Bel Powley & Douglas Booth take Greg Williams to the pub.
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Bel Powley & Douglas Booth take Greg Williams to the pub.
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS
As told to JANE CROWTHER
Greg Williams travels to Dublin with Barry Keoghan as they explore the actor’s tough childhood and the challenging moments that shaped him.
As we hang out in a suite at a luxury Merrion Hotel in Dublin in early March, Barry Keoghan is reminding me of another time, over a year ago, when we were together at the Governor’s Ball in LA. ‘That was different back then, wasn’t it?’ he says. It certainly was. Back then, Keoghan was racing around the world in a blur of promotion and awards season, seemingly having the time of his life. But today, he reveals that not everything was all as it seemed. I’ve known Barry for a number of years, and discussed a deep-dive interview like this one many times, but as his trajectory rose with affecting and nuanced performances in films such as Dunkirk, American Animals, The Banshees of Inisherin and Saltburn, the opportunity to talk properly became more difficult. And so did his personal life. Now, back home in Ireland and fighting fit, Barry wants to take me on a tour of his city and the formative places he grew up, and on that journey I discover heartbreaking moments that inform his acting and the past that coalesced in a moment when he realised he had to change how he was living.
I ice the face because Paul Newman used to do it
Before we hit the road, Barry ices his face in the bathroom sink. ‘I ice the face because Paul Newman used to do it,’ he explains with a cheeky smile before blasting the hairdryer. He’s been to sportswear store JD Sports to pick out hoodies and trainers like he used to wear as a kid and is revelling in the time-travel aspect of this as his younger brother, Eric, joins us, along with his old friend, Taylor. The hotel, Barry notes, is on the same square as Dublin’s Natural History Museum. ‘There’s more history in this room, here, than there is out there,’ Barry says fondly. We’re going to delve into that history on this trip.
We all set off with Barry’s trusted driver, Niall, to tour around the spots in Dublin that formed the 32-year-old actor. It’s a bright sunny day as the brothers discuss where they should start. As the kids of a mother who died from heroin addiction, they spent many years of their childhood in and out of foster homes, and we pass the foster care office near Croke Park where they used to be picked up by a series of new foster parents (the brothers lived in 14 different homes between the ages of five and nine). On the way, we drive past a murky body of water, Dublin’s quay, and the actor laughs. ‘We used to jump in over there. We all got this green shit coming out of here [he indicates to his ear]. We went to the doctor. The doctor was like, “Are you jumping into the quay as well?” Everyone had green pus…’
When we get to a spot overlooking the 80,000-seater Croke Park football stadium in the north of the city, we get out of the car to take a look. Barry is good at soccer and boxing, but Gaelic football isn’t his thing. ‘I don’t have the patience for it. Just kick the ball, will you?’ he chuckles. He looks down on the streets surrounding the stadium. ‘This area, it shaped me. Sheriff Street and East Wall. This is all Dublin One. Up there, where Croke Park is, that’s my area. But this is the docklands. My granddad used to live down here, in all of these areas. I’ve spent many times down here – many nights, many fights. Yeah, it’s amazing, this place.’ Barry’s grandfather was a dockworker who died at 54, leaving behind 10 children and a wife, Barry’s beloved nannie, Patty, who we’ll be meeting with later.
It’s where I started my acting. Then they banned me from doing plays because I was bold. Misbehaving. Whatever you want to call it
We jump back into the car to head down to Croke Park, past a house Barry used to live in with his mum as a little child, the flats he stayed in later as a teen, the church he got communion in and his former primary and secondary school, O’Connell. ‘It’s where I started my acting. Then they banned me from doing plays because I was bold. Misbehaving. Whatever you want to call it.’ We stop at the school and get out of the car for a look around, with Barry pointing out the PE hall where he performed in drama, the area he liked to play football. ‘This is where I did my first Christmas play. It was Oliver!,’ he recalls as the deputy headteacher comes out of the building to greet him. Barry’s presence soon brings more well wishers who want photos with the former pupil. ‘Local boy done good,’ says a teacher proudly. ‘He’s an inspiration to all the kids around here. For everyone around here.’ ‘If we only knew that when he was here!’ jokes another. It’s clear to me that Barry was a handful. He starts talking about schoolyard fights. I ask him how many he had. ‘150!’ How many did you win? ‘160!’ Barry happily takes pictures with staff and pupils. ‘It wasn’t like this when I was here,’ he laughs. ‘I’d be getting told to leave!’
When we can tear ourselves away, Barry talks about the daft things he’d get up to as a kid and regales me with tales of mischief. We walk down a street that he tells me is infamous for shootings where local rule means that those not from there are not allowed. ‘You wouldn’t get in, Greg,’ Eric nods. I feel safe in their presence. ‘This street has a lot of history,’ Barry says. ‘Stephen Gately [from Boyzone] came up there, and Colin Farrell, Jim Sheridan, the filmmaker. The boxer Kellie Harrington, The footballer Troy Parrott – I mean, there’s loads of talent. I played football for Sheriff Youth Club.’ His friend, Taylor, knows Barry from those days. ‘We got to know each other through youth clubs,’ Barry explains. ‘We’re kind of similar but from different areas. But our mums passed early. So we have similar backgrounds, and we’re both into acting. We just stayed close. We’d stand there together on this tower, that I’m going to show you, at four in the morning, just talking about how proud our mothers would be, and just talking about ringing Colin Farrell…’ He later got to act opposite the fellow Irishman in The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Banshees of Inisherin. Farrell has, he says, ‘always been there. Even now, through the tough times and good times. And so has Cillian [Murphy].’
