Jacob Elordi castigated the “prudish” reaction of viewers to the Salt burn bathtub scene.
The scene sees Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) drinking the bathwater after secretly watching Felix Catton (Elordi) touch himself in the bathtub.
This scene sparked discussion and left many stunned.
Appearing on Weekly EntertainmentIt is Reward podcast, Elordi said: “I actually think it shows me how, I guess, prudish we are.”
“When I look at this, I think there are much more extreme things in the cinema that I have seen, much more graphic,” compared the 28-year-old.
The star – who has witnessed “more alarming” moments in films – doesn’t understand why viewers don’t have the same reaction to scenes full of distressing violence.
Elordi added: “There are more alarming things in the top 10 crime documentary remakes streaming on all streaming platforms. »
“I think it’s much more alarming, the kind of horrible joy that we all feel watching children being mutilated. That’s what interested me,” said the Euphoria said the star.
“I thought, ‘Here’s a piece of fiction with something a little taboo about it,’ and it gives people goosebumps. It’s an interesting parallel,” he added.
Salt burn – which is about Oxford student Oliver who becomes obsessed with his wealthy and aristocratic classmate Felix – was directed by Emerald Fennell.
Speaking about the bathtub scene in 2023, Fennell said Weekly Entertainment: “The bathtub was the first thing, the first image that came to me.”
“It was a boy saying, ‘I wasn’t in love with him,’ and that same boy was licking the bottom of a bathtub. So that was the center of the film for me, this kind of unreliable narrator, someone who was clearly in the throes of extreme desire and hasn’t yet accepted it or had to find another way to accept it or explain it,” she concluded.
