The owner of the country mansion used in the film Saltburn has described the rush of fans visiting his home as “weird” and says he would “prefer the interest to blow over”.
Charles Stopford Sackville, 63, lives in Drayton House, the medieval mansion at the heart of Emerald Fennell‘s dark satire about the super-rich.
The Grade I listed stately home, in the village of Lowick in Northamptonshire, has previously been described as “one of the best-kept secrets of the English country house world”.
But it turns out a 127-room, 200-acre mansion complete with turrets is quite hard to keep a secret, especially when it’s at the heart of a hit movie.
Mr Stopford Sackville told The Mail on Sunday that “more than 50” people have left the public pathway and trespassed onto the grounds of the now-famous house, taking pictures and videos.
He said his staff have been patrolling the estate as a result.
A TikTok video showing people exactly how to get to the property gates has now been viewed more than 3.3 million times.
Mr Stopford Sackville said: “I never envisaged the amount of interest there would be. It’s quite weird.
“I don’t take it as flattering. How would you feel if people were taking pictures outside your house? I’d prefer the interest to blow over but I can’t make it blow over.
“Most people are fairly good, but some get a bit inquisitive, let’s say.”
Pic: Chiabella James/Prime Video
Mr Stopford Sackville has said he was paid a generous fee by the filmmakers to use his home, and in previous interviews, the production designer Suzie Davies has spoken about being given free rein to transform certain rooms for the movie.
However, an agreement for the actors not to speak about the location of filming was swiftly made null and void after Tatler magazine revealed the name and location of the country home last year.
Fennell’s film – which has been described as a modern take on Brideshead Revisited – explores class, power and sex.
It stars Barry Keoghan as an Oxford University fresher who becomes obsessed with his privileged fellow student Jacob Elordi and spends a summer with him in his family pile. Rosamund Pike and Richard E Grant play Elordi’s very well-off parents.
Pic: MGM/Amazon Studios
Some of its more extreme scenes – featuring death, nudity and sex – have gone viral on social media, boosting its popularity and propelling the song Murder On The Dancefloor (which is featured in the film’s full-frontal final scene) back into the top ten, 23 years after its release.
A ‘Marmite movie’, Saltburn has divided fans. It was nominated for five BAFTAs at the awards ceremony held on 18 February, but was entirely snubbed by the Oscars, which take place next month.
Meanwhile, the BBC finally conceded last weekend that a red carpet question asked by its BAFTAs reporter to actor Andrew Scott about fellow Irish star Keoghan’s genitals was “misjudged”.