The next day we travel to Nannie’s home, where he and Eric lived from the age of nine. Niall picks us up again and Barry tells me about their special relationship, which extends beyond Niall merely piloting his car. Having had a meteoric rise after a starmaking turn in Irish indie film Between the Canals in 2010, Barry went on to high-profile projects with storied directors: Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, Bart Layton’s American Animals, David Lowery’s The Green Knight, Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin (which netted him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor), Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn. He tore up the small screen in Top Boy and Masters of the Air and wowed Cannes with Bird. His career could not have been going better. And in his personal life he welcomed a baby boy, Brando, in August 2022. But Barry was privately struggling. He is open about his quest for sobriety. ‘Niall literally drove me and put me on a plane himself, came with me and brought me to the rehab in England. I went back to visit. It was nice to see the staff again, and for them to see the change in me. They were quite emotional about it. I’m forever grateful. When I say that Niall is the best, I mean it, because no one else put me on the plane, by the hand, literally got on the plane with me.’
This street has a lot of history. Stephen Gately [from Boyzone] came up there, and Colin Farrell, Jim Sheridan, the filmmaker. The boxer Kellie Harrington, The footballer Troy Parrott – I mean, there’s loads of talent
As we drive, Barry tells me about skipping school and the trouble he got into as a teen, the youth clubs that used to feed him and his brother when they’d missed meals at home. ‘It was a full circle yesterday, seeing that teacher come out from school,’ he admits. ‘But I don’t think acting got nurtured enough. When I said I wanted to be an actor, I wasn’t taken seriously. It was more like, “OK, we’re going to send you to study drama and all that.” I went, “But that’s not what I want to do. I want to do practical. I don’t feel you can learn acting.” And that was always the Plan B to them. They were like, “But what’s your Plan A?” I was like, “That is my Plan A. I don’t have a Plan B.” It was such a far reach for people to think of me being an actor.’
As a kid, living with his nannie after unstable years in and out of foster homes, Barry dreamt of acting while watching classics. ‘I’d watch these movies at my nannie’s at night-time like Cool Hand Luke and Marlon Brando movies. That was my way of learning behaviour from men. Because I didn’t have a father figure. I was looking at these men, and how they behaved. I was very fixated on how they just moved, and had composure. I didn’t have someone in the house showing me how to shave, or saying, “Don’t punch someone in the balls.” I had an uncle, Alan – he passed away. Heroin. He was my nannie’s boy. He was very present for us for a good few years. He was my mum’s brother. But he passed away. He was only 40. He had an overdose.’
Downstairs is the only bit of light I feel left here for me. It’s that bulb downstairs, which is my nannie and that
Barry’s grandmother lost three of her 10 children to drugs. His mother, Debbie, the second youngest, was tragically one of them. In the wake of that seismic event, Barry was a kid dealing with grief and poverty, looking for a way to act. He found it one day, in an ad in a shop window. ‘Kathleen’s is a shop where I’d seen my first acting notice,’ he explains as he urges Niall to drive to the shop. Standing outside, near to a statue in remembrance of those who have died from heroin, Barry shivers slightly in the crisp air. ‘I used to come from my youth club. My boxing club was there. So I came here, and I’d seen it. It basically said they were looking for non-actors. They were looking for kids who have scramblers and bikes. I took the number. I literally went and rang it up on my nannie’s phone. I remember the call saying, “Yeah, yeah. We’re just waiting on finance.” I was like, “What does that even mean?” I was just ringing it because you’d get paid 120 Euros. But I knew I wanted to try it. I was like, “I could be in a movie.”’
I’d watch these movies at my nannie’s at night-time like Cool Hand Luke and Marlon Brando movies. That was my way of learning behaviour from men. Because I didn’t have a father figure
He got his wish. A role as a Sheriff Street kid in crime drama Between the Canals kicked off a career and eventually took him away from here. We travel on, past the chip shop, and a meeting with two local women who stop us to tell Barry all the news. We pass the youth club he, his brother and Taylor used to go to, the disused old folks’ home where they used to camp out, the house doors they used to kick, playing ‘knick-knack’ (a version of Doorbell Ditch or Knock Down Ginger); ‘We used to run along and kick every single door, and get chased.’ We arrive at the block of flats where they lived for a while. ‘Come on, into the tower,’ Barry invites as he ducks into a stairwell, a wide spiral staircase leading up to each floor of his block. ‘I used to look out here in the morning,’ he says, peering through a window across the city. ‘I sprayed my name here. Baz…’
We arrive at the boys’ nannie’s house where they are both greeted with delight and hugs. Barry sits next to his nannie to catch up on local gossip and she sings us all an Irish song to great praise, before he shows me round the flat. It’s a two-bedroom but at one time had 12 people living under the roof when the Keoghan brothers finally arrived after more than a year of social services vetting. Barry leads me upstairs to the room he used to sleep in. His aunt has handed him his mum’s diary, which she journalled in most nights in the days leading up to her death in 2003, after a period in rehab. He’s seen photos of it before but never held it. He opens it carefully. He reads some of the entries aloud from it. One reads: ‘Well, tonight went okay for me so I hope I have the strength to not touch anything tomorrow.’ It’s heartbreaking. ‘I got to read that at Christmas. I sent a picture to my brother, because he was in rehab over Christmas. I sent him that picture of her last page. I said, “Just look at that. You’ve got a chance now.” You can feel the pain in this.’
I got to read that [his mum’s diary] at Christmas. I sent a picture to my brother, because he was in rehab over Christmas. I sent him that picture of her last page. I said, ‘Just look at that. You’ve got a chance now.’ You can feel the pain in this
He looks around the room. ‘We had bunk beds. We had a PlayStation… I’d always leave that window open, because I loved the noise of all the fighting outside, and all the windows going through, and the fucking arguments you hear. That, for me, would be peaceful. Actually, I might stay here tonight.’ He calls down the stairs, asking if he can stay. His cousin, Gemma, who now lives in the room, shouts no, it’s her room. He laughs. His mum’s diary makes him think about addiction again. ‘I remember being kids here and hearing my mum scream through the letterbox, asking for us, while she’s battling addiction, while she’s looking for money to score. And we were just told to stay in bed. We weren’t to go down and hug her.’ His honesty and pain brings tears to my eyes and I tell him so. I can’t imagine my own child going through this.
