Golden boy! Barry Keoghan may not yet be a household name, but the Irish actor has certainly hit the big time with his Academy Award-nominated role in The Banshees of Inisherin.
Keoghan stars alongside Colin Farrell in the critically-acclaimed film, which received nine nominations — including Best Picture — at the 2023 Oscars. While Farrell received a best actor nod for his portrayal of Pádraic, who gets inexplicably dropped by longtime friend Colm (Brendan Gleeson), Keoghan, who is facing off with Gleeson for the best supporting actor Academy Award, portrays Farrell’s character’s other, younger friend, Dominic, who falls in love with Pádraic’s sister (Kerry Condon).
Banshees is far from the only time the Dunkirk actor starred alongside Farrell on the big screen — Keoghan scored his breakout role in 2017’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer, alongside the Phone Booth star and Nicole Kidman. He and Farrell also both had critical, villainous roles in 2022’s The Batman, with the Minority Report star portraying The Penguin and Keoghan revealing himself to be the Joker at the end of the film.
“It was intimidating,” Keoghan told the New York Times in 2022 about stepping into the Joker’s clown shoes for the Robert Pattinson-led film, while noting that the old adage, “stay true to yourself,” helped him feel comfortable with what he could bring to the table.
“I’m a big believer that if I’m myself, whatever I do is going to be completely fresh and unique,” he shared, adding that he has a “totally fresh way” of portraying the infamous character.
As for his very different role in Banshees — which also earned him Golden Globe and SAG Awards nominations — the Eternals star told Collider in October 2022 that portraying an “innocent” character was a nice change of pace that was actually more challenging.
“It’s nice to get to play a character that has such an innocent and honest and truthful demeanor about him, rather than the sinister kind of thing that we’re used to,” he shared. “It’s actually I think harder to play that as well, to be nice and naïve and innocent.”
Keoghan also told the outlet his method of preparing for roles used to involve his grandmother asking him every question under the sun about the character he was about to play.
“I used to get my granny to write character questions. I’d say, ‘Look, pretend you don’t know this person. I want you to list a bunch of questions, and I’m going to answer them,’” he told Collider. “Then I’d have an element of images and kind of drawings around that time and kind of an image board. Then I’d have a moleskin book on experiences that related to my experiences, character experiences that are similar to mine. So I could kind of draw from that.” Then, he explained, “I chuck it all out the window.”
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Keep scrolling for everything to know about Keoghan — including his sweet family life with his girlfriend and their baby boy and his connection to Harry Styles.