The actors Barry Keoghan wants to emulate: “I’m trying to learn from that”

Posted On November 13, 2024November 13, 2024

In just a few short years, Barry Keoghan burst onto the scene and became the latest darling of Hollywood. With early supporting roles in the critically acclaimed British thriller ‘71 and Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, he attained wider recognition for his part in Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2017 film The Killing of a Sacred Deer. And even when he ventured into one of Marvel’s most unsuccessful instalments, Eternals, it couldn’t slow his momentum.

In 2023, he received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role in Martin McDonagh’s 2022 film The Banshees of Inisherin, solidifying his position as one of Hollywood’s most in-demand young actors. That same year, he appeared in one of the most talked-about movies of awards season, Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn.

Through the diversity of his roles, Keoghan has shown that he’s an actor willing to take risks and work with idiosyncratic directors. In a recent interview on The Louis Theroux Podcast, he addressed the darkness of many of his characters and revealed which actors he sees as inspirations.

“I don’t search or seek out roles that have a demeanour of being evil,” he said. “I just want to show range and get to play different parts with the directors I love. But yeah, I do want to get away from the weird parts… I’ve started to understand that less is best, you know, people can get really tired of seeing your face and when you look at the actors like Daniel Day-Lewis and Christian Bale, they don’t show up for everything, and they picked up parts quite cautiously, so I’m trying to learn from that.” 

So far, Keoghan has lived up to that statement, showing a skill for choosing excellent scripts. Saltburn might have been a polarising gamble for all involved, but it scored the double distinction of award season nominations and social media furore. On a completely different end of the spectrum, he recently played a supporting role in Andrea Arnold’s Bird as the tattooed, inept father of the main character. It’s unusual for a star of his stature to turn to a supporting role in a small feature from an auteur known for casting non-professional actors, but Keoghan demonstrated yet again that his choices, though unpredictable, are spot on. 

Another reason Keoghan is so selective with his movies has more to do with his acting process than his desire to keep audiences wanting more. Like his acting heroes, Daniel Day-Lewis and Christian Bale, he is a self-professed Method actor who throws his whole being into the roles he plays. Speaking to Vogue last year following the release of Saltburn, the actor explained his process.

“I mean, yeah, I stay in accents, stay around the music [the character] listens to—he actually didn’t listen to music—I stay in the clothes he wears,” he said. “It’s all Method to me. If you know your character so well, then you can do anything that’s required or asked. I think everyone has their own method. People like to think if they’re a Method actor it’s considered more serious.”

His process, he explained, requires “100% of yourself,” which is why he doesn’t leap at every job offer. “You’re chipping away at yourself,” he explained. “You’re being vulnerable, you’re being honest, you’re discovering yourself, you’re finding stuff out about yourself. That’s beyond Method for me. That’s why I don’t rush in and do, you know, every single thing that comes across me, because each project chips away at you.”

Related Topics