‘I’m not in denial anymore. I understand that I do have an addiction, and I am an addict. You know, when you accept that, you finally can move on, and learn to work with it.
I apologise too, mainly to myself more than anything else for all the pain I’ve put people and myself through
‘My father passed away as a result of similar and I lost my mum to it. I’ve lost two uncles and a cousin to drugs. That should be enough to go, “OK, if I dabble here, I’m fucked.” But your curiosity is a powerful thing. Sometimes it’s beneficial, and sometimes it’s detrimental. For me, it was detrimental. Even my own son coming into this world didn’t stop me from being curious. You know, you go to LA, you go to Hollywood, wherever the big scene is. There’s an enormous amount of pressure, and a different lifestyle that is good and bad for you. You’re around the scene. You just happen to be the one that ends up doing it.’ He pulls up his sleeves to show me marks on his arms from injuries sustained while high. ‘I’ve got scars here to literally prove it. They’re a result of using. I’m at peace now, and responsible for everything that I do. I’m accepting. I’m present. I’m content. I’m a father. I’m getting to just see that haze that was once there – it’s just a bit sharper now, and colourful.’ I tell Barry I’ve seen a huge change in him. ‘Thanks man. I feel like I’ve arrived. I apologise, too, mainly to myself more than anything else for all the pain I’ve put people and myself through.’
“Downstairs is the only bit of light I feel left here for me. It’s that bulb downstairs, which is my Nannie and that. But there’s amazing people around here who have suffered a lot… I just want people to get an insight into where I come from. I’m very proud to carry that, and for people out in the acting world and the industry to understand that there’s a lot weighing on this.’
He puts the diary away, carefully, reverentially, and we go back downstairs to the lounge filled with chatter and warmth. I ask Eric what kind of brother Barry was growing up. ‘We were partners. But when push came to shove, he would be my protector. He still is. I look to him as a father figure type of thing. And he’s helped me. When we were kids [social services] tried to separate me and Barry because no one wants to take two kids together. It was complex but they kept us together… We were inseparable for years. Even when it came to fighting. If one of us was fighting, the other person would be fighting as well’.
When I said I wanted to be an actor, I wasn’t taken seriously. It was more like, ‘OK, we’re going to send you to study drama and all that.’ I went, ‘But that’s not what I want to do. I want to do practical… That is my Plan A. I don’t have a Plan B’
Barry kisses his Nannie goodbye and we go outside to the balcony that runs along the flats, where he used to climb up when locked out of the main front door at the bottom of the building. ‘I’d climb onto other people’s balconies that had parties.’ He clambers over the side now for old time’s sake and tells me how everyone used to know where he lived from the green scuff marks on his trainers from scaling the green-painted railings. Everyone knows where he’s from now, greetings are shouted across the flats, balconies and from the street. ‘Baz’ from Summerhill waves back.
We head back out into the street, where Barry meets old friends, a long-lost cousin and kids he used to grow up with. They discuss their lives before we head back into central Dublin to the Cineworld Cinema where he spent many hours dreaming in front of the screen. ‘This is the main cinema I used to go to, on the mitch [ditching] from school. Every week. Like twice a week.’ He points out a side door where he used to sneak in, when he’d run out of money to pay. He backs up to the door, looks around, kicks the door open and dashes up the stairs to illustrate. Back in the day he got caught and was eventually barred. ‘I remember coming to the Dunkirk premiere, and getting in here, and them not knowing that I was in the film. They were like, “You’re not allowed in.” I said, “It’s my movie, though.” They were like, “No, no. You’re not allowed in.” It was a whole thing… It was just a turning point for me.’ He notes a poster featuring Robert Pattinson and an action figure of Chris Hemsworth as Thor in the lobby. ‘All the people in the cinema now, I know,’ he marvels. ‘I just worked with him,’ he says, pointing at Hemsworth.
I just want people to get an insight into where I come from. I’m very proud to carry that, and for people out in the acting world and the industry to understand that there’s a lot weighing on this
As we walk through the shopping centre, Barry is approached by fans asking for pictures. He gives them gladly. I ask at what point he felt he was truly an actor. ‘I think [aged] 24. Dunkirk and Sacred Deer. I was starting to really work with really strong filmmakers.’ Those experiences have shaped what he wants to make going forward. He’s currently prepping to play Ringo Starr for Sam Mendes’ quartet of Beatles biopics. ‘I’m trying to let my hair grow for The Beatles, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘I’ve been drumming for five months. I’ve got a lot of similarities to Ringo. You know, his story is absolutely beautiful. I felt he was always an outsider trying to get in, even with the lads. I can resonate with that. He always wanted approval, and – almost – to be loved. It’s heartbreaking, the script that I read. It’s gorgeous.’
He tells me that he always immerses himself in a character to prepare for a role, namechecking actors such as Daniel Day Lewis, Christian Bale, Marlon Brando and Ben Mendelsohn as artists he admires. ‘Now that I’m in a healthy place I can constructively go to places, creatively and artistically, in a way that I couldn’t before. I can leave it there and put it to bed rather than erratically reaching for some sort of raw emotion to bring to the screen and not knowing what to do with it afterwards. I always took it seriously, but now I’m able to really constructively go there, to a place that I’m at peace with. I’m constantly trying to elevate as an actor and to prove myself. I always say the only person that stands in my way – and this is for everything, not only acting or performances – is myself, when self-doubt creeps in. I put my own obstacles in place. No one else is responsible for me achieving or getting to a place of contentness or success. The only person that is responsible for that is me, and I’ve learned that in the course of sobriety.’
