Barry Keoghan's trick to landing huge roles and sacrifice made to play Ringo Starr

You don’t slack on the set of the new film – by order of , according to Irish actor Barry Keoghan.

Speaking ahead of his starring role with fellow countryman Cillian in the film - due out this year - that continues the story of Tommy Shelby and his notorious family of cut-throat gangsters in Birmingham, Barry reveals his co-star’s impressive work ethic.

He says: “There is no slacking for him. And it is not in an intimidating way. It is in a way that he does not settle for less. He has an athlete's approach to it. Cillian is such a legend.”

The new movie, The Immortal Man, is set during the Second World War and also stars Rebecca Ferguson and Tim Roth, along with returning cast members from the hit crime series. Recalling seeing his co-star in Tommy Shelby’s costume at the screen test, Barry, 32, says: “He was more excited to see me in my costume. He was like, ‘Ah man, look at you.’”

Clearly channelling his inner Duke menace (his character in the movie) Barry says of Cillian: “He does not say anything, but you feel it.” And Barry has clearly adopted his co-star’s ethos, by giving it all, when it comes to his latest role as Ringo Starr in the new Beatles movie. For he has sacrificed his other great love after acting - - to play the part.

Playing drummer Ringo, alongside Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney in the new Sam Mendes biopic, he says: “I have boxed for years now. But they will kill me if I go and break my hand. Obviously I can’t miss the drumming.”

Known for his unsettling performances in Saltburn and The Banshees of Inisherin, with Colin Farrell, Barry overcame a tragic childhood to find success as an actor, after his mother died of a heroin overdose when he was just 12. He and his siblings spent many years in foster care, before being brought up by his grandmother.

He has spoken movingly about losing many members of his family to drugs - which became the scourge of his home city of Dublin - saying: “My father passed away as a result of similar and I lost my mum to it. I’ve lost two uncles and a cousin to drugs.”

Sober, after battling his own drink and drug addiction issues, he says the filming schedule for The Beatles movies will be intense - requiring him to be at the top of his game. He says: “It is The Beatles now for the next 15 months at least. It is really focused and committed because it is four movies.”

While people tell him ‘you have made it,’ Barry says: “I will always try and do better. My approach to The Beatles movie is entirely different to anything I have ever done.”

More interested in a career in the ring than on stage when he was younger, Barry only began acting in school plays so he could skip class. By chance one day near the boxing club where he was training, he saw an advert in the window of a shop looking for non-actors – and made the phone call that would change his life.

After winning that part in Between The Canals in 2011, he started applying for Irish dance and drama schools – but was rejected. “I did not get into any. I was lost,” he says. “I had just finished school. It was like having your confidence knocked out.”

Eventually he found a place which would take him. He explains: “The Factory was not an acting school – it was more of a place of pure collaboration and had an experimental approach.”

It was a role in the series Love/Hate in 2013 about organised crime in Dublin that made him famous in Ireland. Again, he took an experimental approach to his acting, adding: “I was doing Love/Hate and I went to Galway and rented an Airbnb. I met these lads and I wanted to learn how these lads walked and talked. Then I went back to Dublin.”

Barry’s ability to portray complex characters landed him his breakout role in The Killing of a Sacred Deer in 2017 with Nicole Kidman, where he tried to learn as much as he could from the box office star. “To go from Love/Hate to Scared Deer was insane,” he recalls. “It was the first time I ever had control (as an actor). Nicole is a genius. “I had a baby-like approach – the way babies look at you and absorb.”

That same year, he gained plaudits for his part in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, working alongside star . Unlike now, the jobbing actor had to audition for his role as a soldier in the Second World War epic. “I did an audition tape for Dunkirk and I remember we had to look at tennis balls to take the attention off what I was saying – and I got the part,” he says.

Having been nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor in 2023 for The Banshees, Keoghan no longer needs to audition for his roles – but he doesn’t take his fame for granted. “Your last work is your best work,” he says. ”A director sometimes needs to be shown (an audition tape). It shows you delivering.”

He still sent in a tape of himself ahead of The Beatles films, because he wanted to make sure he got the part of Ringo Starr. “I might sound a dick, but no (I don't have to audition anymore). But like for The Beatles for example, I grabbed a Ringo clip online and I got some friends in New York to shoot it in black and white in this hotel,” he says.

“I gave my version of it, not to mimic Ringo, I wanted to show that I was committed.” It’s a trick Barry also employed to get a part in the 2022 Joker movie. “I saw that they wanted the Riddler, so I made a short Batman film and got this lady in LA to shoot it. I wanted to make it like Stanley Kubrick and I bought a hat and a cane and walked slowly down the corridor,” he says.

It turned out they’d already cast the Riddler, but four months later Barry did get the Joker part, which sadly ended up on the cutting floor. His commitment to acting means he even named the son he had in August 2022 with his former partner, Alyson Sandro, Brando after The Godfather actor.

More recently linked to singer Sabrina Carpenter, after he appeared in one of her music videos and she described the collaboration as, “One of the best she’s ever had.” Barry says the secret to his acting success is the way he teases the camera with his piercing blue eyes.

“I was always told that you treat the camera like you are playing hard to get. You don’t have to necessarily say anything. The eyes say everything really,” he says.

“I always look at young actors in their first movie or in their second and they have this unstructured approach to it,” he explains. “And then they are told they are an actor – and they get lost and lose their instinct. I always look at that for myself. Every approach, I look at a movie like it is my first movie.”

The boy from the poor streets of Dublin says he has been incredibly “blessed” and now wants to inspire kids from his home city to escape and achieve their dreams.

“I want to make this story of where I came from, and get people on board who are not actors,” he says. “It is encouraging kids to have some sort of faith and belief that no matter where you come from… it shouldn't hold you back.”

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