Bar­ry Keoghan: ​‘I have my own method; I’m still learn­ing and discovering’

Bar­ry Keoghan is some­one who has built a cot­tage indus­try around mak­ing sure that when he’s on the screen, we’re watch­ing intent­ly to see exact­ly what he’ll do next. His ascent through the indus­try came from a place of small sup­port­ing turns, but it wasn’t long before he made a name for him­self as a pro­fes­sion­al scene-steal­er in films such as Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos’ Killing of a Sacred Deer and David Lowery’s The Green Knight. It’s no great shakes to be type­cast because of the inten­si­ty you bring to a role, and it seemed only nat­ur­al that he’d end up play­ing The Jok­er in an upcom­ing Bat­man movie. Yet Andrea Arnold is some­one he’s always want­ed to work with, and he accept­ed his part in Bird with­out even see­ing a script. He plays Bug, a scat­ter­brained young father who’s try­ing to col­lect hal­lu­cino­genic slime from a toad in a bizarre get-rich-quick scheme, but Keoghan makes sure his char­ac­ter is any­thing but a nov­el­ty com­ic relief.

When you pre­pare for a new role, I under­stand you have these lit­tle Mole­sk­ine note­books – what goes in them?

Yeah. So it all start­ed when I would give me granny my Mole­sk­ine about three or four weeks before start­ing a project. And I’d say to her, granny, while you’re sit­ting there watch­ing the tel­ly bin­go, or what­ev­er, could just write some ques­tions down that you would ask this per­son. The ques­tion can be as sil­ly as, do you pre­fer red sauce or brown sauce? Or do you like feckin’ mus­tard? What­ev­er. So she’d hand the book back and, I’m not even mess­ing, there would be like 80 ques­tions, and I’d elab­o­rate on all of them. As part of that process, I’d go back to the script and find out what’s fac­tu­al, what I know about the char­ac­ter. And the rest would be pure imag­i­na­tion and just shap­ing this per­son. It all start­ed from that. I start­ed to make more books and go a bit deep­er, writ­ing about the phys­i­cal­i­ty of the char­ac­ters, and accent and things like that. Then I start­ed to do draw­ings and image walls of peo­ple and loca­tions. Just cre­at­ing that world for myself, and then throw­ing it all away before you going to set.

You throw them away?

Yeah, because you’ve got to be open for col­lab­o­ra­tion and find­ing new things. So chuck­ing the books away, but not too far away. So’s I can still see them.

Your future biog­ra­phers will have so much great material.

It’s the stuff that you don’t get paid for that, iron­i­cal­ly, I enjoy the most. That’s just get­ting to do stuff that I loved to do as a kid: draw­ing; invent­ing char­ac­ters. I’m doing that all right now as I’m step­ping for­ward into Peaky Blind­ers, which is my next one. I’m not gonna give yous all this spiel about being a method actor, but it’s my own method and it’s what gets me by. And I’m always look­ing to learn new meth­ods. Even the likes of Nykiya [Adams, who plays his daugh­ter, Bai­ley, in Bird] on set, see­ing what she brings. There’s an unortho­dox aspect to her approach because she comes from a back­ground where she hasn’t had train­ing – so like me. I’m curi­ous to see why she chose this rather than that; some is instinct but some is just real­ly clever and thought-out. I’m always look­ing for stuff like that, and maybe take that and use it for me going forward.

Did you take Nykiya under your wing?

Yeah, but that wasn’t in front of the cam­era at all. She was out here in Toron­to with me, bless ​’er, and she was incred­i­ble. She han­dled it like a pro. But I just want­ed to be by her side and help her get through things. That’s the kind of stuff that’s been passed on to me. No-one ever real­ly gives tips on act­ing. I don’t think you real­ly can. It’s expres­sive and it comes from with­in. All I did was try and make her feel equal to every­one. She brought a lot more to this than anyone.