He’s also part of the cast of Crime 101, where he worked alongside Hemsworth, Halle Berry, Monica Barbaro and Mark Ruffalo for his American Animals director, Bart Layton. And in May, he’ll appear in Abel Tesfaye’s (AKA The Weeknd) psychological thriller, Hurry Up Tomorrow, inspired by the singer’s January-released album. Keoghan and Jenna Ortega will play characters orbiting a fictionalised version of Tesfaye as he struggles with fame, expectation and existential crisis.
‘I play Lee, his manager,’ Barry explains. ‘It’s taking The Weeknd, with his name and who he is, and looking into the life of Abel – the madness, the pressures. We’re getting an insight into an artist of his calibre, fame and stature. It’s not all glitz and glamour, or what it seems to be. It can even be a little tougher because you’re trying to remain private, and live up to this mythical name, and this legendary status, and you can’t show any weakness or any vulnerabilities. The film humanises him – and getting to work alongside him, I got to see him go to places that not a lot of people go to, or try to reach. It’s looking at what we can all relate to as not only artists, but as humans. But for anyone involved in the industry, we certainly will be able to relate to it. Definitely.’ Will it make fans think about how they interact with artists? ‘Yeah, artists and actors and musicians – we do have feelings.’ Working with a music phenomenon like Tesfaye must have also been great prep for playing Ringo. Barry laughs. ‘Definitely! Getting to hang out with him, and go over and eat dinner with him on Christmas Day, and to chill out, and then see the world and how they see Abel. And what I want to bring forward in playing Ringo is the humanising aspect. Have I met him? Not yet. I do plan on it. But he’s such a legend.’ He mentions how Starr accidentally announced that Barry was playing him before official confirmation was made. ‘That was such a Barry thing to do, letting that news out,’ he chuckles. ‘That’s why I think we’re kind of perfect in that world together.’ The proper announcement came at Las Vegas Cinemacon after we meet in Dublin. I ask Barry a few weeks later how the experience was of standing as the Fab Four on stage with Paul Mescal (Paul), Harris Dickinson (John) and Joseph Quinn (George). ‘We all had a moment backstage and it was so, so beautiful. It was such an exciting thing, to step out and be announced as The Beatles.’
For now, he’s wrapped on the upcoming Peaky Blinders film and flexing his producing muscles with his production company, Wolfcub, with his old friend and producer, Desmond Byrne. ‘It’s called Wolfcub, because Keoghan means “wolf cub” in Irish,’ he smiles. The company is co-producing a prequel to Top Boy, set in Dublin and opening up the background of the character he previously played in the show. ‘I felt the character had more to talk about, and more to say. To show you that these boys that you met today – just even one or two – they have charm, and they look innocent. But there’s an edge there, you know? I wanted to do that with the character.’ Wolfcub is also producing Billy the Kid with Ed Guiney, and a Manchester United project. ‘Ed Guiney’s Element Pictures, and Josey and Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap – they’re the sort of companies I want to follow, making good quality, really well-written movies with strong filmmakers.’
As we walk further we discuss social media – something Barry once embraced but has recently deactivated after a tough time in the court of keyboard warriors in the wake of his break-up with the singer Sabrina Carpenter. ‘There was just so much on social media that wasn’t real. You know, we’re all going to check it. Anyone that tells you that they don’t check or search their name – they’re just telling absolute pony. Because we do. Us, as actors, we want to know to a degree what’s being said, and reviews, and whatever. But I was just getting an awful lot of slander. I can deal with that, and I can deal with people attacking my life… and then just more came from it. There were people knocking on the door where my boy lives. There were people at my nannie’s house. I just found it very unfair. So I released a statement, and I came off Instagram.’ He smiles wryly. ‘For me, Instagram was a place where I was finding validation, and looking for that validation – false validation. Posting selfies and pictures of me in the gym. And I was like, “Why am I doing this?” I was searching for this dopamine hit that you get from sharing selfies. People appreciate you as an actor when they can’t really put two and two together, and they get more immersed in your roles, and they can lose themselves in your characters. They can’t go, “No, he does this from Instagram.” For me, it was getting that mystique back, and also not needing that assurance anymore from strangers. I find myself looking up more. I find myself involved in my work more. I find myself present and engaged more. And, certainly, people don’t have a judgement on me anymore because they’ve nothing to base it on, on Instagram. They meet you for who you are.’
We’re nearly at the end of our walk. The light is fading in Dublin and it’s time to return to the hotel. As we walk, we arrive at the 123 bus stop and he pauses next to it. He’s remembering something else. ‘So this bus stop – we used to wait here. It was two €2.20 to ride the bus. So I always leave €2.20 on my mum’s grave, even now. Because I used to go to an acting workshop on it. I’d wait long nights for that bus.’ As if manifested, the 123 rounds the corner, heading towards us, slowing down for possible passengers. Barry smiles. He won’t be taking this one…
Hurry Up Tomorrow is in cinemas from 16 May. Grooming: Charley McEwen at The One Agency
Photograph and words by GREG WILLIAMS
Greg Williams takes pause to consider the bigger picture on images seen small on his social media. This issue: Emma Stone on her way to present best actress at the 2025 Academy Awards.
This picture works for me on several levels. Firstly, its imperfections add to its authenticity. I love the grit of the dimly lit passage. The picture has motion blur and technically it is under-exposed. However, that only adds to its authenticity and drama – pin sharp and bright, I don’t think I’d like it as much.
