In Saltburn, an entertainingly dark and humorous thriller from writer-director Emerald Fennell, Barry Keoghan plays the mysterious Oliver Quick.
But the Hollywood part is a far cry from his spectacular breakout scene on the Irish TV series Love/Hate, which aired over a decade ago but is still fresh in fans’ memories.
Saltburn became the movie of the moment over Christmas as people settled down for some festive family viewing together when it launched on Amazon Prime Video, much to the surprise of those who had missed the message on its severe scenes and sexual material.
However, the Golden Globe candidate is no stranger to this, since he was violently slaughtering a cat in Love/Hate’s fourth season in 2013 as the infamous feline murderer Wayne.
On the gritty drama, Keoghan played a baby-faced young thug as a 20-year-old.
In one of the most contentious scenes in Love/Hate history, Keoghan’s Wayne was shown cruelly shooting a cat dead in cold blood while smiling afterwards.
Wayne meets his own horrific end later on.
Years later, Keoghan revealed of his famed Love/Hate scene, which also starred Aiden Gillen and Robert Sheehan: ‘I’ll never get away from that cat.
‘I was in the MetLife stadium in New Jersey about two years ago. I think there was about 90,000 people there and someone pulled me and said, “You’re the guy that shot the cat.”’
‘I just thought, “Ah here, I’m halfway across the world and someone said it”,’ he added while speaking on the Ray D’Arcy Show on RTE Radio One in 2016.
Although Keoghan has stated that he is ‘not like that in real life’ (as we had hoped), this hasn’t stopped him from reprising gangster parts with his wired up energy and edge of unpredictability in his performances.
He starred alongside Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson in Trespass Against Us in 2016, as the savage Dymphna, a member of a criminal family, in Calm with Horses, and as the menacing Irish mobster Jonny in the last season of Top Boy last year.
Keoghan excels in extreme scenes and situations in Saltburn, such as engaging in outdoor oral sex, dancing around naked to Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and having an eyebrow-raising encounter in a graveyard – and we haven’t even gotten to *that* bathtub scene, which has captured fans’ attention like no other.
The 31-year-old Oscar candidate has made a name for himself as an actor in films such as Dunkirk for Christopher Nolan, Calm with Horses, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and even Eternals as a Marvel superhero.
Last year, his performance in The Banshees of Inisherin earned him many award nominations, including an Academy Award and a Bafta.
However, he is currently known to many as Oliver Quick or the infamous ‘cat killer’ Wayne.
Saltburn is streaming on Amazon Prime Video now. Love/Hate seasons 1-5 is available to watch on ITVX.
Source My Celebrity Life.