Barry Keoghan has reflected on growing up in the foster care system, admitting that it’s left him with “a lot of problems with trust.”
The 32-year-old Irish actor has been outspoken about his childhood, which saw him and his brother moved around to different foster homes as their mother struggled with drug addiction. She died of a heroin overdose when Keoghan was 12.
During an appearance on the latest episode of James Corden’s This Life of Mine podcast, the Saltburn star discussed how the foster care system “starts to affect you as you grow up.”
“I had a lot of problems with trust, never trusted love, never trusted that someone wanted to know me, or, let’s say, be a friend, for instance,” he said.
His comments come amid reports that he and pop star Sabrina Carpenter have split after a year of dating.
“You don’t trust the process of anything,” Keoghan continued. “You have a problem with attachment and abandonment, all of these things that I’ve been working on for many years with several therapists.”
He said he always “questioned” those who got close to him. “You’re hard-wired differently,” he said of those who grew up in the care system. “You have to really be aware and be brutally honest with yourself to work on these things, and then having a child myself, these things come into play.”
Keoghan is a father to two-year-old son Brando, whom he welcomed with his ex-partner Alyson in August 2022.
“What do I show my child. Usually people have something to draw from, they have a blueprint or they have some sort of experience from their father, but I have none,” he added.
After describing himself as “quite guarded,” he said: “I’m working through trust, I really am.”
Keoghan also said he began looking for “traits of being a man” in those around him, including in his Banshees of Inisherin co-star Colin Farrell.
“I’ve always got close to men figures in my life, and they became sort of father figures to me, Colin Farrell and people like that that have massive hearts and look out for you, I tend to lean towards them a lot,” he added.
In 2023, Keoghan earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the Oscars for his role as Dominic Kearney in Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy, The Banshees of Inisherin. He went on to win the Bafta prize for the role.
Keoghan is currently vying for another Academy Award nod for his supporting performance in the newly released coming-of-age movie Bird, from director Andrea Arnold.
Bird, which is out in theaters now, has received rave reviews from critics, with The Independent’s Clarisse Loughry heaping praise on Keoghan’s “charismatic and incredibly sad” portrayal of single father Bug.