Then we have the centre point perspective. It’s shot on a wide lens. Emma’s husband, Dave McCary, is walking in front and having him slap bang in the middle of frame creates the perfect centre focus point for the image. The walls to the left and the fence to the right create that vanishing point ‘zoom’ perspective around Dave.
I didn’t do any retouching on the image. Even the traffic cone to the left adds to the authenticity – if I was retouching, I’d have painted it out. Instead it gives a balance to the picture.
Lastly, and most importantly, we have Emma. It was a bit of a hurry to get her from her hotel suite, through a maze of corridors, lifts and kitchens to a back door where she was walking to eventually arrive at the Oscars red carpet. I simply called out for her to look back and I pulled a silly face and got this reaction. I just shot this one frame; I wasn’t even looking through the camera, I just got lucky.
Photographs and words by GREG WILLIAMS
Shot on Leica Q3
Emma wears Louis Vuitton
Years ago – before Banshees or Saltburn – Barry Keoghan came to my studio and we started talking about photography and us working together. I asked Barry about his start and he told me the story of his difficult beginning in Dublin. It was heartbreaking and vital. I told him, ‘That’s the story I want to explore with you.’ It’s taken several years of back and forth to get to the point of us both flying into his home town and taking a trip around memory lane with him for the unflinching cover story you’re about to read.
Not all the memories are good. But Barry was generous in opening up to me about his family life, the loss of his mother to heroin, his addiction and his sobriety as we returned to the homes he’d lived in and the streets he’d played in. This was raw, unfiltered recollection and for me, is a truly authentic tale that connects my photo-journalism roots with my work in entertainment more than any other I’ve done. This is a story of rising: how does someone start with every excuse in the world not to succeed and then excel?
Barry’s vulnerability and honesty about pain, and his ability to channel that and bring it to the screen, is what makes him such an incredible actor – and it’s what costs him every time he performs. The bravery to feel is something that links all the subjects of our photo stories this issue.
Douglas Booth talks about dyslexia and the cost of acting for him in contrast to his wife, Bel Powley. Kaia Gerber allows the darkness she sometimes feels in, so that she can access a character on stage. David Oyelowo discusses what the actors he admires give to roles and the sacrifice required as a Black actor from a small country like the UK. It’s this humanity that makes them all connect to audiences, and makes them fascinating individuals to shoot.
Elsewhere in the issue, Havoc director Gareth Evans talks about the detail Tom Hardy puts into characterisation. Costume designer Ruth E. Carter discusses the dedication and vision needed to rise to the position she has reached as a history-making Oscar winner (and the doors she has opened for others). And photographer Mark Read captures one man’s temple to his own success in an LA building that holds numerous movie memories in its walls. All are testament to the power of graft and taking chances. As Oyelowo says, ‘The difference between good and great is hard work…’
GREG WILLIAMS
Founder, Hollywood Authentic
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Writer-director Gareth Evans tells Jane Crowther how Tom Hardy is ‘smashing up the screen’ in his tale of an American cop having a very bad night in Havoc.
‘When I was doing the Raid films, it was my love letter to the Hong Kong martial arts genre through the lens of Silat, the Indonesian martial art,’ writer-director Gareth Evans tells Hollywood Authentic when recalling his calling card visceral breakout action movies. The Raid wowed at TIFF in 2011 and knocked audiences’ socks off with the inventive, kinetic and claustrophobic action contained in a single tower block. Evans went on to create 2014’s sequel and the bruising TV show, Gangs of London. His latest film shows a DNA thread through those projects but is an evolution. ‘Havoc is more like my love letter to Hong Kong artists in the manner of John Woo and Ringo Lam. It’s a lot more about gunplay, the stylisation and percussive elements of the action design and that heroic bloodshed genre that existed in the late ’80s and early ’90s in Hong Kong cinema, where it’s always rain-swept and neon lights and city life. And then in the middle of that, you have Tom Hardy just smashing up the screen…’
Hardy and he had been ‘circling each other’ hoping to work together when Evans sent the jiu-jitsu and boxing enthusiast actor the script, which tracks a detective, Walker, as he discovers crime and corruption, attempts to rescue a hostage and deals with attacks in numerous inventive scenarios. ‘That led to a series of really super-interesting, fascinating, educating FaceTime phone calls with Tom,’ Evans says of the actor, who also produced the movie. ‘From Tom’s perspective, it was about learning everything about Walker so that he could fully embody him as a character. That was a huge learning experience for me because suddenly I was being asked all these questions that maybe I hadn’t asked of this character. We did that intense breakdown of the character, what is it that kind of gets under the hood of this character? And then he went off to the gym and got himself in prime physical condition. As someone who doesn’t frequent the gym that often, I would just be exhausted seeing the effort that he would go through to get himself ready for the film.’ When Hardy turned up to filming in Wales, where Greg Williams shot these pictures, ‘it was like he was cut out of rock – he was full-on battle-ready’.
Hardy’s physicality and fighting know-how evolved the action designs that Evans conceived with his stunt coordinator, Jude Poyer, escalating the brutality of the scenarios as Walker is pushed to the limit. Evans has two favourite sequences of his latest physical carnage; one taking place in a nightclub with a glass floor – allowing for inventive, immersive camera angles – and one in a fishing shack complete with harpoons and hooks; ‘lots of sharp things and blunt instruments’. The nightclub scene is ‘this breakneck, fast, high-octane set-piece that just goes from floor to floor, and then spills out into the streets. It’s this breathless sequence to pulsating music that I’m really excited for audiences to get a chance to watch.’
