Double whammy for Barry with two releases in just seven days

HE’S about to hit our screens in two films in just one week as Barry Keoghan’s heist movie American Animals and Black 47, based in the famine period, are both released at the same time.

But the Dubliner who starred in Dunkirk has admitted he didn’t think director Bart Layton would cast him in American Animals, which is a real tale adapted for the screen.

‘They were after star names,’ the 25-year-old said. But Layton watched Keoghan’s audition tapes and felt the young actor would be ‘instantly believable’ as the Kentucky university student who teams up with ‘bored’ friends to steal priceless manuscripts.

Keoghan laughed when I recounted what Layton had said.

‘Instantly believable is a nice way of saying ugly actors. No, I’m kidding. But I do know there were a bunch of pretty-boy actors after the roles in this film,’ he told me when we met for cold drinks on a scorching day.

The actor keeps a list of directors he hopes to work for on his mobile. ‘Even if I’m turned down by someone on the list, I don’t get mad, because I feel we’ll bump into each other again.’

Meanwhile, Downton Abbey star Jim Carter and his award-winning wife Imelda Staunton will both appear in the Downtown Abbey film — but class will keep them apart.

Carter will play retired Crawley family butler Carson, now married to housekeeper Mrs Hughes (played by Phyllis Logan): characters from ‘below stairs’.

Ms Staunton, however, will be ‘upstairs’ — playing the Earl of Grantham’s cousin.