Barry Keoghan facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Barry Keoghan
Keoghan in 2017
Born	(1992-10-18) 18 October 1992 (age 31) Dublin, Ireland
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2011–present
Children	1
Awards	Full list

Barry Keoghan (/ˈkjoʊɡən/ KYOH-gən; born 18 October 1992) is an Irish actor. He has received various accolades, including a BAFTA Award, and has been nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. In 2020, he was listed at number 27 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.

Keoghan began acting in 2011 and gained recognition in 2017 for his roles in Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk and Yorgos Lanthimos's The Killing of a Sacred Deer. He gained praise for his performances in the Irish crime film Calm with Horses (2019) and in the fantasy film The Green Knight (2021). He expanded to big-budget films with his role as Druig in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Eternals (2021). In 2022 he appeared in Martin McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and received nominations for the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Keoghan has since starred in the psychological thriller Saltburn (2023).

He is also known for his television roles, including the RTÉ drama Love/Hate (2013), the HBO miniseries Chernobyl (2019), as well as in the third and final season of the Netflix reboot of Top Boy (2023). Keoghan is an ambassador for Dior and Barretstown.

Early life

Keoghan grew up in Summerhill, Dublin, Ireland. Alongside his brother Eric, he spent seven years in foster care, in 13 different foster homes.

Career

Keoghan started his acting career in 2011 by answering a casting notice in a Sheriff Street shop window for the crime film Between the Canals, portraying Aido in a small role in the film, which was released in 2011. At the age of 18, he appeared in the Irish soap opera Fair City.

In 2013, Keoghan appeared as Wayne on Love/Hate. The role earned Keoghan recognition in Ireland, and he went on to feature in '71 in 2014 and Mammal and Trespass Against Us in 2016.

Keoghan in 2020

Keoghan appeared in two films in 2017. He featured as George Mills in Dunkirk and starred as Martin Lang in The Killing of a Sacred Deer alongside Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman. He won the Irish Film and Television Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in The Killing of a Sacred Deer. The following year, he appeared in Black '47 as Hobson, an English soldier stationed in Ireland during the Great Famine. He also starred in American Animals the same year. He portrayed Spencer Reinhart in the film, based on a real-life theft of rare books from a university library. In 2018, The Hollywood Reporter described Keoghan as "the next big thing" for his film work in the previous three years and in 2019 he was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award.

He appeared in the 2019 mini-series Chernobyl. He starred in an episode of Living With Lucy in September 2019. That same month, Calm With Horses premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. In July 2018, Keoghan was cast as lead character Yorick Brown in the pilot of Y: The Last Man but exited the main series production in February 2020. Keoghan played Druig in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Eternals in November 2021. He also appeared in The Green Knight.

Keoghan appeared in Matt Reeves' film The Batman (2022) credited as "Unseen Arkham Prisoner" and Reeves later confirmed that Keoghan was the Joker. On 24 March 2022, three weeks after the film's release, Warner Bros. released a deleted scene featuring Keoghan's Joker and Robert Pattinson's Batman. Keoghan received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination, and won BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in the 2022 film The Banshees of Inisherin.

In March 2022, Keoghan was announced as the new ambassador for the Barretstown children's charity, and helped open the charity's new Aladina Studio funded by the Spanish Aladina Foundation.

Personal life

Keoghan is an amateur boxer. From 2017 to 2020 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 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 Kierans, a dental nurse and orthodontic therapist, 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. The birth of their son was announced on 8 August 2022. The family moved to Broughty Ferry, Dundee, Scotland in November 2022.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2011	Stand Up	Stand up Bully	Short film
	Between the Canals	Aido
2012	Stalker	Tommy
	King of the Travellers	Young Dublin Lad
2013	Wasted	Ben	Short film
	Life's a Breeze	Pizza Guy
	Stay	Sean Meehan
2014	'71	Sean Bannon
	Standby	Crusty
	North	Aaron	Short film
2015	Norfolk	Boy
	Traders	Ken
	The Break	Sean	Short film
2016	Mammal	Joe
	Trespass Against Us	Windows
	Candy Floss	Shane	Short film
2017	Light Thereafter	Pavel
	The Killing of a Sacred Deer	Martin Lang
	Dunkirk	George Mills
2018	American Animals	Spencer Reinhard
	Black '47	Hobson
2019	Calm With Horses	Dymphna
2021	The Green Knight	Scavenger
	Eternals	Druig
2022	The Batman	The Joker	Cameo
	The Banshees of Inisherin	Dominic Kearney
2023	Saltburn	Oliver Quick
TBA	Bring Them Down	Jack	Post-production
	Untitled Trey Edward Shults film	TBA	Post-production
	Bird	TBA	Filming

Television

Accolades

See also

In Spanish: Barry Keoghan para niños