Andrea Arnold’s “Bird” celebrated its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday, September 7. The MUBI film follows 2-year-old Bailey (newcomer Nykiya Adams) as she comes of age on the fringes in a middle-of-nowhere England, living with her father Bug (Barry Keoghan) on the other side of town from her mother and two sisters.
Though the director missed her flight to the festival, Keoghan and Adams walked the carpet together. At Cannes, IndieWire spoke to the former who shared that “people accept and trust” Arnold, saying that “you don’t really have to imagine or force yourself to believe certain things.”
Both stars spoke to IndieWire on the TIFF red carpet, looking back on the experience of working with Arnold and ahead to some of their most exciting future projects.
“It was, it was questionable in the moment because she would ask us to do certain things because we didn’t know the full script,” Adams said of Arnold’s filmmaking. “So when we found out, we were like, ‘What?’ And then now [when] we watch it back, all of it just fell into place, and it made sense. You believe this is like, honest to God.”
Keoghan then praised the newcomer on her very first role. “First of all, getting to work with Andrea Arnold on your first movie, I’m jealous,” he told IndieWire. “Yeah, it was an experience, and it was fascinating to watch Nykiya and Jason [Buda] do the work and not have that training and bring that emotion and that trust and that state of vulnerability and I was just fascinated by that.”
It was recently announced that Cillian Murphy would be starring in an official “Peaky Blinders” movie. Though details on his role are under wraps, he teased the project to us and reveals the he has read a script.
“I wouldn’t be attached to it if I didn’t [read the script],” Keoghan said. “But yeah, I read the script and loved it and have chatted to Cillian about it and it’s going to be epic.” As we await more projects from the “Saltburn” actor, we also asked for a status update on the Trey Edward Shults film co-starring The Weeknd and Jenna Ortega.
“That’s completed and we’re just waiting on some good news to drop,” Keoghan said. “So stay tuned, you say in America [laughs].”
