michael Schulman: Well, that's the point is that the people who live there could care less. They're so used to their lives of luxury. This movie is such a vicious satire of the kind of idle rich. Is that how you see it, and what interested you in observing this sliver of aristocracy?

Emerald Fennell: Yes, it's absolutely a satire, but it's also a satire of those of us who want in. It's not just, of course, the absurdities of the class system, which I'm very much a part of as every single person in England is, but really it's about our willingness to prostrate ourselves at the altar of beauty and wealth always and our longing for it. And even when we know better, even when we know that it's not good for us, even though we know that it's never going to love us back, that these systems are just in place to make us feel ugly and stupid and boring and whatever, we're still on our knees. All of us are.

Yes, absolutely, it's a class satire, but the thing for me that I wanted it to feel more like is about, what is our relationship with the things we want? Why do we hate them so much? Why do we hate them as much as we love them? Why do men look at beautiful women on the internet and because they're so aroused by them, they want to strangle them? Where is that impulse from? What is this constant voyeurism and need and want and endless wanting, wanting and looking? What does it do?

Yes, I hope, absolutely, it's like a comedy of manners and a social setup, but I'm interested in being a human inside of all of this and what motivates us and the British class system and the House. It could be any number of things that we are pressing our faces against, I guess.

Michael Schulman: Well, I'm curious how you drew on your own life and background in satirizing or anatomizing the British class system. In this movie, you're not someone who's coming from the wrong side of the tracks and peering through the windows like Oliver is. You seem to grow up in a very rarefied setting. Your father, Theo Fennell, is known as the jeweler to the stars, the king of bling. You went to the same boarding school as Kate Middleton and then to Oxford.

I'm just curious, with your father, the people he supplies jewelry for have included Madonna, Elton John, who's a family friend. Growing up, how did you process this rarefied world you were living in?

Emerald Fennell: This is so interesting because this is all about the intricacies of the class system, because what I would say is, oh, that's very much pressing your nose against the window. Because actually, the psychotic detail of the class system means that actually-- I mean, do you think you're thought of as being very, very, very posh if your father is known as the king of bling? Do you know what I mean?

Suddenly, yes, of course, but this is what's fascinating is that, yes, by any standards, my life has been like an absurd parade of mad privilege, of course. I'm very aware of that, but also on the other side of things, my parents both-- my father, his family were in the army. My mother's family ran a farm, were farmers in rural Wales. They both went to London to make themselves, and they both worked and worked and worked. I suppose everyone in my family, we're a bit flashy, some would say, and certainly in Britain that would be a real slam. There's a kind of [crosstalk]--

Michael Schulman: I see what you mean. [crosstalk] This is very different from America where wealth is flash.

Emerald Fennell: Well, I think everywhere. Again, it's just about where. This again, it's like it's all about learning the rules. For me too, I had to learn those rules. If you are a writer, or if you are a maker of things, I guess, you're a voyeur and you're a watcher, and you're interested in detail and you're interested in how people communicate with each other, you're interested in how you transform yourself to make yourself more palatable to other people, and so all of these things are true.

Yes, I'm from a very- grew up in very rarefied circumstances, but also there are places where that wouldn't be the case at all. I went to Oxford and, yes, there are lots of different subdivisions there too. You're divided up constantly into your tiny little sliver.

Michael Schulman: Well, it's funny you mention Oxford. Saltburn begins at Oxford, where these two students befriend each other from across this class divide. I'm curious if there were things from your own experience there that you directly drew for the movie or maybe more thematic things that found their way in.

Emerald Fennell: Well, I think I did probably what a thousand people who go to Oxford did, which was I wanted to be a kind of louche, chain-smoking, sexy genius [laughter] having affairs with my tutors. Of course, it was just not-- [chuckles]. I mean, I've always felt like a profoundly unserious person, and so it was very important to me to go to a place that I could at least point to so that people might want to take me seriously, even if they didn't. I don't know what I was looking for quite, but it's also just a time of your life where you can be anything. I don't think that lying is-- I don't think of myself as a liar at all. I hope I'm very honest, but that's what a liar would say.

Michael Schulman: [chuckles] I imagine you didn't lead with people saying, "Hey, my father is the king of bling."

