Dublin actor Barry Keoghan is going from strength to strength with his career with his latest role in The Banshees of Inisherin alongside fellow stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, and patrons at his favourite pub in the capital say they "couldn't be prouder."
Barry Keoghan, 30, is well-known for popping into The Bridge Tavern in Dublin’s inner-city neighbourhood of Summerhill, and this week bar locals were toasting his BAFTA nod as Best Supporting Actor. Now locals reckon that the talented Dub is in with a chance to clean up at the biggest night of them all at the Oscars.
While nominations are not out just yet for the Oscars, Paddy Power ranks him in the top four at 10/1 to win in March for his performance as Dominic in The Banshees, alongside Colin Farrell. Many fans have hailed Keoghan's sensitive, delicate portrayal of Dominic in the award-winning Martin McDonagh film.
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A clip of the heartbreaking lakeside scene from The Banshees of Inisherin, where Dominic (Keoghan) asks Kerry Condon’s Siobhan if she could ever love a boy like him, has been shared hundreds of thousands of times on the internet by delighted fans, who are hopeful that he might scoop up the Oscar for his part.
In real life, Keoghan is a family man with partner Alyson Sandro, a dentist whose dad is from Cavan, and they welcomed a baby son Brando together last August.
Keoghan has previously been tipped for an Oscar before in his 2017 role playing psycho teenager Martin Lang opposite Colin Farrell in Yorgos Lanthimos’ thriller, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, which received acclaim from critics. At the time it prompted the Hollywood Reporter to label him the industry’s Next Big Thing and include him in its Top 20 Rising Stars under 35 list. At the time, Keoghan told the press: “I want to win three Oscars in three different categories.
“It’s that attitude of I won’t ever settle with what I’ve done. I’ll never go, ‘That’s me, I’ve done great there’. I can always do better.”
Keoghan's success in his acting career is even more remarkable considering his tough early years, when he and younger brother Eric were moved between 13 foster homes before they lost their beloved mum to a heroin overdose when Keoghan was just 12. After their mum's death, the two brothers moved in with their doting nanny Patricia, a mother-of-10, and family in Summerhill.
Keoghan, who was also nominated for a BAFTA for Calm With Horses in 2019 , aid last year: “I had a mission there of trying to prove something... I used to think, ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if I ended it in Hollywood, given everything that’s been dealt’.
“There was a fight and the commitment to try prove people wrong.” Keoghan first got the acting bug while at O’Connell School, where he did a play, My Babysitter Is An Alien.
A few years after moving in with his grandmother, Keoghan spotted a casting ad in a Sheriff Street shop and pestered film director Mark O’ Connor until he cast him in Between The Canals. Also being a talented boxer, Keoghan considered a life in the ring before his career really took off when he joined The Factory acting school.
Last year Keoghan’s brief cameo in The Batman and a five-minute deleted scene later released online, in which he played a demented Joker taunting Batman in Arkham Asylum, greatly impressed fans. In interviews, Barry talks a lot about his list, where he jots down wish lists of directors and actors he’d like to work with and they keep turning up offering him gigs.
He even had a screenshot of McDonagh on his phone “vision board” that he used to look at every day. Then, in March 2020, Farrell rang him to say McDonagh had a part for him in Banshees.
Keoghan got sick and missed rehearsals for The Banshees of Inisherin and has since revealed his giddy, twitchy take on Dominic wasn’t in the script at all. They were traits he discovered once he got into the character.
Another magical “manifestation” happened last year when Keoghan became an ambassador for children’s charity Barretstown. Clea Newman – daughter of actor Paul Newman, who founded the charity – gave him a framed letter, thanking him for his work. Keoghan – who says a prayer to his late mother before every audition – later told how growing up he had a poster of Newman on his wall.
In between movies, Keoghan still boxes competitively and even finds time to help Sandro’s brothers with their building business. And since settling down into domestic bliss in London with his new family –including his Czech Shepherd Koda – Keoghan has his priorities straight.
When Sandro posted on Instagram heaping praise on Keoghan in the run-up to the Golden Globes, he responded on Instagram with a cute photo of the couple and a simple message that read: “I have already WON with you.”
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