Irish filmmaker Kim Bartley has revealed how Barry Keoghan came to star in her narrative feature debut "Lemonade", squeezing in six days of filming in Dublin during a break from Sam Mendes's Beatles biopics. Bartley had approached the Oscar-nominated actor only hoping he might exec produce the low-budget drama, about a Dublin teenager forced out of foster care, after learning of his own background in the care system; Keoghan instead insisted on taking a supporting role as a social worker himself, and later said the project gave him a "beautiful sense of closure" about his upbringing.

The shoot took place over Christmas 2025, with Keoghan arriving fresh from Beatles filming sporting a Ringo Starr-style haircut that Bartley was strictly forbidden from altering, as he had to return to Mendes's set a week later. Bartley said she had not known of Keoghan's foster-care history when writing the script, yet found striking parallels with his own life, including his protectiveness towards a younger sibling and bond with a social worker, as well as a recurring fox motif in the film that echoed Keoghan's personal belief that his late mother returned to him as a fox.