Do you feel you ever had any­one who took you under their wing when you were first start­ing out?

Yeah, Col­in [Far­rell] has always been there for me. There’s a bunch of lads who have been there for me. Always sup­port­ing and check­ing in on me. Col­in and Cil­lian [Mur­phy] actu­al­ly. They’ve always checked in. You learn from watch­ing them. No one actu­al­ly tells you any­thing, ​‘You should do this,’ or, ​‘You should do that.’ It’s an unspo­ken thing. You learn from the best. You see how Col­in engages with peo­ple on set and how he has time for every­one and treats every­one with the exact same amount of respect. Watch­ing that as a younger actor, that’s the stuff I want to take in and pass down.

You’ve talked about how you jumped on this oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with Andrea Arnold. Do you recall your first encounter with her work?

Fish Tank. I remem­ber see­ing that and think­ing… cos I grew up in flats sim­i­lar to that. I just remem­ber feel­ing like it was all filmed down the bal­cony from me. I knew that world so well. I want­ed to do that, and I want­ed to be on cam­era for that. I want­ed to have some­one like Andrea with me – and if you look back over past inter­views, I’ve always talked about want­i­ng to work with her, so this isn’t just me say­ing this. I love her doc­u­men­tary-like approach. We stepped into this, and you’d have to look around to find the cam­era. You’d have to remind your­self that you were on set. That to me is a priv­i­lege, rather than every 10 sec­onds hav­ing peo­ple come over and fix every­thing. Peo­ple have their own jobs to do, but self­ish­ly speak­ing, I just loved being in her world. She has this tal­ent and this ener­gy, and peo­ple just trust her. She gets these younger kids, and she draws out these per­for­mances from them… That’s incredible.

You’ve got Rob­bie Ryan’s cam­era mov­ing con­stant­ly in this film. Are you less con­scious of the camera?

Unless they have to get a spe­cif­ic thing, like you pick­ing up a cup, that’s when I’ll have to look for the cam­era. Oth­er than that, I’ve always want­ed to be on the side of, let the cam­era chase me, let the cam­era try and fig­ure out what I’m doing. Film act­ing for me isn’t a show and tell. I want peo­ple ask­ing ques­tions. I don’t wan­na give it away. Some­one actu­al­ly said to me, or maybe I read it, but it was like, treat the cam­era like it’s some­one you’re dat­ing, then play real­ly hard to get. And that involves lots of look­ing away and not mak­ing eye con­tact. Flirt­ing. Even the mum­bling side of it, refus­ing to project, is all part of that.

Pro­ject­ing in that very tra­di­tion­al way is some­thing that’s more vital for the­atre. Have you ever con­sid­ered doing that?

I nev­er took to the stage because – not to speak ill of it – I don’t get that feel­ing I get when the camera’s there. You start and you fin­ish on the same night – I don’t get it. Film is a way to immerse your­self in a world, and with some­one like Andrea, you don’t know what’s going to hap­pen next. I love that.

You men­tioned your method, and I remem­ber see­ing you in Killing of a Sacred Deer and think­ing that you’d embraced some form of very immer­sive and intense prep to get into that role.

I think method is some­times a thing that peo­ple use in the wrong way. They use it as an excuse to be just sil­ly. I’m not going call myself a method actor and get myself on a list with oth­er actors. I have my own method; I’m still learn­ing and dis­cov­er­ing. I like to work on the accent, lis­ten to the music, tuck myself away, be offline, all of that. I doesn’t mean that I’m a method actor. It’s what­ev­er you’re com­fy with.

Were you an avid film watch­er when you were grow­ing up? Were there types of films you were into?

Yeah, there was. I always watched films with Paul New­man and James Dean. Just men back then. I don’t know what I was search­ing for? Maybe it was the absence of a father for me. Just try­ing to get a sense of how men behaved. But it was always old movies. My granny would con­stant­ly be ask­ing why I was putting all these old movies on, but I was fas­ci­nat­ed with them. The Mar­lon Bran­do movies… I went and named my boy Bran­do. I used to go to place called the IFI in Dublin, and they’d show lots of Euro­pean movies.

