Barry Keoghan Plays a Deadbeat Dad In Andrea Arnold’s Bird

Barry Keoghan is adding a new edition to his pantheon of weird, little guy characters with his new role in Andrea Arnold’s Bird. The drama, Keoghan’s first role since his viral performance in Saltburn, debuted to acclaim at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Bird follows Bailey (Nykiya Adams) “[who] lives with her brother Hunter (Jason Buda) and her father Bug (Keoghan), who raises them alone in a squat in northern Kent,” according to an official logline which continues, “Bug doesn't have much time to devote to them. Bailey looks for attention and adventure elsewhere.”

The film’s first trailer is set in a working-class neighborhood in Northern Kent where Bailey, Bug, and Hunter all live in a dilapidated squat. Bailey’s mother and two sisters live on the other side of town. It begins when Keoghan’s Bug finds a drug toad “that’s going to pay for everything,” something Bailey calls “another one of his crazy schemes that come to nothing.” Bailey eventually falls down the wrong path but later finds solace in a strange man named Bird (Franz Rogowski) who she forms an unexpected friendship with.

The coming-of-age teaser concludes with Bird saying “It's beautiful, isn't it?” to which Bailey asks, “What is?” “The day” he says, backdropped by images of birds flying in the distance.

Academy Award winner Andrea Arnold (Wuthering Heights, American Honey) directed and wrote the film with production by Lee Groombridge, Juliette Howell, and Tessa Ross. Bird also features Frankie Box, Jasmine Jobson, Joanne Matthews, James Nelson-Joyce, and Sarah Beth Harber.

Keoghan told reporters in May that Arnold didn’t provide the cast with a traditional script, something he called “pure, spontaneous, and instinctive.” The actor added, “She’s almost trying to break you down in the gentlest way so you can be honest and truthful.”

“Bird has been the most artistic experience ever for me as an actor,” he continued. “I hope it shows onscreen. I don’t like to say there’s any composure of an actor up there onscreen. I am totally immersed, and I feel the approach is in an unstructured way. Andrea creates that and sets that documentary style, and you can only be truthful to it. You kind of get found out if you’re acting.”