Locals at actor Barry Keoghan’s favourite pub say they “couldn’t be prouder” of his top award nominations for The Banshees of Inisherin.
Delighted drinkers at The Bridge Tavern in Dublin’s inner-city neighbourhood of Summerhill were this week toasting his BAFTA nod as Best Supporting Actor.
They reckon the homegrown Hollywood star will clean up at the biggest night of them all – the Oscars.
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Nominations aren’t out yet, but 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.
New dad Keoghan might have missed out on a Golden Globe, but there was fresh hope this week with his BAFTA nomination for his sensitive, delicate portrayal of Dominic in the award-winning Martin McDonagh film.
A clip of the heartbreaking lakeside scene – where Dominic asks Kerry Condon’s Siobhan if she could ever love a boy like him – has been shared hundreds of thousands of times.
Movie fans reckon the Dubliner deserves the Oscar for this scene alone.
In real life, Keoghan, 30, is all loved-up and a devoted family man these days.
His Scottish partner Alyson Sandro – a dentist whose dad is from Cavan – gave birth to their first child, Brando, in August last year.
It’s not the first time Keoghan’s been tipped for an Oscar.
In 2017, his breakout character role playing psycho teenager Martin Lang opposite Colin Farrell in Yorgos Lanthimos’ thriller, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, mesmerised critics.
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 rise to the top of his game is even more remarkable considering his tough early years.
Keoghan 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 her death, the brothers moved in with their doting nanny Patricia, a mother-of-10, and family in Summerhill. Keoghan – also nominated for a BAFTA for Calm With Horses in 2019 – said 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 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, he spotted a casting ad in a Sheriff Street shop and pestered film director Mark O’ Connor until he cast him in Between The Canals. A talented boxer, Keoghan also toyed with the idea of life in the ring before his career really took off when he joined The Factory acting school.
Soon, he was making headlines for killing a cat in Love/Hate and the roles have come thick and fast ever since.
Star turns include his role as Marvel superhero Druig opposite Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek and Nicole Kidman.
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 – 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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