Barry Keoghan to star in Bart Layton’s ‘Billy the Kid’
Acclaimed actor Barry Keoghan will follow his Academy Award nomination by performing in a retelling of the story of Billy the Kid. Bart Layton is taking the directing reigns, having worked with Keoghan previously on American Animals. The new film will be produced by Element Picture, RAW and Film 4.
Discussing his interest in the role, Keoghan told Deadline: “We’ve seen many versions of Billy the Kid on screen before. My interest was in trying to tell a version that breaks from the facade of that cool, calm, and collected gunslinger Billy the Kid that we’re all used to seeing. I wanted to humanize him in a way.”
“I remember reading about him as a kid, but as we were digging into the project, there were so many things we discovered about his life,” Keoghan added. “There are so many eyewitness accounts, and lots of different versions of his story that didn’t add up but that contributed to the legend.”
Given Keoghan’s Irish heritage and background, the new film will also explore Billy the Kid’s Irish ancestry and troubled upbringing. The Kid was born Henry McCarty in New York and became an orphan at the age of 15. As we well know, Keoghan’s past also saw him grow up an orphan, so it looks like being able to lean into that experience will make him the perfect fit for the role.
Keoghan wants to give a new take on The Kid than what we have previously been told, though. “I wanted to step outside of the legend that was built up by the papers and tackle the pressure he must have felt from those early days,” he said. “He was running his whole life. I felt related to Billy in the sense of him being a mummy’s boy, but obviously, I took a different path, turning my circumstances into something positive rather than rebelling against them.”
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