{"id":444789,"date":"2026-05-12T10:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T10:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/444789\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T10:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T10:25:09","slug":"barry-keoghan-on-returning-to-cannes-moving-past-online-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/444789\/","title":{"rendered":"Barry Keoghan on Returning to Cannes, Moving Past Online Abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen Barry Keoghan<\/a> watches a film that speaks to him, he likes to get in touch with the director to tell them. It\u2019s something he thinks more people in the industry need to do.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe should share the love and always share what each other\u2019s work has done for us,\u201d he tells Variety. \u201cBecause everyone has worked extremely hard to get to where we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs well as helping sharing the love, it\u2019s paid dividends for Keoghan\u2019s career. And it\u2019s led to two of three Cannes visits for the Oscar nominee and BAFTA winner, speaking on a rare day away from the shoot of Sam Mendes\u2019 epic \u201cThe Beatles \u2013 A Four-Film Cinematic Event,\u201d biopics he refuses to say much about aside that they\u2019re \u201cgonna be iconic\u201d and \u201cpart of history.\u201d (Sadly, \u201cromantic\u201d as he\u2019d love to make it sound for the benefit of our conversation, he says he\u2019s \u201cnot dressed as Ringo\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\tOver a decade ago and then largely unknown outside of Ireland, the actor, whose delightful chutzpah saw him land a role in Matt Reeves\u2019 \u201cThe Batman\u201d after sending in an unsolicited self-made recording, messaged director Bart Layton to express his admiration for his 2012 doc \u201cThe Imposter.\u201d \u201cI remember reaching out \u2014 I think on Twitter \u2014 and being like, \u2018Can I send you my audition tape,\u201d he says. Layton would give Keoghan an early lead role as an amateur rare book thief in his follow up feature \u201cAmerican Animals\u201d and, recently, as a psychotic bleach-blonde biker in \u201cCrime 101\u201d (the two are also working on a Billy the Kid biopic).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve also reached out to Barry Jenkins and Lynne Ramsey and Andrea Arnold,\u201d he says. Arnold would bring Keoghan to Cannes in 2024 with her coming-of-age tale \u201cBird\u201d (his second visit after Yorgos Lanthimos\u2019 \u201cThe Killing of a Sacred Deer\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\tNow Keoghan returns to Cannes for a third time with Kantemir Balagov\u2019s \u201cButterfly Jam,\u201d and all thanks to a note he sent to the Russian director after watching his 2019 breakout \u201cBeanpole.\u201d \u201cHe totally smashed it with that film so I reached out to say \u2018incredible job,\u2019 and we just kept in touch,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\tOpening the Directors\u2019 Fortnight competition, \u201cButterfly Jam\u201d is set among the Circassian community in Newark and stars Keoghan and Riley Keough (\u201cjust one of the best,\u201d he says) as siblings running a struggling diner alongside newcomer Talha Akdogan playing his teenage son (he describes the youngster as \u201cincredibly talented \u2014 his rawness is unmatched\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\tKeoghan is reluctant to give more details \u2014 \u201cyour curiosity and love for cinema has to make you want to see it!\u201d \u2014 aside from it being \u201cabout the ins and out of family.\u201d But he does acknowledge a curious link connecting all his Cannes films to date \u2014 \u201cSacred Deer,\u201d \u201cBird\u201d and now \u201cButterfly Jam.\u201d \u201cThey\u2019re all animals!\u201d \u201cButterfly Jam\u201d also marks the first completed project out of the blocks for Keoghan\u2019s production company \u2014 and another animal \u2014 Wolfcub (\u201cKeoghan\u201d means \u201cWolf cub\u201d in Gaelic, he asserts, before letting out a loud howl down the phone).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tKeoghan and Riley Keough in \u2018Butterfly Jam\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso in the works for the fledging (cubling?) banner is an as-yet-unannounced Netflix series, plus the feature \u201cLemonade,\u201d an Irish indie from director Kim Bartley he shot in January having snatched a few days between Beatles shoots. The film \u2014 set amid Ireland\u2019s care system \u2014 has remarkable, and coincidental, parallels with Keoghan\u2019s own upbringing as a foster kid from one of Dublin\u2019s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. \u201cThere are moments in \u2018Lemonade\u2019 when I was like, this is too to-the-bone,\u201d he says. \u201cHonestly, it makes me emotional just chatting about it, but it\u2019s beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt wasn\u2019t long after those days as a youngster moving between multiple homes (he would eventually live with his grandma) that Keoghan remembers saying \u201cI want to become an actor.