Barry Keoghan has a tragic backstory. His father was not in the picture, and his mother was an addict who died of an overdose. He lived in 13 foster homes before being taken in by his grandmother. He worked his ass off and he received an Oscar nomination last year. He also welcomed a son, Brando, with his now-ex-girlfriend Alyson Sandro. Barry has spent more time in LA than Ireland in recent years, which has not gone down well back in Ireland. He’s spent much of the past year in a relationship with Sabrina Carpenter, although they likely broke up a month ago and are already back together. Because of that relationship and because he was spending more time in LA, he basically went months and months without seeing or visiting his son. All of this is backstory for Barry admitting that he has no idea what a “normal” father-son relationship looks like.

Barry Keoghan is opening up about his own experiences as a parent. The Saltburn alum stars in director Andrea Arnold’s Bird (in theaters Nov. 8) about the fraught relationship between 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) and her single father Bug (Keoghan). The actor said he drew on his own real-life experiences growing up, and as a father now, for his portrayal.

“I’ll just say this — I didn’t have a father figure growing up, so even my relationship with my son isn’t quite of the normal father-son relationship,” Keoghan told Entertainment Weekly at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, “because I don’t have that figure to draw experience from and to base it on. Love, you don’t need anything to draw from, love is pure, and so I’m not on about that, but I’m on about little stuff like teaching your son this or teaching your daughter that.”

Keoghan welcomed his first child Brando in August 2022 with ex-girlfriend Alyson Sandro, and he said his own version of parenthood had a major impact on his performance in Bird.

“Going into this, I didn’t have that [normal experience], so it’s a very brother-sister kind of chemistry going on [for Bug and Bailey], which I felt was right for it,” he said. “And you see that these days — there’s a lot of young fathers out there and young mothers and they’re almost like sibling-like, you know what I mean? Which is beautiful.”

[From EW]

I think acknowledging the dysfunction is a start to breaking the cycle. It’s important that Barry can acknowledge and talk about the fact that he didn’t grow up with a father and he never had anyone role-modeling healthy family dynamics in his life. In an ideal world, he probably would have worked on himself and worked on breaking certain patterns before he brought a son into the world. But here we are. He’s back in his son’s life and I guess he’s trying to figure it out in his own way. It seems obvious, but I do have to point out the sexism at play here – a celebrity woman would never be able to ghost her child for months at a time and then dip back in with a shrug.

Photos courtesy of Barry’s IG, Avalon Red.