How Barry Keoghan Feels About The Reactions To His Saltburn Nude Scene

"Saltburn" has been out in the world for a while now — which means that a whole lot of people have seen star Barry Keoghan, as the sinister main character Oliver Quick, prance around an enormous British mansion completely nude. So how does Keoghan feel about audience reactions to the final scene of Emerald Fennell's second feature film? It's complicated, but he mostly has a good attitude about the whole thing.

In conversation with Vanity Fair, Keoghan said that though he doesn't have much in common with Oliver (which is good, considering that Oliver is a murderer), he, too, "[dances] around naked" at home. "Everyone does, man," Keoghan  "We all sing in the shower. We all act silly when we're alone, and we feel this freedom. It's one thing that I did relate to. Not dancing around a manor of that sort with that f***ing drip hanging about — but I sing out loud, I dance silly, and move my body silly."

As far as the public nature of it all is concerned, Keoghan is clearly keeping a good head on his shoulders amidst everything. "It can be detrimental to the mind and your mental state if you read into it too much or you look at too much stuff being said," Keoghan said. "But I wouldn't go there if I wasn't prepared for that, or if I wasn't open to receiving what people want to say. I think it shows an act of maturity in your craft, and if it justifies the story and moves it forward, why not?"

Beyond avoiding too much commentary about his full-frontal scene, Barry Keoghan also told the outlet that he thinks there might be a cultural difference when it comes to nudity in American films versus foreign films. (The people involved with "Saltburn" primarily, it should be said, are not American, hailing from England, Ireland, and even Australia.)

"You look at European cinema and they tend to have a lot of scenes that involve nudity, and it's not a massive thing, really. But I think it's true art. It really is. And it's true vulnerability as well," the actor continued. "You're really kind of putting yourself out there in the most vulnerable state. It's beautiful to look at. I'm not saying it's because of my body, but it's freeing to see that body move around in the way it does. It's like a moving painting, almost."

Wait, so why is Keoghan naked in the first place? At the end of "Saltburn," his character Oliver — a sinister and clever social climber — has quietly dispatched every member of the wealthy Catton family, including his closest friend Felix (Jacob Elordi, the aforementioned Australian) and stolen their massive estate in the English countryside. In possession of the house at last, he parades through its halls naked and dances to "Murder on the Dancefloor" by Sophie Ellis-Bextor. It's a darkly funny scene, and at the end of the day, it's a great performance from Keoghan, whether or not he's clothed.

Even before he bared it all in "Saltburn," Barry Keoghan was a major star, which probably made his revealing nude scene even more shocking. The Irish native appeared in independent projects like 2017's "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" and Oscar nominees like "Dunkirk" that same year, showing up in the acclaimed HBO series "Chernobyl" just two years later. In 2021, Keoghan joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in "The Eternals" — though it seems unlikely that he'll ever return as superhuman Druig, considering that the film flopped — and one year later, he earned an Oscar nomination for playing the downtrodden youth Dominic Kearney in Martin McDonagh's critically beloved film "The Banshees of Inisherin."

2022 brought even bigger opportunities for Keoghan thanks to his ever-so-brief appearance as the Joker in Matt Reeves' reboot "The Batman," where he's only credited as "Unseen Arkham Prisoner" (but it's pretty clear who he's supposed to be). Whether or not Keoghan will return for "The Batman 2" as the Joker remains to be seen, but the actor's career isn't slowing down any time soon, and that now-infamous sequence in "Saltburn" made sure that audiences won't forget him either.