\u201d But at the time it felt an impossible dream. \u201cIt was so far out of reach for me, especially where I came from,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\n\tAs he notes, \u201cI just didn\u2019t know enough about it \u2014\u00a0there were no avenues. There were college courses, stuff like that, but I\u2019d not finished school. I was kicked out of school. So that was that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOut of \u201clove,\u201d people would pressure him to come up with a Plan B. \u201cBut I always kept in my mind that, no, I want to do this. I couldn\u2019t pinpoint exactly what it was, but I remember just trying \u2026 even to articulate that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKeoghan discovered exactly what it was aged 16 on the set of his first acting job, 2010\u2019s gritty Irish crime thriller \u201cBetween the Canals\u201d (a role he got after answering a casting notice on a shop window and calling the director every few weeks).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI remember on \u2018Between the Canals,\u2019 when the camera went up I was like, this is it. It was such a feeling that stands alone from anything else,\u201d he says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like \u2018I want to chase this high.\u2019 It was just, this is where it is, this is where I belong, this is where I\u2019m accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter his debut, Keoghan had a brief stint as one of the first pupils at what would become the Bow Street Academy, Dublin\u2019s now-renowned acting institution, before being cast in his breakout role, cult Irish TV series \u201cLove\/Hate.\u201d Playing a baby-faced assassin who was gunned down at the end of the first season, he offered hints of the magnetic screen presence that would later come to define him. Then came Yann Demange\u2019s acclaimed thriller \u201c\u201971\u201d as a young IRA initiate (also gunned down) and, a couple of years later, Christopher Nolan\u2019s \u201cDunkirk\u201d as a civilian boat hand. He was off. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tKeoghan as Ringo Starr \u2018The Beatles \u2013 A Four-Film Cinematic Event\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSony<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Keoghan\u2019s trajectory, given bursts of rocket fuel thanks to his scene-stealing turn in \u201cThe Banshees of Inisherin\u201d and a spot of nude dancing in \u201cSaltburn,\u201d has brought with it some of the unfortunate trappings of fame: intense public scrutiny over him his private life (which hit a peak during \u2014\u00a0and after \u2014 his year-long relationship with singer Sabrina Carpenter). <\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2024, he talked to Louis Theroux about the abuse he\u2019d received about his own son, born in 2022 with a former partner, and online accusations that he was an \u201cabsent father.\u201d \u201cPeople love to use my son as ammunition,\u201d he said. More recently, on SiriusXM\u2019s \u201cThe Morning Mash Up\u201d he discussed the \u201chate\u201d he\u2019d gotten over his appearance, which had reached the point where it made him \u201creally go inside myself, not want to attend places, not want to go outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut now, Keoghan tells Variety he wants to \u201cstep into a new chapter of my life where I let my work speak for me \u2026 I want to close the book on it, put my head up, have a smile and enjoy the moment.\u201d He laughs at himself. \u201cI feel like I just read that line off something. I didn\u2019t, but I did look out the window as I said it and smiled.\u201d Clearly playing a member of The Beatles can be good for you (thankfully he\u2019s some way from wrapping \u2014 \u201cwe\u2019re still going strong\u2026 it\u2019s four movies at the end of the day!\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\tBut this new chapter comes with solid gravitas behind it. Now an Academy-endorsed rising Cannes veteran mixing buzzy arthouse with red hot studio releases, Keoghan\u2019s reached the status where he can effectively chart his own course, whether that be telling stories with a deeply personal connection like \u201cLemonade\u201d and doing so through his own company, or, diving into giant studio-backed features about the most famous band in history. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI pick projects quite specifically,\u201d he says. While he says he loved being a part of \u201cPeaky Blinders\u201d and \u201cloved making the movie \u2014\u00a0it was incredible,\u201d he won\u2019t reveal why he chose not to return to for the upcoming sequel series on Netflix (Jamie Bell has replaced him as Duke Shelby). But it\u2019s clear this specificity played a part.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI carefully, cautiously pick because I just want to enjoy, and I want to heal, I want to tell, I want to find, I want to explore. I want to discover all of those things while I\u2019m making a movie with people who are like-minded.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis pool of like-minded people will continue to grow as Keoghan slides into their DMs to send them notes of praise about their films (although he does admit he\u2019s now in a place where he can get others do it for him). <\/p>\n

\n\tBut when he says filmmakers should \u201cshare the love\u201d because of the work put in to get to where they are, the truth of the matter is that, given where he\u2019s come from, few have worked harder than Keoghan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Barry Keoghan watches a film that speaks to him, he likes to get in touch with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49654,10532,321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-444789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-barry-keoghan","tag-cannes-film-festival","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}