Barry Keoghan Nearly Lost His Arm to Flesh-Eating Disease, Says He’s No Longer a ‘Feckin’ Freak Child-Man’ After ‘Saltburn’: ‘Now I’m Just Man. Freak-Man.’

variety.com:

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Barry Keoghan has successfully made the jump from Oscar-nominated actor to internet thirst trap/boyfriend thanks to the success of “Saltburn.” Emerald Fennell’s thriller has turned the 31-year-old actor into a new kind of sex symbol thanks to scenes in which he slurps Jacob Elordi’s bathwater, has sex with a grave and goes full frontal for an extended long take in which he dances to “Murder on the Dancefloor.” The actor told GQ magazine that he’s finally being seen as a man and not just a “freak child” in the aftermath of “Saltburn,” and it feels good.

Sometimes you just have to let your manhood all hang out. “It’s nice, man,” Keoghan said. “It’s nice not just being looked at as the weird-looking guy, the unique feckin’ freaky little freak man-child, freak child-man, whatever you want to call it.

It’s nice to see people kind of look at you in that way. I’ll be honest. It is nice.” The actor officially declared his “little freak child-man era” over thanks to “Saltburn,” adding: “And now I’m just Man.

Freak-Man. Man-Freak.” “My prettiness didn’t get me this far,” Keoghan concluded. “[But it] opens up other lanes for me—it’s part of the leading man thing.” Martin McDonagh, the filmmaker who directed Keoghan to an Oscar nomination in 2022’s “The Banshees of Inisherin,” said the actor’s freakiness is part of his charm. “He’s creepy and he freaks you out, but it’s truthful and it’s honest,” McDonagh said. “He always inhabits a person, warts and all, I think, and he doesn’t try to make you love them.