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Barry Keoghan confirms he did not use a prosthetic for Saltburn nude scene

4 January 2024, 16:03

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By Katie Louise Smith

"Without sounding cocky, it wasn’t the nudity. That was fine for me. It was the dancing."

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If you were wondering if Barry Keoghan was actually nude in that final scene of Saltburn, the answer is yes. Yes, he was naked, yes that was really him...

Saltburn's ending, without going into too many spoilers, features Barry's Oliver dancing through the halls of Saltburn completely naked, as Sophie Ellis-Bextor's 'Murder on the Dancefloor' scores the scene. Eagled-eyed fans will note that the route he takes through the house is the exact same route that Felix took him on when he first arrives at the manor, except in reverse.

That now-iconic final scene was never actually written in the original script, and now Barry Keoghan has spoken about what it was like to film. Turns out, the dancing was much more daunting than the full-frontal nudity!

Barry Keoghan discusses filming Saltburn's final nude dance scene. Picture: Amazon Prime Video

Originally, the final scene was set to follow Oliver as he walked through hallways before sitting down for breakfast. It later evolved into Barry walking around naked, and then became the naked dance sequence that has now gone viral on TikTok.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Barry admitted that he was a bit apprehensive about being nude, but after one take he was "ready to go". Speaking about the scene with Vanity Fair, Barry later admitted: "Without sounding cocky, it wasn’t the nudity. That was fine for me. It was the dancing."

"I don’t really dance, I don’t know how to move my hips certain ways and your body has to go in certain directions and stuff like that," he then added. "The dancing scared me. So once I was comfy with the dance, the rest was easy."

The scene was filmed towards the end of production, which helped Barry because he'd already filmed the movie's other wild moments. He continued: "I’d already fucked a grave and I’ve already done the thing in the bathtub and I’d quite broken a lot of [taboos] already. The walking around nude was the most relatable there was—not that I relate to any of that prior stuff."

Saltburn ending: Barry Keoghan confirms he danced naked for final scene. Picture: Amazon Prime Video

Barry added that his performance is "a result of what’s just happened and it’s [an expression of the] pure comfortability of him feeling like he belongs in this space now and he can move around it with clothes or without clothes."

He continued: "Dancing around in the nude, I mean we all do it, don’t we? We all do it at home; we all do it in the shower. We all act silly when we’re on our own. We sing out loud. We dance. So that I could relate with.”

The scene was choreographed by Polly Bennett and took 11 takes for Barry to nail the moment, which was filmed in one continuous shot.