The Raid had a sequel, so does Evans think he’s left enough room for a revisit to this new world? ‘Who knows?’ he laughs. ‘I’ve always planned it as a one-and-done as a movie, but there is definitely space there if there was enough demand.’ For now, he promises Hardy in what he calls ‘beast mode’. ‘Tom is in his absolute element. I think he really enjoyed rag-dolling people around the room!’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Havoc is streaming on Netflix now
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Was anyone asking for a sequel to Ben Affleck’s neurodivergent actioner from 2016 in which a money man with Autism kicks serious ass as a besuited assassin? Possibly not, but here we are nearly a decade later, returning to Christian Wolff (Affleck) as he lays low in a gulfstream trailer with priceless artwork on the wall in Boise, and now there’s not one socially awkward killer gunning his way through a criminal underworld, but two. This time the number in the title not only refers to sequel status but the return of Wolff’s hit man brother, Braxton, in the shape of Corgi-loving, lollipop-sucking bull-in-a-china-shop Jon Bernthal. Double trouble and twice the fun.
Laying out the set-up with a stylishly executed shoot-up in a bingo hall involving J. K. Simmons, The Accountant 2 introduces a mysterious hit woman (Daniella Pineda) who is connected to the trafficking of undocumented immigrant workers into the US. The death of an innocent pulls a treasury department agent, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) into proceedings and she tracks Wolff down via his nonverbal tech-whiz handler (Allison Robertston) to help her unravel the mystery. Why Chris decides to take the case is as confusing as why Marybeth can move house and spend most days away from her desk job in service to an off-books gig, but the logistics matter little. It’s merely the route to getting Bernthal and Affleck together to bicker, go line-dancing together and cover each other during massive gun/knife fights.
This is where the film comes into its own as both brothers express hurt and bewilderment at their estrangement, unpick their childhood trauma, figure out if they’re cat or dog people and ultimately show up for each other – whether that’s at an LA hoedown or a Mexican bad-guy compound in Juarez. Affleck and Bernthal can do this stuff in their sleep and their needling of each other adds welcome levity to proceedings, while both actors’ flex their action credentials in a dusty finale that nods to spaghetti westerns. Yes, it’s blunt and daft but it’s more fun than taxes…
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs by ELI ADÉ/WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC.
The Accountant 2 is out now
Words by JANE CROWTHER
When twins Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan via unobtrusive CGI sleight of hand) return to their Mississippi home after fighting in WW1 and then brawling in Chicago, they’ve seen some things. Having made some cash by disreputable means in the north, the brothers are gold-toothed, tailored and handy with guns and knives – and set on opening their own juke joint in their old neighbourhood. They may pop a bullet in a would-be thief’s ass without a care, operate as a slick unit and move through the world with a cocky stride (unless they’re talking to the women they left behind), but they’re about to be shaken by ungodly sights on opening night…
Rooted in the myth of a blues player paying for their talent via a deal with the devil (it’s set in Clarksville, the location for Robert Johnson’s crossroads), Ryan Coogler’s seductive, steamy take on From Dusk Til Dawn may not serve up a new scenario – one night in a bar beset by vampires – but it does provide a multi-layered, evocative and stylish night out on the sauce. In Coogler’s hands, a war for souls in a Jim Crow world has much to say about race, poverty, warfare, grief, colonisation and music, and the fact that though set in prohibition America, certain things remain depressingly the same as they ever were.
The bigger socio-political picture is wrapped in a compellingly small human story that unfolds as the brothers enlist a gang to open their club in an old sawmill. Their cousin Sammie (Miles Canton) may be a preacher’s boy but he plays the blues like Satan himself and will lose his innocence before the sun rises. Voodoo priestess Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) is brought in as chef and provides spiritual leadership as well as finger-lickin’ catfish. Drunk musician Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) is co-opted as an act but has seen it all before; Chinese storekeepers Bo and Grace (Yao and Li Jun Li) bring the equipment and a marital quandary, while Stack’s ex Mary (Hailey Steinfeld) and a sunburnt stranger (Jack O’Connell) are white visitors who mess with the vibe in different ways.
Gorgeously costumed (Ruth E. Carter), lensed (filmed in IMAX with a thank you note to Christopher Nolan in the end credits) and production designed (Hannah Beachler); Sinners may be peopled by intriguing characters but its music is also one. Ludwig Göransson’s lush score is sultry, soulful and needs to be heard in the surround sound of a cinema, not waited for at home. It provides a standout sequence at the midpoint when the beer is flowing and the blues are slapping, when music connects past, present and future and – for the duration of a song – everything seems right with the world. It’s exactly the sort of poetic, pertinent and ballsy moment we’ve come to expect from Coogler and connects deliciously to a cheeky mid-credit and post-credit sting. Bloody good stuff.
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs by ELI ADÉ/WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC.
Sinners is in cinemas now
Photographs & Interview by GREG WILLIAMS
As told to JANE CROWTHER
Greg Williams joins British actor-producer-director David Oyelowo at his LA barber shop to talk creating opportunity and the pursuit of excellence.
‘Getting into character, the look of the character, the physical presence of the character, is something that I tend to focus on,’ David Oyelowo tells me when I meet him at a strip mall in Tarzana one morning in February. This unassuming location off Ventura Boulevard is a place for transformation for the multi-faceted actor who has played Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, a pharma-villain in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and the first African-American US Marshal in Lawmen: Bass Reeves. Today, Oyelowo is getting a haircut from his trusted barber, Gene. ‘He’s very detail orientated,’ Oyelowo says as we walk inside. ‘He gets me looking right.’
Sandwiched between a pilates studio and a dog groomers, the barber shop is a cosy space that Oyelowo has been coming to for a long time – Gene has been cutting his hair for 15 years. It’s one of his neighborhood spots in LA, now home since moving here in 2007 and becoming a US citizen in 2016. The valley is also the location for the filming of Government Cheese, his new ’60s-set dramedy show currently streaming on Apple TV+ in which he plays an ex-con who returns home to his family and causes chaos. He’s about to start a promotional campaign for the project and wants a sharp cut.
