Barry Keoghan Once Tried to Eat 50 Eggs Like Paul Newman in ‘Cool Hand Luke.’ It Didn’t Go Well

Eleven minutes into the latest episode of Hot Ones with Barry Keoghan, the actor still has high hopes — even after the hot wings he’s eating has forced him to take his shirt off. “I think I’m going to make it to the end,” he says, putting a wing down, while puckering his mouth a little. But as the “Scoville Level” heat index increases, his optimism burns up. Within two minutes of his boast, he’s breathing fire.

Nevertheless, Keoghan musters some insightful answers during the interview, discussing Dunkirk, Masters of the Air, and, of course, his recent hit Saltburn. When asked about whether he’s ever had to push the limits of a character, he cites one of the movie’s most morbid scenes. “I mean I shagged a grave in Saltburn, right?” he says. “[You] can’t get closer to death or getting mud diseases in your … I should get that checked.

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“Saltburn really pushed it,” he continues. “Every role pushes it, and I like to be pushed. I don’t want something to be comfy. I want to really artistically go there, and there’s moments on sets and movies where you lose sight of camera and you kind of get this, it’s only for two seconds or so, but it’s kind of this nauseous feeling, you’re so present. It’s something we [actors] chase every time we go on set.”

He also talked about another time he pushed it, albeit off camera, saying he once tried to recreate the “50 eggs” scene in Cool Hand Luke. How did it go? “Not good,” he tells Hot Ones host Chris Schonberger. “And I don’t think the eggs were cooked. So I’m going to blame it on that. And I was also very drunk. I think I got to eight eggs. And I think Paul Newman did eat 50 eggs, by the way. And I was still training as I was still trying to as I was getting sick. That’s the thing. Didn’t work out.”

Other topics include how he feels about having his scenes cut from films (“They don’t really cut my scenes,” he jokes before citing a particularly dark Banshees of Inisherin episode that didn’t make it into the movie), the attention to detail Christopher Nolan had on the Dunkirk set, and the spaghetti scene in The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

By 15 minutes, Keoghan is swirling around in his chair, succumbing to the chicken’s heat, and yet he still keeps going. Somehow by the end he’s giving a thoughtful answer about the importance of naivete in acting.

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