Emerald Fennell: Maybe I did, though.

Michael Schulman: Maybe you did. [chuckles]

Emerald Fennell: Maybe to be with certain people, that's probably what I did do.

Michael Schulman: You were acting during this time, right?

Emerald Fennell: Yes.

Michael Schulman: Did you think of yourself as someone who wanted to be a director someday or were you primarily focused on being an actress?

Emerald Fennell: No, I think I was writing a lot. I did an English degree. Actually, it was really interesting. I met Marielle Heller for the first time yesterday, the amazing director. She said something that really struck me, which was that the only visible job for a woman on a film or a TV set was an actor. I felt that very strongly because I think that is probably the truth for me too, is that now I know that this is the only thing I ever wanted to do, but I didn't know that it exists. I suppose that acting was the thing that I-- because we don't really have film schools in the same way in England as you do here, and there weren't any female directors at the time-- I mean, of course there were lots at the time, but I mean just in terms of just sheer volume, there wasn't anyone that I could-- I looked up to all of the female comedians who wrote their own things. I looked up to Jennifer Saunders, and Dawn French and people like that.

I suppose that acting-- I love acting. Whether or not I'm particularly good at it, I don't really know, but I think that I wanted to write and I wanted to make things. I wanted to make the stuff that I thought about.

Michael Schulman: Well, both of your films, Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, I would describe as darkly perverse, which is a compliment. They start dark and they get even darker. Were you always like that?

Emerald Fennell: Yes, I think so. There were a lot of calls to my parents to come and have a talk about a piece of creative writing I'd done when I was in primary school. I don't know what it is, I don't know where it comes from, but I think that I want to push something, I want to press something, and I want to talk to people-- I don't know. I want to talk about things and I don't know how else to talk about them.

It's interesting when you make a film, particularly a film like Promising Young Woman, people expect you to have an answer always and I don't have one. It's the same with Saltburn. I think it is also interesting that actually a lot of it is just the work of imagination, which is something that maybe we talk less about in interviews, maybe, than the real-life things that inspire it. Yes, I don't know. I suppose I'm interested in why we all love Popping Zits and why people watched in the internet and what that squeamish pleasure is.

Michael Schulman: Well, this would be a good time-- I don't want to spoil anything about Saltburn, obviously. People haven't, in general, seen it yet. Maybe this would be a good time to talk about the ending of Promising Young Woman. People have had three years, but spoiler alert, in 3, 2, 1, your heroine Cassie, played by Carey Mulligan, is on a quest to avenge her best friend's rape. Instead of carrying out this revenge in the way that the audience might be rooting for, she finally gets the rapist cornered, and he frees himself and smothers her with a pillow, and she has a kind of final victory from beyond the grave.

This was a really divisive, polarizing argument towards the ending. I'm curious, what effect did you want it to have on the audience? Did you think about that?

Emerald Fennell: Yes, of course. I think for me; the purpose of the film was not just to examine the very recent past where all of the nice people that I knew did all of the things in this film. In many ways that scene where Cassie dies, which was in real time-- I found out how long it would take for somebody to be suffocated to death, and the answer was about two and a half minutes, so it's a two-and-a-half-minute shot pushing in.

Michael Schulman: Excruciating.

Emerald Fennell: It's excruciating, and it ends on him. It ends on he then becomes our protagonist, her murderer. It's not just that scene that's very important in the film, but it's the scene after where his best man comes in, and it's the most broadly comic scene of the whole film.

[Promising Young Woman clip]

Al Monroe: [tremulous] She's dead, Joe.

Joe: Come on.

Al Monroe: I'm not kidding.

Joe: [laughs sardonically] All right, okay. You're being ironic.

Al Monroe: [dazed] What?

Joe: You killed the stripper at your bachelor party. What is this, the '90s? Al, classic. [laughs]

[end of clip]

Emerald Fennell: And we're all laughing because we've seen it. We're all laughing because we've seen it and we know it. That was always part of it for me is to really talk about how we get catharsis and to try and explain to people that it's no use saying, why didn't you, why didn't you, why didn't you, because this is the answer. The winning is relentless and excruciating and often feels very futile.

