Riley Keough opens up about the need to keep personal grief out of her acting career

American actress and model Riley Keough recently got candid about keeping her personal grief from clouding her onscreen performances, even if her past experiences were similar to the roles she was playing onscreen.

At the An Evening with Joey Kong & Riley Keough event held in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 1, the actress opened up about the strict boundaries she imposes between her emotions and those of the characters she portrays.

In a conversation with fellow actress Jena Malone about her Hulu limited series Under the Bridge, the Daisy Jones and the Six star was asked if her brother’s death affected her acting, to which she answered:

“I don’t typically use my own life in my acting career because I think I would be insane. I think it would be unhealthy for me personally.”

In the series, which debuted on Hulu on April 17, Keough plays the late author Rebecca Godfrey who wrote the 1997 book about the murder of Reena Virk. Godfrey, whose book the series was based on, had a brother named Jonathan who passed away at 16. Godfrey was 13 at the time.

Riley Keough, who has also had to deal with losing members of her family, told Malone that she deliberately keeps her private experiences with death and loss separate while she plays Robecca Godfrey onscreen.

Keough’s brother Benjamin passed away at 27 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2020, about three years before her mother Lisa Marie Presley died in 2023.

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Riley Keough talked about focusing on being in the “headspace of the character” she portrays

The Zola star explained the need to “protect” herself when she’s playing characters that have experiences similar to hers in real life. She said:

“I really try and protect myself—it’s a hard job because you’re going to work and having to be extremely vulnerable and raw.”

Instead of tapping into deep emotions from her personal life, the actress noted that she focuses on being in the “headspace of the character” she plays.

Riley Keough also mentioned during the same conversation that people experience grief differently, like she and Rebecca may have similar experiences but they process their grief in different ways.

Talking about the character she portrays in Under the Bridge, she said:

“She [Rebecca] has a lot of anger and unresolved [emotions].”

Keough further added that her personal experience with grief and loss “didn’t totally apply” in her portrayal of Rebecca Godfrey’s character in the series.

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Under the Bridge tackles the true story of 14-year-old Reena Virk who joined her friends at a party but never returned home, and how her killers, her peers, were found. The eight-part series is now streaming on Hulu.