Barry Keoghan has revealed that he is ‘haunted’ by the memories of his late mother’s heroin addiction.
The Oscar-nominated actor, 32, was just 12-years-old when his mother Debbie died from a heroin overdose and he had no relationship with his father.
Opening up about his childhood, Barry revealed that he was taken into care as he recalled ‘all the different homes’.
Speaking on Tuesday’s episode of The Louis Theroux Podcast, Barry sweetly remembered his ‘lovely, gorgeous’ mother as he sadly recalled how her addiction ‘caught her’.
‘That kind of haunts me still, you don’t forget those things,’ he said.
Barry Keoghan revealed on Tuesday’s episode of The Louis Theorux Podcast that he is ‘haunted’ by the memories of his late mother’s heroin addiction (Pictured in March)
The Oscar-nominated actor, 32, was just 12-years-old when his mother Debbie died from a heroin overdose and he had no relationship with his father
Of being in care, Barry said: ‘You don’t forget waiting on the social worker steps and waiting for the new family to come and play with you in the playground they have in the office and see if it’s going to work and then go with them to a whole new area and a whole new home. […]
‘And you know, the car journeys there and they’re the things that haunt and I don’t blame her. It’s a sickness.’
He said: ‘My mum, she was lovely. She was gorgeous, almost like six-foot, dark hair, just beautiful. Like every lad was chasing her and this thing caught her, like many families.
‘It’s sad to see the deterioration of people around the area and see people kind of struggle with it and the recovery they’re in now. It caught my mum, it caught my uncle who died of it and caught my father as well.
‘She was just unable to look after us.[…] My father wasn’t there and so we got taken into care and no one knew about this.
‘I think she was too embarrassed to tell my granny and so no one knew that’s when we went through all that. All the different homes.’
Speaking about his experience in a chat with The Sunday Times, Barry revealed he prays to his mother ‘every day’ following her death 19 years ago.
He admitted that losing his mother ‘wasn’t a shock’, adding ‘But oh, she was so beautiful.’
Opening up about his childhood, Barry revealed that he was taken into care as he recalled ‘all the different homes’ (Pictured in the 2012 film Stalker)
Speaking on The Louis Theroux Podcast, Barry sweetly remembered his ‘lovely, gorgeous’ mother as he sadly recalled how her addiction ‘caught her’ (Pictured in January)
Barry keeps his mother’s memory alive with a silver bracelet he wears engraved with her name and told the publication ‘I pray to her every day.’
He added that he and his younger brother Eric spent much of their childhood visiting her in hospital when she suffered from drug-related illnesses and recalled: ‘I’d do this Elvis dance for her. They’d just re-released A Little Less Conversation — she loved it.’
He added: ‘I was working with Austin [Butler, who played Elvis in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic, and who stars with Barry in Steven Spielberg’s miniseries Masters of the Air] and I shared that memory, started doing the dance for him… ‘
Barry had a tumultuous childhood as a result of his mother’s addiction and ehen he was five, Barry and his younger brother Eric went into foster care, living in 13 different homes before they moved into his aunt and grandmother’s two-bedroom flat.
Barry explained: ‘My cousin, who I call my sister, was 15 and she gave up her bedroom for us — until five years ago she was sleeping in a room with my auntie. I owe them all so much.’
Barry revealed that acting helped him overcome the trauma of his childhood and last year achieved critical-acclaim for his role alongside Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Inisherin
Speaking about his experience in a chat with The Sunday Times, Barry revealed he prays to his mother ‘every day’ following her death 19 years ago (Pictured in 2018)
He added that nowadays ‘My family’s most concerned about my wellbeing, all the [stardom] stuff is secondary to them…
‘But they have a good chat about it in the pub! They get their pints in.’
Barry struggled at school, where he was considered a naughty pupil, and was kicked out of school plays for ‘messing about’.
But he previously revealed that acting helped him overcome some of the trauma of his childhood, after initially pursuing careers in boxing and football.
The actor went on to star in international blockbusters like The Eternals and Batman before achieving critical-acclaim for his role as Dominic Kearney in The Banshees of Inisherin.