Michael Schulman: Well, it really complicates the audience's relationship with our protagonist in a way that I think Saltburn does in a different but related way, which is that our instinct is to root for this person whose story we're seeing, who it seems like somewhat of an underdog. I think that the people who recoiled at that end of Promising Young Woman felt like, "Wait a second. Is this supposed to be a victory for her? Because I don't feel like it is." I felt personally like it's okay. I understand that I'm supposed to feel queasy and maybe even question her self-destructive instinct, which may be something like a death wish or there's something psychopathic about her.

Emerald Fennell: But do we question that when it's John Wick getting revenge on his puppy? Do we say, why is he putting himself in these dangerous positions? Do we do it when men go on revenge quests and die heroically at the end? We don't because it looks different. There were a lot of conversations at the time about the relationship of the cops to her and the fact that they arrest him at the end. It's fascinating because the cop, the male and female, but mostly the male policeman in this is the most useless, misogynistic person. He goes and interviews Bo's character, who's a children's doctor, and is completely overwhelmed by him. Bo was directed to give the most [crosstalk]--

Michael Schulman: This was Bo Burnham [crosstalk]--

Emerald Fennell: Sorry. Bo Burnham, who plays Dr. Ryan, who's Cassie's love interest [crosstalk]--

Michael Schulman: The ultimate nice-seeming, decent guy who turns out to be yet another schmuck [crosstalk]--

Emerald Fennell: Yes, disappointing schmuck, yes. He was directed in that scene to be as shifty and guilty-seeming as possible, and the policeman is like just feeding him all the information to free himself.

[Promising Young Woman clip]

Detective Lincoln: Between you and me, it sounded like she wasn't feeling so good. Mentally, I mean. Her father seemed to think she was a little unstable.

Dr. Ryan: Yes, she was not in a good place.

Detective Lincoln: Do you think she might have wanted to hurt herself?

Dr. Ryan: Yes, she could've, she could've, yes.

Detective Lincoln: I thought that might be the case. Thank you for your honesty.

[end of clip]

Emerald Fennell: Also, we don't see the court case, probably gets off scot-free.

Michael Schulman: Well, that's what some people argued [crosstalk] as a criticism, how is this a victory if he's just going to get off on self-defense?

Emerald Fennell: Well, but it's not a victory. There is no victory. That's the point of the film, there is no victory to be had. Also, when you are making a film like this, you have to acknowledge that for it to hit widely, you can't be so nihilistic that-- because the original ending did end with not just the best man and the perpetrator burning her body, but everyone from the bachelor party standing around the mountains and that was the end. The initial argument was that was just too bleak, that actually it would be impossible for people to engage with it, they'd be too annoyed and of course [crosstalk]--

Michael Schulman: Who is making this argument?

Emerald Fennell: The usual people; lovely, well-meaning honest people who I work with.

Michael Schulman: Producers, studio heads [crosstalk]--

Emerald Fennell: Yes, all of those people. Of course, initially my first thing, like any person, was, "You're fucking idiots and you hate art and you hate women, and I hope you all die slowly and tonight."

Michael Schulman: Well, I'm sure there were people who felt that even your final ending was unbearably bleak, and why can't we just end with a bang-

Emerald Fennell: Yes, but that was the thing is that actually [crosstalk]--

Michael Schulman: -with her glorious victory?

Emerald Fennell: Yes, with her winning, but this is the thing is that actually they were right. They were right.

Michael Schulman: It reminds me of Fatal Attraction, which famously had a re-shot ending. It originally ended with the Glenn Close character slitting her throat in the bathroom alone. This was so horrifying to the studios, basically, that they came and re-shot it with the wife character like shooting her in the head and protecting the family, and the sort of stalker, evil, chaos-causing woman is cast out like a monster. Those are the Hollywood rules which you sort of undermined with your ending.

Emerald Fennell: Well, thank you, but I think also that's it. You have to also operate within those rules because you also want the most people to watch something and engage with it. I think the thing that I'm coming to terms with is that- I think perhaps as a female filmmaker more than any other kind, you are still expected to be maybe a memoirist. People are more comfortable with that still, and so I found the personal, the fact that I was always such an intrinsic part of the work difficult.

