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

The actors star as fighter pilots in the US Air Force in the upcoming historical drama from Apple TV+

Barry Keoghan and Austin Butler sometimes got a little punchy while working together on the set of Masters of the Air. 

Keoghan, 31, and Butler, 32, star as World War II fighter pilots in the upcoming historical drama from Apple TV+, and the actors spent their free time exchanging jabs — literally.

Butler “was pretty good,” Keoghan told GQ of teaching the Elvis star some tricks.

“I learned him how to box,” he said.

Related: Everything to Know About Barry Keoghan, the Oscar Nominated Actor in 'Banshees of Inisherin'

Aside from giving the Dublin-born actor a chance to brush up on his fighting skills and get to know his costar, Masters of the Air also helped him fulfill a career-long dream.

“I always wanted to play a pilot,” Keoghan shared, adding that he was partly inspired by his previously role in Dunkirk. Keoghan was ground-bound as British soldier George Mills in the Christopher Nolan film, but he enjoyed watching the work of Tom Hardy, who portrayed a fighter pilot in the U.K.’s Royal Air Force.

Keoghan was in awe of Hardy’s ability to express complex emotions despite half of his face being covered by an oxygen mask, and he was keen to replicate that performance in the Apple TV+ series.

“I’d constantly say to Austin, I’m Tom Hardy today, right? You think it? He’d be like, ‘Yeah, you’re definitely Tom Hardy today.’ ”

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

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In Masters of the Air, Butler plays Major Gale Cleven a.k.a. Buck, one of the fighter pilots assigned to the 100th Bomb Group in the U.S. Air Force. The unit, nicknamed the “Bloody Hundredth,” carried out “perilous bombing raids over Nazi Germany” as they faced “frigid conditions, lack of oxygen and sheer terror of combat conducted at 25,000 feet in the air,” according to the official synopsis.

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

In the trailer, the tight bond between the pilots is teased as Major John Egan (Callum Turner) says they’re responsible for “35 planes and 350 air crew men,” and at one point, they’re deployed "straight into Hitler's territory” in what a commander calls “the largest air armada ever assembled in the history of mankind.”

Along with Butler, Keoghan and Turner, Sawyer Spielberg, Nate Mann, Rafferty Law, Josiah Cross, Branden Cook and Ncuti Gatwa also star in the series.

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The first two episodes of Masters of the Air premiere Jan. 24 on Apple TV+.

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