As Gene fires up the clippers, I ask Oyelowo about his relationship with excellence, given his prolific work output and his ability to plate-spin being an actor, producer and director. ‘A principle I live by is: the difference between good and great is hard work. I think that’s what excellence looks like. I’ve had to learn that there’s a difference between perfection and excellence. Perfection is debilitating. It’s unattainable. I think, actually, it ultimately leads to depression. The pursuit of excellence is something that is attainable because it’s basically doing your best, knowing you’ve done your best, and making peace with the fact that that’s as much as you can do. Failure doesn’t mean that you weren’t excellent. I used to actually take pride in being a perfectionist, especially with having kids, you’re trying to model behaviour that they will emulate. I recognise that them watching their dad pursue perfectionism is not a good example. But excellence absolutely is. That is what I now aspire to more than perfection.’
If you find good people, hold on to them for dear life
Oyelowo has certainly shown excellence in his work to date since learning his craft at the National Youth Theatre and LAMDA before making his name in BBC spy show, Spooks, in 2002. Since then he has impressed in a wide range of projects (and accents) including Lincoln, Jack Reacher, Interstellar, Silo, The Book of Clarence and most recently as Shakespeare’s Coriolanus in London’s West End. He’s been working professionally since 1995 and subscribes to the building up of a career with varied roles and experiences. ‘Young actors, or people who are aspiring to be actors, a lot of the time what they aspire to is instantaneous success, or having quite a high level of notoriety quickly. I actually think that’s a trap. What you actually want is a slow-burn career. You don’t want to have the highs be too high, and the lows be too low. But consistency is how you end up with a body of work that is admirable in its totality, as opposed to these moments that, in isolation, warrant attention, but then there’s this dearth in between. And the only way you get that is perseverance.’
As Gene carefully grades his hair, Oyelowo smiles in the mirror. ‘This is why I like having my haircut done by Gene. Every time I sit in this chair, I can tell that he is looking to do his best work. I genuinely am drawn to that. It’s one of the things that I enjoy as a producer, and whenever I’ve directed as well. It’s being around people who are brilliant at what they do. Actually, I got a great piece of advice. The feature film that I directed a little while ago, The Water Man, I called some directors who I really admire. One of them said something that really stood me in good stead, which is that your job is to hire the best people possible, communicate your vision very clearly, and then allow them to take flight. So excellent people – people who pursue greatness – is the way for you to look great as a director. And certainly I know from when I work with great directors, that’s very clearly the distinguishing factor. They surround themselves with people who are really excellent, and they model it in what they do as well.’
I ask him about working with an actor often cited for excellence, Daniel Day Lewis, who played President Lincoln to Oyelowo’s union soldier in the Spielberg film. ‘I personally think he’s the greatest living actor,’ he responds without hesitation. ‘The definition of not only an actor but a great actor is someone who is chameleonic; someone who genuinely transforms role to role; someone who clearly has studied humanity to a degree whereby they’re able to approach humanity from so many different angles and still be convincing in the roles they play. That, to me, is a master of the craft, and I can think of very few actors who take as many risks as he does, who pay a price as high as he does, and who are as successful in terms of the execution of their roles as he is. He, for me, is the gold standard. And then there’s working with Forest Whitaker on The Last King of Scotland, or a director like Christopher Nolan or Steven Spielberg or Anthony Minghella or Ava DuVernay, where you go, ‘Oh, there are levels to this thing.’ Tom Cruise is the same. These artists who you just go, ‘Oh, that’s why you’ve been doing it this long. That’s why there’s a connection between you and the audience that is not what you get everywhere.’ That gave me the blueprint, and maybe even the playbook for some of the more intense roles I’ve been afforded the opportunity to go on to play.’
Having played two historical figures in Martin Luther King Jr. and Bass Reeves, Oyelowo was hoping to add another to his resume with a long-gestating biopic of boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. ‘I think I have to make peace with the fact that I’ve probably aged out of playing Sugar Ray Robinson,’ he laughs. ‘But I still want to tell that story, and I think I’m going to still do it, probably as a producer, maybe as a director. Sugar Ray Robinson in his prime may be something that I let someone else do. But, honestly, that is something that I increasingly have enjoyed doing, keeping open the doors that have either been opened for me, or I’ve managed to get open, and making sure that others are allowed through. A big goal of mine is to leave the storytelling landscape different than I found it. A film about Dr King where he’s central had not been made before. A show that had Bass Reeves central had not been made before. Sugar Ray Robinson was the inspiration for Muhammad Ali. We should know more about him. That’s why I’m passionate about that story. And finding different ways to get these stories out there is the thing I’m ultimately very dedicated to.’
Oyelowo’s production company, Yoruba Saxon, looks for projects that shine a light on underrepresented stories. ‘We have a motto to normalise the marginalised. Our goal of normalising that is just an acknowledgment that filmmaking and television changes culture. It’s one of the most potent means of both advancing and regressing culture. And so I definitely want to be on the good side of that fence. Telling stories, for me, is a means of entertainment and education, but it’s also a political act for me.’
His move to LA from the UK was also something of a political act. Feeling limited by the opportunities available to him at home despite success with the RSC and Spooks, he turned his eyes towards America – moving himself and his wife to Hollywood. ‘It was patently obvious that the UK was not going to provide the opportunities I aspired to. Some of that is to do with race. Some of that is just to do with the size of the industry. But the two things compound each other. If it’s a smaller industry, and Black and brown people are not prioritised, then it’s an even smaller postage stamp to land on.’ Has that changed, I wonder? ‘Where I think it hasn’t changed much is I see that for Black actors in the UK, a path to a global career is still through playing roles that are not British. You still have to play American roles, or roles that are not tied to our culture in the UK, which I think is deeply unfortunate. John Boyega has to do Star Wars. Chiwetel Ejiofor has to do 12 Years a Slave. Idris Elba has to do The Wire. Naomie Harris has to do Moonlight. Thandiwe Newton has to do Mission: Impossible. Daniel Kaluuya has to do Get Out… There isn’t the same trajectory as if they’re white, British actors. It’s different.’
