Barry Keoghan Says He’s ‘Really Flirtin’ with Saltburn Costar and ‘Constantly Close’ Friend Jacob Elordi

Barry Keoghan is dishing on his fun — and flirty — bond with Jacob Elordi.

“He’s like a brother to me, honestly,” said the Irish actor of his Saltburn costar in a GQ cover story published Tuesday. 

And the glimpses of playful flirtatiousness off-screen between the two stars, he added, aren’t faked. “I’m really flirtin’, ” Keoghan, 31, told the publication. 

“We were constantly close,” he said. “It ain’t just for the cameras and the premiere[s].”

Onscreen, the Golden Globe-nominated Keoghan plays Oxford student Oliver Quick in Emerald Fennell’s sexy thriller, while Elordi, 26, plays Felix Catton, a member of a posh British family. As Oliver insinuates himself into that circle at their estate, Saltburn, his apparent obsession with Felix grows — even to the point of drinking his bathwater. 

Off screen, however, Keoghan and Elordi’s relationship isn’t nearly as intense. In a November interview with Extra, Keoghan enthusiastically supported his costar when the possibility of Elordi playing James Bond came up. “Are you playing Bond?” he quipped. “I’ll play your villain in Bond.”

And promoting Saltburn on red carpets together, the two have also teasingly playacted almost kissing each other.

“I think when you’re comfortable with someone, you can be as close as you want, you know what I mean?” Keoghan told GQ of their rapport. “We’re bein’ lads. We’ve just done a movie where we had to kiss, man. Look at the scenes we’ve done. You have to be comfortable with yourself.”

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In his GQ interview, the Eternals star also opened up about the loss of his mother Debbie to an overdose when he was 12, as The Irish Post reported in 2019. 

When he’s alone, Keoghan said, she is who he thinks about. “She’s many years passed now, but I always think about her anyway. It’s always just in and around achievements that it’s really prominent — ’cause you’d like to celebrate that wit’ ’er, y’know?”

Keoghan also appeared in the 2023 Netflix series Top Boy, and will next portray an American World War II pilot in the Apple TV+ miniseries Masters of the Air, set to debut Jan. 26.

Elordi, meanwhile, played Elvis Presley in last year’s Priscilla and appeared in He Went That Way. Among his upcoming projects are Australian miniseries The Narrow Road to the Deep North and reprising his role as Nate Jacobs in HBO’s Euphoria.