Barry Keoghan: Untitled film with Jenna Ortega, Saltburn, Therapeutic Acting

Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye (Uncut Gems) is set to make his feature acting debut, teaming with Waves helmer Trey Edward Shults on an untitled film that also stars Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan. Plot details are being kept under wraps with the pic currently in production. Shults will direct from a script he co-wrote with Tesfaye and his producing partner Reza Fahim. Even though both Ortega and Keoghan have been weighing several offers following their big years, both made it clear they wanted this as their next project and following their commitments, the film was a go. Besides landing Ortega and Keoghan, Shults and Tesfaye also have assembled a below-the-line team that includes director of photography Chayse Irvin (Blonde). Jenna Ortega has been on a roll as of late, led by her Addams Family series, Netflix Wednesday, which has been renewed for a second season and is starring in Scream VI. Keoghan is coming off his Oscar-nominated supporting role in Searchlight’s The Banshees of Inisherin, which earned him a BAFTA win. He stars next in Saltburn, Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to Promising Young Woman. Source: deadline.com

Segueing seamlessly from the theatre of absurdity, Lanthimos presents a tale of mythical, methodical revenge that starts with an ironic chuckle and moves inexorably towards a silent scream. Taking its titular theme from the myth of Iphigenia, The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a deranged masterpiece, a wrathful tale of retribution and responsibility transposed from the stages of ancient Greece to the screens of 21st-century cinema. Colin Farrell plays heart surgeon Steven Murphy – wealthy, slightly world-weary and too fond of a drink. Steven lives in a grand, cavernous home with his wife, Anna (Nicole Kidman), daughter Kim (Raffey Cassidy), and younger son Bob (Sunny Suljic). Their lives are materially rich, but emptiness prevails. The dialogue is theatrically mundane, delivered in the monochromatic rhythms of a trance state. Gradually, Martin inveigles his way into this picture-perfect family life, visiting the house, impressing the teenage daughter. Later, Steven meets Martin’s needy mum (a sharp cameo by Alicia Silverstone).

Lanthimos’s regular cinematographer, Thimios Bakatakis, accentuates the sense of dread as his cameras creep and crawl through hospital corridors, like the lurking spirits in The Shining – all low-angle prowls and ghostly high glides. Thunderous music cues (including bursts of Ligeti) crank up the cracked tone, ominous and screechy. Observing it all is Martin, brilliantly played by Barry Keoghan to combine the awkwardness of youth with the suggestion of unforgiving power, the bearer of projected parental guilt. Throughout, Lanthimos and regular co-writer Efthymis Filippou leave us tantalisingly uncertain as to whether this intense young man is the architect or messenger of forces beyond our ken. When awful truths are revealed, they are recited like cursed verses, conjuring a fable-like sense of fate, out of step with contemporary concepts of choice. It’s that clash between the farcical and the fearsome, which gives The Killing of a Sacred Deer its edge. As a doctor Steven plays God, literally saving people with his hands, but Martin is the ultimate foil, showing Steve just how powerless he truly is in the face of the unknowable. Viewers will doubtless have their own vastly differing reactions to this bizarre drama. Farrell said that making the film left him “fucking depressed”. Source: theguardian.com

Just to elaborate further on “Saltburn,” Emerald Fennell’s upcoming thriller starring Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi and Rosamund Pike. The film was test-screened in Culver City, California and the reactions have been wildly positive. Fennell directed the Sundance sensation, “Promising Young Woman,” in 2020. She went on to win a Best Original Screenplay Oscar, and was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Director. Obviously, her follow-up comes with high expectations. Those expectations seem to have been met. Barry Keoghan carries the movie and is said to be flat-out great. The movie fully showcases his insane commitment as an actor. “He will shock you,” says a person who attended the screening. Everyone else is supporting, including Rosamund Pike. Carey Mulligan only has a few scenes, but makes a very strong impact with the limited time that she does have. Pike is said to have the best lines. The film, which is set in the early aughts, is being described as a Thriller/Drama. A significant amount of the plot takes place in college. The movie starts off as the school year is beginning during the late summer. “I don’t know how audiences will embrace this because there’s a lot of nudity and explicit scenes that will get them talking. I hope these scenes don’t undermine other aspects of the film. In my opinion this movie is drastically better than “Promising Young Woman,” so if that got nominated for best picture, best editing, best screenplay, it would be a shame if this didn’t. However, Emerald is for controversial endings. Not everyone will be happy, I fear.” Keoghan has already showed great promise in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “American Animals,” and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer.” Source: www.worldofreel.com

