15 MINS with EMERALD FENNELL

A quickfire interview with the groundbreaking, Oscar-winning director, writer and actress.

Over the last five years, Emerald Fennell’s creative brilliance has shaped some seminal moments in film and entertainment, whether playing Camilla Shand in the third and fourth seasons of The Crown; her Oscar-winning directorial debut, Promising Young Woman; or, most recently ‘Saltburn’; a polarising story exploring class, ambition and family trauma.

From obsession and sexuality to revenge and death, Emerald’s storytelling deals with the most taboo aspects of human nature. And though the art of her universe is to make the off-limits accessible, her work repeatedly challenges preconceptions and tests the outer limits of her audience's comfort zones.

As a self-proclaimed fan of Gillian’s new book, ‘WANT’, we took the opportunity to get Emerald’s take on desire, fantasy and more.

Of Saltburn, you said it's a film that is "about our relationship with the things and people we want" - do you think as a society we think enough about what we want, let alone act on it?

I think we think about it all the time. Obsessively. Whether we're any better at understanding what it really is, or if we ever will, is much more complicated. That's what I thought was so moving and extraordinary about "Want"– the writers' ability to express all the ambiguity and tension and paradox of their desires. It felt revelatory. I came away from the book feeling that "wanting" does not need to imply a lack of something, that it is in fact, an active state in itself, as fulfilling and necessary and enriching as the act of attainment.

You're a brilliantly provocative filmmaker who tackles challenging subjects in subversive ways - how do you think media representation of female desire and fantasy needs to evolve?

It feels like it's evolving every day. The artists I'm obsessed with are all constantly poking and pushing and transgressing. In the last few years there has been such an explosion of beautiful and thrilling art. Emma Seligman's "Shiva Baby" and "Bottoms", Julia Ducournau's "Titane", Janelle Monáe's "The Age of Pleasure", Miranda July's "All Fours", Anna Weyant's paintings. RAYE, Charli XCX, Chappell Roan, Billie Eilish.

If you could sum up your experience of reading 'WANT' in one word, what would it be?

Who would you gift a copy to?

Everyone.

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