EJ: The period in which it is set is interesting because Oxford and Saltburn are seemingly timeless places but the characters humanise them, especially with their noughties costumes and double-collar polo shirts. [both laugh] What was the significance of the early 2000s setting?
EF: The double-popped polo shirt… God have mercy on our souls, what a time! If that comes back because of this film, I’m really sorry to the young men of today.

EJ: I’m blaming you, I’m going to send you a strongly worded email. [both laugh]
EF: Rightly so. I’ll read it and I’ll agree with every word. [laughs] The time period is partly due to the structure of this genre because somebody is looking back over a time that destroyed or changed their life, so I knew it had to have that framing narrative. 2007 is just not cool, it’s not come back into fashion yet, it’s not far enough away, and it’s the in-between hinterland where everything looks bad. It’s not just the LIVESTRONG bracelets and the bad extensions, but it’s even the bras, we all had these hard push-up neon bras which we’d wear with a batwing one-shouldered t-shirt. We’d wear earrings, a headband, a headscarf, a tiny scarf and a thousand necklaces – accessorising was completely out of control. But, exactly as you said, it is humanising. It reminds you that people just get stuck in their time and if we had set it now, it’s hard to see those things when you’re living it. You need to know that these people are real and they are just as lame and as likely to have a bad tattoo as anyone else.

EJ: Music really helps to define the era too, we’re left with the parting notes of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder on the Dancefloor which couldn’t have been more fitting. What role did music play in this process?
EF: I’m so glad you bought that up because it’s so important to me. The beginning point for the daydream is the playlist, I live in the playlist and often that’s the thing that gets me where I need to be. I’m very careful and conscious for the first five or six assemblies of the movie that there’s no music at all because it’s very easy to use music as a crutch. The great thing about the music of the summer of 2007 is that it was an extraordinary era for music but it was music that did not outlast itself, it is fixed in that place. Someone like the Arctic Monkeys, for example, are still here so we didn’t use them but people like MGMT who did that unbelievable album are more fixed in that time. It’s always about looking at lyrics and the context, asking who is listening to what and when. What does Felix listen to in his room versus what’s playing at the disco or in the pub? We had Sound of the Underground and The Cheeky Girls in this movie, these are things that dreams are made of. [both laugh]

Saltburn is out in cinemas now.

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