Life imitates art, and unfortunately for the owner of Drayton House—the 127-room, fourteenth-century mansion that features heavily in Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn—the same sort of riff-raff that groveled for entry in the film are now desperately trying to gain access to the grounds in real life. “I never envisaged the amount of interest there would be. It’s quite weird,” said Charles Stopford Sackville, whose family has owned the sprawling property in Lowick, England since the 18th century (via Daily Mail). “I don’t take it as flattering.”
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In the film, Barry Keoghan plays a down-on-his-luck student who develops an unhealthy (to put it lightly) fixation on securing his place among the property and milieu of the upper-class Catton family (Jacob Elordi, Alison Oliver, Rosamund Pike, and Richard E. Grant). Now, a slew of influencers and other social media strivers are trying to do the same—so many that Sackville has had to ask staff to patrol the grounds constantly looking for trespassers.
While there is a public footpath running through the property, Sackville says staff have already caught “more than 50” “inquisitive” fans straying into the private sections of the estate, where some have taken photos or filmed videos of themselves dancing to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder On The Dancefloor,” the song used in the final scene of the film where Barry Keoghan prances around the house completely naked. (There aren’t any reports of influencers recreating this particular aspect, thankfully.)
“How would you feel if people were taking pictures outside your house?” Sackville continued. For the record, we’re not sure. None of us live in a literal castle with Grade I historic landmark status and a full Wikipedia page. “I’d prefer the interest to blow over but I can’t make it blow over.”
While part of the Sackville family’s contract stipulated that no one on the cast or crew was allowed to reveal the location of the film’s real-life setting (as reported in August by Vanity Fair), there simply aren’t that many houses that look like that floating around in the world. According to The Guardian, Drayton House was identified by Tatler Magazine based on the movie’s trailer alone.
But hey, at least Sackville, who is reportedly friends with Fennell’s parents, got a nice big check out of the whole thing. “These houses don’t run on water,” he said of the undisclosed payout which “100%” influenced him to allow cameras inside his property for the first time. If someone who owns a house like this can’t keep it afloat without an infusion of Hollywood cash, there’s very little hope for the rest of us. In the meantime, “English noblemen terrorized by naked influencers” sounds like a great premise for Fennell’s next big project.