In a recent interview with GQ, it transpired that Saltburn actor and Golden Globe nominee Barry Keoghan had previously suffered with necrotising fasciitis, a flesh-eating bacteria that has a one in five risk of fatality.
The NHS describes the condition as “a rare and life-threatening infection that can happen if a wound gets infected,” adding that it requires immediate hospital treatment when spotted.
The GQ article revealed that the actor has a “gnarly scar tissue that winds its way up his arm like a snake tattoo” that came about due to the disease.
He contracted the condition just before filming Banshees of Inisherin, and faced potential amputation ― the actor recalls asking doctors whether he’d live or die, to which they essentially responded that they didn’t know.
Did you say this was just before filming?
I did, because it was. Banshees of Inisherin director Martin McDonagh told the publication, “I’m not sure if he was on a lot of meds, but he seemed to shrug it off.”
“We were only about four days out from shooting, and his arm was puffed up,” the director added.
“But he was like, ‘Yeah, no, I’m going to be fine – I’ll see you on Tuesday.’ I went to the hospital thinking, Shit – is he going to die? Let alone, is he going to make the movie. But I came out of there energised and looking forward to it.”
Barry says that when he heard the bleeping of the heart monitor in the hospital, he thought, “Just remember this when you’ve been nominated for an Oscar” (he did get the nomination, but not the award).
Still, to have filmed at all under those conditions must have been pretty intense (I thought Brendan Gleeson’s character was meant to have been the one with all the arm agony in that film?).