When Barry Keoghan arrived on the Jimmy Kimmel Live lot in Los Angeles this week, he looked comfortable—if not spiffier than usual—in a golf jacket, red rugby polo, cargo pants, and duck boots from Thom Browne, which he paired with a bright red New York Yankees cap. (Turns out that The Pitt’s Noah Wyle wasn’t the only guy getting fits off on Kimmel’s set this week.) Keoghan always looks most like himself when he’s wearing some sort of luxury streetwear, a style he admits he’s “always been really into.”
But ever since the real-life Ringo Starr spilled the beans that Keoghan would be portraying him in an upcoming slate of Beatles biopics, the Irish actor—with the assistance of his longtime stylist, Ilaria Urbinati—has been channeling his inner Sgt. Pepper through his clothing. In late March, when the films’ hunky cast (with Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison rounding out the fictionalized Fab Four) took the stage together at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Keoghan went meta in a militaryish Alexander McQueen jacket. Then, at the Met Gala on Monday, the actor graced the steps in an embroidered, Mandarin-collared Valentino jacket cinched with a red sash belt that looked like it could have been sourced straight from the Beatles’ spiritual phase.
Indeed, Kimmel even said as much to Keoghan during their on-air chat. “This, I’d say, has maybe a Japanese feel to it,” the late-night host told Keoghan, referring to the Valentino ensemble. “Also maybe kind of a Beatles, Sgt. Pepper-y thing.”
“It really does, right?” Keoghan replied. “It’s funny that you mention Beatles, because…” And thus, a perfect segue to discuss one of several projects Barry’s got in the works right now.
What’s also funny is that this sort of meta-dressing has become a trend throughout the music-biopic boom of the last few years, as the young actors rewiring their souls to portray famous musicians (and, ideally, scoring an Oscar nomination in the process) seek out new ways to honor their muses. Timothée Chalamet started dropping sartorial hints early on in his process of preparing to play Bob Dylan, and has yet to stop since. Whether or not this actually aids in the creative process is unclear, but I guess a broader sample size can’t hurt.