Because actually, even though-- because of the actors' strike and all these sorts of things, I'm here talking about these things. I would really rather it existed without me. That people were able to look at it without me. I found that difficult because you hope the thing speaks for itself, but you also don't-- me and Carey were at a point with Promising Young Woman where we were constantly being asked about our personal relationship to the material, and really quite openly, frankly, being asked in what manner we'd been sexually assaulted and could we please detail it in lovely graphic detail to the man who'd just introduced himself to us via Zoom.

Michael Schulman: Oh, gosh.

Emerald Fennell: It was bleak. I think that that stuff is the stuff that I always will find difficult because it's necessary, but I also feel like you want to step away from it a little bit yourself.

Michael Schulman: For sure. So much of the press around Promising Young Woman had to do with you as a specifically female storyteller, showing a female point of view and how women experience issues like consent and sex and harassment so much differently than men, just like a different universe. Saltburn really is about men, primarily. The central relationship is between these two men. Did that interest you, exploring male friendship?

Emerald Fennell: Male friendship is a really excellent way of describing the things that happen here. [laughs]

Michael Schulman: Yes, it's insufficient to this relationship in the movie [crosstalk]--

Emerald Fennell: Friendship with a big wink.

Michael Schulman: [chuckles] Male ways of relating to each other.

Emerald Fennell: I guess. Well, again, perhaps in 2006 as well, even more than now, there feel like more barriers between male friendship physically, so less now than-- all my female friendships are very tactile, you are often entwined together, for example, certainly growing up at that age. When you're a young woman, you often change in front of your friends. You're often in the bath in front of your friends. You're often talking about masturbating. You have intimate relationships that are maybe a bit different, certainly, again, during the period that this was in.

I suppose that this film about a bottomless well of desire that can't ever be sated felt uniquely male. Again, that's just me, honestly, pulling something out of my ass because you asked me. [laughter] I think truthfully, it just was. I'm interested in men and boys as much as I am in women and girls. We are all in it.

Michael Schulman: A couple years ago, it was announced that you were making a film about the character Zatanna for DC Comics. Then you've also been attached to a Nemesis movie at Marvel. First of all, I'm curious, are those still happening? Are they still in the works?

Emerald Fennell: No, no, those aren't in the works. Nemesis, I think that was a few years ago, and that wasn't anything I was ever formally attached to but did some work on early on and it was one of those things. It interested me because, again, I like genre, and I wasn't at the time hugely familiar with the superhero genre, actually. I thought, this would be interesting. If I could make a film that would appeal to me, maybe, and people like me, which is maybe people who wouldn't traditionally go and see those films, then that felt like a really fun exercise.

I think the truth of it is I am much, much, much better on my own, the development process. The traditional development process is one that I've done in the past for lots of reasons and I do love collaborating with people, but it doesn't work for me. I can't do outlines, can't have endless conversations about ideas before writing. For me, I can't write anything down until it's finished. Because once it's down, it feels complete. Not entirely, you always have to change things a little bit, but it's sort of a secret. It has to be a secret. If you're going to be really honest with yourself and you're going to write the things that you find really troubling and interesting and sexy and difficult, you need to work it out in your head alone.

Michael Schulman: Are you at all interested in doing a superhero or franchise movie, or is this sort of corporate mechanism around it where you have to outline things just the barrier of entry at this point?

Emerald Fennell: Yes, I think so, and I honestly don't know is the answer. Certainly, for the next few films, if I'm allowed to make them, I already know what they're going to be: of my own. I've got two small kids. I can only ever do one thing at a time, so I do one thing at a time. At least for a few years, again, if I'm allowed to, I'll just make my own things, but you never know. Doing something that's difficult or that seems counterintuitive is always something that appeals, but certainly not for a while.

Michael Schulman: Well, Emerald, thank you so much. This has been such a pleasure.

Emerald Fennell: Thank you.

David Remnick: The New Yorker's Michael Schulman spoke with writer, director, and actor Emerald Fennell. Her film Saltburn comes out on the 17th. You can find much more from Michael Schulman @newyorker.com. He just profiled Director Ridley Scott looking at his new historical epic, Napoleon.

 

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