He recalls his methodology for trying to break out of pigeonholing. ‘I had to say to the people who were considering taking me on as an agent, “Put me up for the roles that are either non-race-specific or are specifically white, because that’s where there’s more dimension. And then I’ll bring the specificity of my Blackness to it.” When it’s written for a Black character, the aperture just goes so small, and it does fall into caricature and stereotype – and a lot of the stereotypes that I didn’t want to be perpetuating. Also, it made characters such that a global audience couldn’t relate to them. They felt so niche. They felt so boxed. A lot of my career has been spent exhaustingly having to educate people – my history, my culture, who I am, my journey, is not their bias or their perspective. Things are getting better but ultimately until women, until Black and brown people own distribution mechanisms, or have the resources to be able to tell their own stories outside of the studio system, we’re going to be in this cycle.’
Oyelowo leans forward in his chair and inspects Gene’s work before asking for minute calibrations in the weight of his goatee. I ask him about growing up in the UK as the kid of immigrants. His Nigerian parents from two different tribes ‘essentially eloped’ to Britain to be together, having him in Oxford before the family moved to South London and then back to Lagos. ‘You want to talk about a culture shock? Not only was it just different culturally, but it was very different familially. We didn’t really have any family in the UK, and suddenly we lived on the Oyelowo compound on Oyelowo Street in Lagos.’ At 13, the Oyelowos returned to London, to Islington, where the teenager caught the acting bug. Now he lives in Los Angeles with his family (a 13-year-old daughter and 17-year-old son; his two older sons, aged 20 and 23, have since flown the nest), three dogs and two parrots. At 48 he considers himself in the sweet spot for amassed experience and nous. ‘One of the greatest things about getting older and more experienced is trusting your gut. I think that it should be earned over time. It’s not something where you’re coming in as a 19-year-old and just throwing your weight around. I’ve seen that, and it’s not pretty. But an opinion based on knowing to trust your gut, combined with experience and with humility, I think is where you’re really starting to make a dent – a good one. That’s something that is increasing for me. And it’s amazing how much more you can achieve with genuine “sacrificial love”, where you’re putting other people before yourself, and therefore creating a culture with everyone looking after each other. On a set in particular – that’s one of the things I love about being a producer or a director. It’s having the opportunity to help establish that culture. If you’re not in a leadership position, it’s much harder to help engender that environment. The abuse of power is all about insecurity. I don’t like working with those guys or girls. That’s a luxury I now have. Not everyone has that luxury. But, boy, it’s one I take, because it’s so debilitating working with people who are power-hungry, who are not truly collaborative, who are toxic, and who just seem to thrive on making other people’s lives difficult. It’s just not worth it.’
Gene is done – it’s a fresh cut – and we return to the theme of excellence. Oyelowo thinks back to seeing the way Steven Spielberg surrounded himself with the highest level of craftsmanship on Lincoln. ‘If you find good people, hold on to them for dear life. With Spielberg – the director of photography, production designer, costumes – so many of the crew have done multiple films with him. And it’s a great way to just weed out the arseholes, and just have that shorthand with people.’ He turns to his groomer Vonda sitting nearby and asks how long they’ve worked together. The answer is 15 years. He asks his PA, Darnell, the same question. It’s three. Oyelowo throws up his hands in a ‘see?’ fashion and laughs. ‘I’ve told Darnell very clearly that I need at least seven years’ notice if she’s going to quit!’ He stands and brushes his hair off. ‘For me, that’s how you have not only a good life but a good working life…’
Government Cheese is streaming now on Apple TV+
Hair: Gene Miller, Grooming: Vonda Morris, Styling: Mark Holmes
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Charlie Heller (Rami Malek) is a self-confessed CIA nerd and puzzle fan. A systems analyst and decoder who can unpick a photo to determine the location of the subject, access cameras across the world and save the life of a field agent via technology, he’s nevertheless a homebody who has never travelled overseas and is tinkering with a cessna plane in his barn but may never fly it.
When his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) jets off to London for a conference all that changes as she is taken hostage and killed by terrorists. Beset by grief, rage and retribution, Charlie tires of waiting for the CIA top brass to do anything about tracking down the killers and sets off to unravel their identities and exact revenge himself. And in doing so uncovers a conspiracy at the heart of the agency…
Developed by Malek with his producer’s hat on from Robert Littell’s bestseller, The Amateur plays with the idea of what would happen if a regular joe who couldn’t shoot or fight went out into the world of espionage. Rather than having the action competence of Bond or Bourne, Charlie sweats his way through security checks and devises nerdy, inventive ways of teaching bad guys a lesson. That fish-out-of-water element is the central charm of the film, with Malek convincing as a man who can improvise de-pressurised swimming pools (try to resist the trailer to save this set piece for the screen), but is out of his depth.
Though the film rests on the expressive Malek bringing audiences along for the ride he’s helped in his quest by Laurence Fishburne glowering as a handler on his trail, Caitríona Balfe as a spy widow who uses chickens and laptops with equal aplomb, and Michael Stuhlbarg making the big bad a morally nuanced catch. Jon Bernthal also turns up for coffee and cake (literally). A quieter espionage outing than 007 but one that still provides globetrotting, foot chases and explosions amid the tech tinkering with GPS, CCTV and pressure gauges.
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs by JOHN WILSON/20TH CENTURY STUDIOS
The Amateur is out now
