Barry Keoghan was born on 18 October 1992 and is an Irish actor.
Keoghan grew up in Summerhill, Dublin, Ireland. Alongside his brother Eric, he spent seven years in foster care, in 13 different foster homes. As a child, Keoghan appeared in school plays in the O’Connell School on Dublin’s North Richmond Street, but was banned for “messing about”. He cites he got his film education from sneaking into films with pals at Cineworld, Parnell Street, from which he eventually got barred.
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, portaying Aido in a small role in the film, which was released in 2011. He then studied acting at The Factory, a local Dublin acting school. He didn’t even have the money to get the bus to the place at the time. The same year, 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 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. 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 robbery of rare books from a university library.
He appears 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. 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”, though Reeves himself later confirmed that Keoghan was the Joker. On March 24, 2022, three weeks after the film’s release, Warner Bros. released a deleted scene featuring Keoghan’s Joker and Robert Pattinson’s Batman.
Keoghan is an amateur boxer. 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.