BK Fan: Barry was a year older than me in high school. In the last three years I saw him, I thought he was very cute, he was quiet, he was friends with some of the popular boys, but he wasn't like them. His best friend, Harry, was infamous for dating lots of girls, he was a flirt. But Barry had only dated a few times throughout those years. He dated one girl for a long time, her name was Faye, and she had said some unflattering things about him, but everybody found out that wasn't true. Apparently he was actually upset that she'd broken up with him and tried to subtly ask her why. He wanted to apologize for whatever slight she felt he had done. The rumor was she felt uncomfortable that he was so upset, so she started saying he was an asshole. Barry said he wanted to be an actor or a boxer, and he was a huge comic book nerd. He had trouble with his older brother, and his family life had always been rocky and complicated. He was always a soft-spoken guy at class, and he struggled with his mental health too, but he didn't talk about it much. Source: wattpad.com

Barry Keoghan: My mother was from Summerhill—she was on heroin, and she died from it. My father had another woman. I grew up in foster care, and my granny raised me from when I was 12 on. Coming from the working class makes it hard enough to get into this game, but coming from foster care with no parents is even harder. I'm wild proud where I come from, because if I can fucking do that, then anyone can. It's nice coming from Summerhill, because you don't come from having everything, and what you do get, you appreciate it.

From 2017 to 2020 Barry Keoghan was in a relationship with Killarney native Shona Guerin, whom he had met on Good Friday in a Killarney pub in which she was working. The pair appeared on the Irish show Livin' with Lucy together in 2019 in which Lucy Kennedy stayed with them in their Los Angeles home.

In September 2021 Keoghan began dating Alyson Sandro, a dentist whose father is from County Cavan. A few months later, on Ireland's Mother's Day, 27 March 2022, he announced that the couple were expecting a child together, Brando, born on 8 August 2022. In March 2022, Barry Keoghan was confirmed as the new ambassador for the Barretstown children's charity and also helped open the charity's new Aladina Studio in Kildare. Keoghan and his family moved to Broughty Ferry, near Dundee, Scotland in November 2022.

-Larry Fitzmaurice: Did you learn anything from your grandmother as far as growing into being a man?

-Barry Keoghan: I'm good to women. I treat women with a lot of respect. That's probably from being raised by a woman—I hold her responsible for that. I treat women very good. I'd be lost without them. I thought I was going to be a boxer or something like that—I was into sports. When I was acting, I don't know, there was something about it—I can't pinpoint what it was. The perks of it are all great, but there's some other reason why I do it, it's so therapeutic—expression and stuff—so it's along the lines of that. [Irish playwright and filmmaker] Jim Sheridan (In the Name of the Father) was my mentor.

-Barry Keoghan: I'm an amateur boxer in the Celtic Core. It's something I do on the side.  I never got to meet my granddad. He was a doctor, a war vet, and he worked on the docks. Watching those movies of Paul Newman and Marlon Brando reminded me of him, and home, and how people talked to ladies and held their dresses. 

-Larry Fitzmaurice: Your two big roles were very opposed to each other thematically.

-Barry Keoghan: George (Dunkirk) is naïve and innocent, and Martin (The Killing of a Sacred Deer) is completely tormented, so it was fun playing with that range.  Source: geekireland.com