Barry Keoghan broke his character down into five subtly different versions to prepare for Saltburn.

In Emerald Fennell’s psychological thriller, the Irish actor plays a poor Oxford University student named Oliver Quick who becomes obsessed with his rich classmate Felix and spends the summer with his wealthy family at their Saltburn estate.

The Banshees of Inisherin star revealed to Variety that he created five different versions of Oliver to help chart the sociopathic character’s transformation over the course of the film.

“I created Oliver 1 for the start, then Oliver 2 for the next part, on through Oliver 5 at the end,” he said. “I wanted to hit each of them with a physicality, a tone of voice, a different motive, a different pace. You see the costume and the hair changes, but you also sense his mental change and track that journey.”

Keoghan explained that he noted down the different Olivers in his script to make sure he played the right one in any given scene.

“It helped with where I was in the story since it’s not shot chronologically,” he shared. “I was shooting, say, Scene 54; I would go to my book and see that this is Oliver 4. Then I would look up what Oliver 4’s traits are. What is his physicality? What is his demeanour?”

The 31-year-old added that he had to play several different Olivers in one day and this technique “really helped” him keep track of his performance.

Keoghan is currently nominated for a Golden Globe for Saltburn, which was released in November.

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