'Bird': Barry Keoghan promises to 'look out' for young costars so they're not 'pressured' by the film industry

Andrea Arnold continues to be a visionary and one of the most revolutionary filmmakers of recent history with her latest film Bird, which is now in theatres. Combining established actors, like Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski, with first time actors Nykiya Adams and Jason Buda, there's a beautifully organic, raw and inspirational execution of this story with this mix of talents.

In Bird 12-year-old Bailey (Adams) lives with her young father, Bug (Keoghan), and half-brother Hunter (Buda) in a squat in Gravesend, Kent. Bailey isn't so happy about the news that her father is now engaged, particularly as she's yearning for more private space as she enters her teenage years.

Lacking any privacy at home, Bailey heads out one day and sleeps in a field. When she wakes up she sees a stranger named Bird (Rogowski), an adult with a child-like or youthful sensibility, who's looking for the family that abandoned him years ago.

In terms of casting Adams and Buda, casting directors went around to U.K. schools to find these unknown talents.

Buda recalls seeing a casting director in his English literature class and wasn't quite sure why they were there. Then he got a note telling him to go to the school's performing arts centre.

"I wasn't in the mood that day, I think I was having a bad day or something, and [casting director] Lucy Pardee was waiting for me," Buda told Yahoo Canada. "I just told the teacher, 'Can I just not do it? Can I just go back to class?' Luckily she said, 'No stay, let's see what's going to happen.' But if she did say, yeah you can go back to class, then this would have never happened for me."

Adams shared that Pardee went to her school's drama department and asked if there was anyone that could suit the role of Bailey, and it was actually Adams' older sister who was recommended. Unfortunately, she was too old to play the character, and that's when Adams' name came up.

"I was never an actor, but when it came to drama in school I was just messing around," Adams said.

Pardee then invited her to a workshop, an invitation Adams accepted to get her out of class.

"All my friends had done it as a joke, and all of us are sitting there messing around in the workshop," Adams said.

But that was enough for a callback, eventually leading to Adams landing the part of Bailey, which Adams now enthusiastically describes as a "wonderful experience."

Barry Keoghan: 'It was just a massive time where I felt like everyone's looking at me'

Keoghan told reporters that he especially enjoys working with people who have not acted professionally before, saying they "bring their own choices" to their characters, purely working from instinct versus training. But for his young costars who are fresh talents, he worries about them navigating the entertainment industry. Keoghan stressed that while he is an actor, he doesn't like to consider himself, "an actor," in the sense of having to emulate actors who are held in particularly high regard who came before him.

"I'm trying to bring my actions and my way of expressing forward," he said. "I don't think you can learn how to express, there's no right or wrong way to express."

"I fear for Nykiya and I'm going look out for her and Jason a lot, because I don't want them to feel pressured into feeling that they have to give something that is not in them. What they're doing already is absolutely gorgeous and beautiful."

With that fear for his young costars comes the reality of Keoghan being launched into the spotlight, particularly after Saltburn, and coping with that added attention.

"It was scary. It was just a massive time where I felt like everyone's looking at me, and ironically, they were looking at me in the movie, in that particular scene, but just the TikTok element and the Twitter, it's just a massive invasion of privacy," Keoghan said. "I could deactivate everything, but I don't think I have to, or should do that. And I'm a curious lad, I like to see what's been said, ... but it's a weird thing when everyone's looking at you, it really is."

"Then when you don't go and do anything for almost a year, ... they're going to look into your personal life. Then that opens up things of, 'Oh, I don't like him because he's this or that.' ... It's a weird one."

Star's first film: Director Andrea Arnold 'made it so comfortable'

For Adams, with this being her first film, she does understand the particularly unique setting of Arnold's films. The filmmaker didn't give her actors a full script, but rather they got what they needed one day at a time, and collaborated on really embodying the characters.

"The way Andrea works is so unique, it's hard to explain, but finding that in other directors is going to be hard," Adams said. "I feel like she made it so comfortable because she was so straightforward."

"She had no filter, so [if she] didn't like something, she would say she didn't like it. And it was just so comfortable. ... If you didn't like doing that thing, she would just change the script for you. She was just so willing to do things to make everything work. It was just wonderful. And being on set, I was never nervous. It basically just turned into family in the end."

"She never really told us to worry about remembering the script, because even if we don't remember it, we could improv," Buda added. "Andrea works in such a unique way and you don't see directors working that way, that's what makes her special and I think there should be more directors like her."

"So what she does is, she literally gives you the script the day of the scene, or the night before the scene, ... and I think that really helps keep things raw and natural, which we don't really see in movies nowadays."

It's Arnold's unique process that also attracted the talent of Rogowski, who admitted to reporters that "there are not many good directors."

"Most of my days I'm reading scripts that are rather difficult to read and underwhelming, and Andrea has been one of the great directors working today, at least for me, for the past decade, let's say," he said. "Usually my decisions are rather based on an idea in combination with a certain style and work that a director has already accomplished, and then I wonder whether this will lead to an interesting film, and if I can contribute to that film with the part that has been offered."

"But in her case I just knew, OK this is a creative process that Andrea is going through, and she's inviting me to be a part of it. But the uncertainty was enormous. I mean, all I knew was that she is inspired and that she has a lot of interesting ideas. But I didn't know whether my character would be a character I want to be. ... I based my decision entirely on the fact that I adore her as an artist."

Speaking about the uncertainly as an actor in Arnold's process, Keoghan stressed that it's about being "comfortable" as an individual making that choice, and being "confident" in the filmmaker.

"If she sent me something tomorrow, even a logline of something, I'm in," Keoghan said. "I've got so much respect for her, working with her, especially seeing how much she cares, how much she'll put you first before she puts herself first."

"I'm always looking for new adventures in this world of like, how do we find something new? ... This is another case of that, no script, learn your character, and let's go off instincts and just trust me on it, and it's so spontaneous. It's so frightening. It's pure discovery."