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Starring Barry Keoghan, Carey Mulligan and Rosamund Pike, Saltburn is the hit film of the season after its release to rave reviews.
The film, which premiered last night at the London Film Festival, has been described as a Brideshead-style satire on “scandalously visible” aristocracy by The Telegraphdirected by a director with a “good eye for outrage,” Emerald Fennell.
Fennell, the Oscar-winning director of Promising Young Woman, was born in Hammersmith, west London, to a jeweler and Eton elder father, Theo, and an author mother, Louise.
The 36-year-old mother attended Marlborough College, the same Wiltshire institution that educated the Princess of Wales, at a cost of £39,000 a year, before going on to study English at Greyfriars at University from Oxford. It was there that she met an agent of hers who had seen her perform in student plays.
It is perhaps unsurprising that his second feature lampoons the upper classes, considering he had previously admitted to being “hyper-aware” of his own “grotesque privilege”.
Emerald Fennell, 36 (pictured with her Oscar for best screenplay in April 2021) is the director of the aristocratic satire Saltburn.
His father, Theo, founded his jewelry business in 1982 and gained a group of close friends and clients.
Sir Elton John is said to have lost £200,000 in a single visit to his store, alongside party stalwarts such as actresses Joan Collins and Liz Hurley and Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood.
She says, however, that she was not named after the gem, but rather after the 1930s society hostess, Lady Maud ‘Emerald’ Cunard.
In a curious foreshadowing of Emerald’s role in The Crown, she was notable for encouraging her friend Wallis Simpson and Edward, Prince of Wales.
Emerald’s mother, Louise, is a novelist and her books include Fame Game and Dead Rich.
Family friends include Sir Elton John, Sarah Ferguson, Dame Joan Collins and Lord Lloyd-Webber.
Saltburn, an aristocratic satire starring Barry Keoghan (left), premiered at the London Film Festival last night.
Emerald is the daughter of jewelry designer and Old Etonian Theo Fennell and writer Louise Fennell. Her sister Coco is a fashion designer.
The Hammersmith-born writer and director once said of her family: “I’m very aware that part of my luck was that I had parents who lived in London and who could support me. I have to work very hard because that advantage that people like Me, you have to prove that you deserve it.’
speaking to British Vogue Last month, Fennell reflected on her silver spoon upbringing and revealed she wanted to go back in time and ‘punch herself in the face’ for the way she behaved as a schoolgirl in Marlborough, which included sneaking into the bushes to smoke.
However, despite telling the outlet that she felt she could have taken a place at Oxford University from someone “more deserving,” Fennell’s work ethic is strong and, in addition to being a small screen star, she has been behind some big hits. .
He landed supporting roles in TV dramas Trial & Retribution, New Tricks and Any Human Heart before landing Channel 4 comedy Chickens, alongside The Inbetweeners stars Simon Bird and Joe Thomas.
At the same time, her film roles began to improve, and the adaptation of Anna Karenina starring Keira Knightley in 2012 marked her first major credit.
But it was in 2014 that Emerald rose to fame as boisterous redhead nurse Patsy Mount in Call The Midwife.
She was originally cast in a one-episode episode in the second season, but impressed the creators so much that they invited her to join the cast as a series regular for the third season. Her character Patsy had a secret relationship with nurse Delia (Kate Lamb).
“If I had known when I auditioned that there was more than a small role on the line, I would have been nervous,” she previously revealed.
She was also behind the second series of Killing Eve, in which she followed in the footsteps of her friend Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who left the series to work on the Bond film.
He clearly had the time of his life, starting with a boy whose neck was broken in his hospital bed and ending with a gruesome ax murder.
These blood-spattered tales seem like an anomaly from the imagination of a perfectly nice woman. ‘It’s interesting, isn’t it?’ she said in an interview with Weekend magazine.
“Very interesting, because that’s how I felt most of the time when I was writing Killing Eve, even though I didn’t kill anyone to write it!”
The script was a success: Emerald received two Emmy nominations for Best Drama Series and Best Writing for a Drama Series.
In addition to writing screenplays, Fennell has written a number of novels that have also earned her praise.
Her first two books, Shiverton Hall in 2013 and its sequel The Creeper (longlisted for the 2014 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize), were written for older children.
Perhaps Fennell’s biggest on-screen role was playing Camilla Shand (later Parker-Bowles) in the third and fourth seasons of The Crown.
Fennell’s early acting roles include Patsy Mount in the BBC period drama Call the Midwife.
She is captivating as a young Camilla, although critics have criticized the suggestion that she and Prince Charles maintained a relationship throughout his marriage to Princess Diana.
The choice to play the role was considered ironic because Emerald’s father, Theo, was a friend of Camilla’s rival, the late Princess Diana.
He and Louise remain on good terms with the Duchess of York.
In 2020, when Fennell was seven months pregnant, she revealed that everything had been filmed in 23 days so she could complete the project before giving birth.
On the red carpet at the film’s premiere, she said: “We never expected it to get to this point; I think what’s been so moving is the openness of people and the conversations it’s opened up to a lot of people.”
Ahead of the film’s release in 2021, Fennell said in an interview: “I’ve always wanted to direct. I feel like everything up until now has given me the tools to do it: work with a lot of talented people. It’s been life-changing.
“I started writing books and moved on to writing screenplays, and every time I was on a set as an actor I actively learned about what the director was doing.
“I find that directing is the best way to tell a story, especially if it’s something you’ve written yourself.”
Following the huge success of Fennell’s first feature film, Saltburn is set to reach the same dizzying heights of popularity after premiering at the London Film Festival to rave reviews.
Last night at the film’s gala premiere, he described the aristocratic satire as a “vampire movie.”
“It’s about what we do when we’re completely obsessed with something or someone,” he said.
“And I hope it’s part of the classic Gothic tradition where love and hate are very, very close together.”