Sounds like you were more a cin­e­ma guy rather than a DVD-watcher. 

When they let me in. I remem­ber being barred from one cin­e­ma because I used to run up the exit stairs and they caught me. I was just being a lit­tle brat. I actu­al­ly went back to that same cin­e­ma for the pre­mière of Eter­nals and was like, ​‘Oh, guess I’m allowed back in?’

Did they have a Polaroid of your face behind the tills? Do not let this guy in.

I did run up the exit stairs again, just for the cra­ic. One last time. But I love the cin­e­ma. Just being lost in a world for 90 min­utes. I remem­ber going to see [Céline Sciamma’s] Girl­hood as well, and that’s one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.

With your char­ac­ter, Bug, did Andrea have a very spe­cif­ic vision of how he was going to look and dress?

She did. She real­ly knew what she want­ed. This is all com­ing from her mind. It’s a col­lab­o­ra­tion to some extent, but every­thing she brought to it I nev­er had a prob­lem with. The hat – such a genius touch. Hav­ing the lit­tle pad­dy hat. The tat­toos were amaz­ing. Every­thing was very deliberate.

I imag­ine the tat­too-apply­ing process was quite arduous.

I mean… as some­one with ADHD, it’s hard to sit still for two-and-a-half hours. But it does give you a chance to get into it. If you’ve just got the scenes a day or two days before, it gives you a chance to set­tle in before you get on. It wasn’t that trail­er make-up thing of going from a mas­sive trail­er to a set. It was all compact.

Did you go in pub­lic with your big face tat­toos on?

Not real­ly. You real­ly wan­na take them off. The rea­son is quite prac­ti­cal actu­al­ly. It was real­ly sun­ny while we were shoot­ing, so I didn’t real­ly want tan-lines of a big cen­tipede on my face. Just stuff like that. All the tat­toos all rep­re­sent­ed some­thing quite spe­cif­ic. My broth­er has rosary beads on him in real life, and that was on me. These things are all a touch of home.

How did you find the e‑scooter?

The e‑scooter was fun. It’s not my favourite thing to go to. I pre­fer motocross, I do a lot of motocross. I’m famil­iar with being on two wheels.

The Cana­di­an film­mak­er David Cro­nen­berg is into motocross. You can chat bikes if you bump into him at a festival.

Is it about motocross?

No, but he has made films touch­ing on that world in the past.

When I was in LA, I found a great place out there. I was with Axel Hodges, who’s a pro rid­er and he’s bril­liant. Only 28. In San Diego, just get­ting back on the bike for prep for some­thing else, it’s just real­ly great fun. I’ve not seen of any motocross movies ever. Only two weeks ago, I asked Axel if there are any movies on it, or any movies he thinks should be made on it.

Feels like there’s a gap in the mar­ket there.

Total­ly. But you want the motocross to be the back­drop, not the subject.

I under­stand you’re a bit of a gamer. What are you play­ing at the moment?

Yeah, I am. When I can hold atten­tion for more than 20 min­utes, then yeah, I am. I get bored before you get to press the start but­ton. I love to play Poké­mon: Vio­let on Nin­ten­do Switch. And what else? I play Foot­ball Man­ag­er. And I just bought Elden Ring. I got freaked out on the start mis­sion. It’s quite scary. You know when you’re in caves and chat­tin’ to ghosts. I’m like, ​‘Oh Jay­sus, I don’t wan­na be play­ing this.’ I think being alone in the game is tough. You need com­pa­ny, like a lit­tle dog­gie or some­thing. Or a dragon.

It’s one of those games where you have to die a thou­sand times before it clicks.

I think I’ve died so many times it now won’t come back on.