Jacob Elordi Spills On The First Time He Read That 'Saltburn' Bathtub Scene

Jacob Elordi had more than a lick of interest when he first saw the infamous “Saltburn ” bathtub scene in the script.

In an interview with Stream Wars released late December , the actor opened up about the extremely NSFW scene where his character, a wealthy University of Oxford student named Felix, masturbates in a bathtub before his peer, Oliver (played by Barry Keoghan ), enters the tub to lick the water.

“I was just really excited when I read that scene because you don’t really see things like that in mainstream movies a lot of the time,” Elordi said. 

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

Earlier in the interview, Elordi also described a crowd’s reaction to the film when he caught a screening in Brisbane, Australia.

“It was unbelievable because everybody was engaged and sort of gasping at the screen and yelling at the screen and everything like that,” the actor said.

“And I haven’t been in a movie like that in a really, really long time.”

Although the scene may have surprised audiences (and even inspired some to create “bathtub” cocktails and “bathwater” candles ), “Saltburn” producer Margot Robbie told Variety it “didn’t feel that shocking” in the script, crediting Fennell for immersing people “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,’” Robbie said.

The “Barbie” actor also said that there’s “something intentionally disgusting and satisfying” about the movie.

“Like, 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,” Robbie said.

“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,” she continued. “That’s the watercooler moment — the thing that people are talking about two weeks afterwards.”