Barry Keoghan Talks About the ‘Responsibility’ of Fatherhood: ‘Enormous Amount of Pressure’

Barry Keoghan said having his son, Brando, while filming Saltburn was “the best time of my life” — but fatherhood does come with its challenges.

“I feel a responsibility. I feel an enormous amount of pressure, which is good. And I can’t get the little boy off my mind. It’s beautiful,” Keoghan, 31, told GQ in an interview published on Tuesday, January 9. “It’s crazy, but when he looks at you, you feel like the most important person in the world. That’s the effect he has on me.”

Keoghan shares Brando, 15 months, with ex-girlfriend Alyson Sandro. The Irish star was filming Saltburn when the former couple welcomed their child into the world.

“They gave me a day off,” he recalled. “Good on them! Day off and straight on to night shoots and night feedings — boom!”

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Keoghan went on to say that if he’s “tired” it’s probably because of “good ol’ Brando.”

The actor can’t discuss his son without bringing up his namesake, which of course, comes from legendary actor Marlon Brando.

“I obviously love Marlon Brando, but I just, yeah, for a first name I thought it was quite cool. To have Brando in your name, f--kin’ hell, man!” Keoghan gushed. “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 that rockstar attitude, you know what I mean? He’ll have a motorbike when he’s 12, I think.”

Keoghan joked that Brando will “have a toothpick [in his mouth]” as a teen, adding, “He’ll probably have a toothpick when I get home!”

Even though he and Sandro are no longer together, Keoghan called her “an incredible mother” to their son. “She’s done a great job,” he added.

Keoghan and Sandro met in February 2021, and she “didn’t care” about his career.

“He was saying he plays a superhero in a film,” Sandro recalled to British GQ in October 2022. “I went, ‘Who, Spider-Man?’” (Keoghan was referring to his role as Druig in Marvel’s Eternals.)

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Months after their first meeting, Keoghan took his and Sandro’s relationship public with a July 2021 Instagram post. Throughout their time together, they kept their relationship quiet, only posting the occasional photo together.

“M’lady yer beautiful ❤️☘️,” he captioned a February 2022 Instagram. In October of that year, the couple announced that they were gearing up to welcome a baby.

“So yeah, I’m having a baby boy now,” Keoghan British GQ in that same interview, which was conducted prior to Brando’s August 2022 birth. Nearly a year after they became parents, The Sun became the first to report their split in July 2023.