Barry Keoghan on Lemonade: a personal film about Ireland’s foster-care experience

The useful part

Barry Keoghan on His 'Very, Very Personal' New Film | GQ Skip to main content Save this story Save this story "You want to know which Beatle I play, huh?" Barry Keoghan says. Ringo, his response is mysterious and mischievous: "Do you, though?" The 33-year-old actor's disposition is notably upbeat, even as we discuss Lemonade, a devastating independent drama about the foster care system in Ireland. A lot of the cast and crew, including you, have spent time in the foster care system.

How it works

• One thing that really resonated with me and really got me was I remember those car journeys of being in the back [myself], and social workers bringing me to the new home or back to the office to 'rehouse',...
• It's something I've always thought about as well—how much you can affect and push someone's life and anchor them as well.
• I loved Kim's work beforehand and I knew her, so it did feel really right and it was very personal, so I just wanted to put my own production company on it and executive-produce it as well and have a...
• Then also getting to work with [cinematographer] Greig Fraser and learning more about the camera, and the Super 8 stuff that I'm doing as well on set, which is so incredible.
• It's a playground, of watching the master classes across the board in every department.

What to take from it

To embody all of those [people] and give back in that way—I was just digging deep because I remember them being very gentle and caring figures to me when I didn't have those parental figures around. You couldn't be at TIFF for Lemonade 's premiere because you're in the middle of filming the Beatles movies with Sam Mendes. Shane O'Connor/Courtesy of Lemonade Films But it was just important because [with] Wolfcub Productions, a production company I started with my friend Dessie Byrne, I want to follow the path of Element Pictures and Lucky Chap and work with new directors and new writers and have a place where we can take on scripts.

Example or evidence

• Yeah, those parts of the script and moments in the script, especially the moments when Lewis's character is his younger self [in flashbacks], and he's in the back seat.
• I always remember the stickers on the back window and having a Pink Panther teddy with me and always looking up at the moon.
• Obviously I didn't know it was cliché then or a common phrase, but "your moon is my moon" was the kind of thing that was drilled into me.
• So there's moments like that—just even looking back in the car seat and back in that scene and being beside him, it really got me.

Details worth keeping

Funny enough, that shop window is Lewis's auntie's shop window. So it's quite a full circle moment to be honest. I've touched on it before and I'm quite open about it.

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