Barry Keoghan is one of Hollywood’s most in-demand actors — and he’s also a proud father.
The “Saltburn” star, 31, shares 21-month-old son, Brando, with ex-girlfriend Alyson Kierans.
“You see little resemblances and little characteristics coming through, and it’s just beautiful,” Keoghan told Vanity Fair. “It’s a new territory for me, and I just want to be the best person for him.”
“It’s a very important thing for me — for him to be able to grow up and be proud of his daddy, and to lean on his daddy,” he added.
Keoghan grew up in Dublin, Ireland, with an absent father. He shared on Ireland’s “The Late Late Show” that his mother, Debbie, battled a drug addiction when he was a child so he lived in 13 different foster homes. Debbie died when Keoghan was 12.
It was around that time that Keoghan fell in love with performing. In an interview with GQ, Keoghan said would watch the way Marlon Brando, James Dean and Paul Newman moved on screen.
After graduating from high school, Keoghan saw a poster in a store window offering open auditions for an independent film — and the rest is history.
Today, Keoghan splits his time between London and Los Angeles, which is where his girlfriend, singer Sabrina Carpenter, lives. The couple were first linked in December 2023, and made their red carpet debut in May 2024. The actor stars in Carpenter’s new “Please Please Please” video.
Keoghan and Kierans, an orthodontist in Scotland, welcomed Brando in August 2022, and split in July 2023, after more than two years together.
“She’s done a great job and she’s an incredible mother,” Keoghan told GQ of Kierans in 2024.
Read on to learn more about baby Brando:
Brando
Keoghan became a dad for the first time while shooting Prime Video’s “Saltburn.”
“It was probably the best time of my life, to be fair. Havin’ a baby boy, and leadin’ a movie. It was the best time of my life, I must say,” Keoghan told GQ.
During his discussion with GQ, Keoghan also shared the story behind his son’s name.
“I obviously love Marlon Brando, but I just, yeah — for a first name I thought it was quite cool,” he said. “He’s got a lot to live up to, that kid. But he’ll live up to it. He has to have that leather jacket and rock-star attitude, you know what I mean? He’ll have a motorbike when he’s 12, I think.”
That said, Keoghan will not push Brando into the entertainment business.
“You don’t want to brainwash them into doing something that they don’t want to do,” he explained to Popsugar in 2022. “I think it’s exciting to see where he ventures.”