Barry Keoghan Enlisted Austin Butler to Become His Sparring Partner on the Masters of the Air Set

The actors play fighter pilots in the US Air Force in the upcoming historical drama on Apple TV+

Barry Keoghan and Austin Butler got a little harsh at times while working together on set Lords of the air.

Keoghan, 31, and Butler, 32, play World War II fighter pilots in the upcoming Apple TV+ historical drama, and the actors spent their free time trading blows — literally.

Butler “was pretty good,” Keoghan said GQ from teaching Elvis the star does some tricks.

“I taught him how to box,” he said.

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Besides giving the Dublin-born actor a chance to brush up on his martial arts skills and meet his costar, Lords of the air she also helped him fulfill his dream of a long career.

“I’ve always wanted to play a pilot,” Keoghan said, adding that he was partly inspired by his previous role in Dunkirk. Keoghan was earthbound as British soldier George Mills in Christopher Nolan’s film, but enjoyed watching the work of Tom Hardy, who played a fighter pilot in the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force.

Barry Keoghan in “Lords of the Air”.

Apple TV+

Keoghan was in awe of Hardy’s ability to express complex emotions despite half his face covered by an oxygen mask, and was keen to replicate that performance in the Apple TV+ series. “I would keep telling Austin, I’m Tom Hardy today, right? Do you think? He’d say, ‘Yeah, you’re definitely Tom Hardy today.’ ”

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Keoghan added of Hardy’s performance in the 2017 film, “If you can convey your emotions, what you feel, just with your eyes, it’s powerful.”

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Austin Butler and Irish actor Barry Keoghan at the 95th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California on March 12, 2023.

Austin Butler and Irish actor Barry Keoghan at the 95th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California on March 12, 2023.

VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty

IN Lords of the air, Butler plays Major Gale Cleven aka Buck, one of the fighter pilots assigned to the 100th Bomb Group in the US Air Force. The unit, dubbed the “Bloody Hundred,” carried out “dangerous bombing raids on Nazi Germany” while facing “cold conditions, lack of oxygen and the sheer terror of combat fought at 25,000 feet in the air,” according to the official synopsis.

The series, based on the book of the same name by Donald L. Miller and produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, depicts “the psychological and emotional price paid by these young men as they helped destroy the horror of Hitler’s Third Reich.”

Austin Butler in "Lords of the Air"

Austin Butler in “Lords of the Air”.

Apple TV+

The trailer teases the tight bond between the pilots as Major John Egan (Callum Turner) says they are responsible for “35 planes and 350 crew” and at one point are deployed “straight into Hitler’s territory” in what the commander calls “the largest air force armada ever assembled in the history of mankind.”

In addition to Butler, Keoghan and Turner, the series also stars Sawyer Spielberg, Nate Mann, Rafferty Law, Josiah Cross, Branden Cook and Ncuti Gatwa.

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The first two episodes Lords of the air premieres January 24 on Apple TV+.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education

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