Barry’s NAKED ambition
He’s one of Hollywood’s hottest properties and Barry Keoghan’s nude Vanity Fair appearance is just the latest in a line of controversial photoshoots
JUST as he did in his hit movie Saltburn, Dublin actor Barry Keoghan is flashing his pert posterior again. The actor is one of 11 stars featured in the annual Vanity Fair Hollywood edition including A-listers Bradley Cooper, Natalie Portman, Jenni Ortega, Pedro Pascal and Jodi Comer.
In print, the glossy magazine features Keoghan as the final figure in the stellar line-up fully clothed, but in a video to promote the edition he reprises the nudity of the closing scene in Saltburn, in which he dances with uninhibited abandon.
That daring dance went viral, inspiring newspaper pieces, TikTok parodies and multiple memes while elevating Keoghan into an unconventional icon.
For the Vanity Fair reel, he appears staring over his shoulder in the buff, his hands cupped around his credentials with a sly smile, before pivoting teasingly towards the camera and then away.
The cover is a major coup for Keoghan and a mark of the esteem he has earned in the US. A place in the Vanity Fair Hollywood edition is coveted and campaigned for, and one of the indications that an actor’s ascent is assured.
Keoghan has also managed to achieve this spot among the stars in an accelerated timeframe. It is only nine years since his breakthrough role as Wayne the chilly cat killer in Love Hate (2013) and seven since his first international film role as Martin in The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (2017). In 2023, he won Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role at the BAFTAs for The Banshees of Inisherin. He was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Banshees at the Oscars and the Golden Globes in 2023, while this year he was nominated for Best Actor for Saltburn at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs. At present he sits atop IMDB’s Starmeter, a pinnacle that reflects his charisma, talent and ‘it’ factor.
While Keoghan is enjoying his new fame, he acknowledges that it is a lot to deal with.
‘It’s new for me, man,’ he told
Vanity Fair in the accompanying interview. ‘It’s quite a scary one as well, because I’m not used to this much attention. It’s overwhelming if I’m quite honest. It’s almost a different kind of life that you’ve got to be living now. I just want to make movies and fecking play parts and work with filmmakers, and not focus on this noise too much.’
He also admits to being quite starstruck when he meets other actors, especially his heroes like Joaquin Phoenix.
Vanity Fair is not the only glossy title to feature Keoghan this month. W Magazine has the actor in one of a series of Director’s Issue covers, as a vampire in full make-up and a suit of armour.
Art directed by Emerald Fennell and titled, ‘Lucky For You, I’m a Vampire’ the shoot is inspired by a salacious line Keoghan delivers in Saltburn.
Inside the magazine Keoghan is shown wearing sequins while eating a pig’s heart smeared in blood, bathing in a bath of blood wearing PVC gloves and a pearl choker and quaffing a mug resplendent in a red apron, while a corpse (actually Fennell) protrudes from behind a door.
The entire shoot is darkly tongue in cheek and representative of Saltburn’s disconcerting humour.
In an accompanying interview, Fennell is effusive about her leading man .
‘If Barry had changed his mind and said, “I don’t want the dance scene at the end to be in the movie,” I would have got rid of it,’ she said. ‘But that’s why Barry’s remarkable. He wants to be at the sharp end, always. He only finds it interesting there, and that’s how I feel too.’
No doubt the shoots will add to the buzz around the actor and amplify his heartthrob status. As one of a wave of what he calls ‘fecking goodlooking lads’ — including Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal and Oscar favourite Cillian Murphy — currently achieving international movie stardom, it seems that sexy Irish leading men are Hollywood’s latest hot crush.
IT IS AN INDICATION THAT AN ACTOR’S ASCENT IS ASSURED