Actress, style icon, wild-swimming enthusiast, fledgling producer and director in the making: Saoirse Ronan is nothing if not versatile. The protean performer, who has captivated viewers on both screen and stage, talks to Charlotte Brook about taking pride in her Irish roots, navigating life in the public eye and why she still has big ambitions to fulfil
SAOIRSE RONAN IS TRYING TO PERSUADE ME that making yourself cry in front of a camera is ‘a joy’. As ever with the actress, she’s very convincing. ‘Any pent-up sadness, anger and frustration that you inevitably carry around with you gets let out,’ she continues in her still-strong Irish brogue, pushing her whiteblonde bob into a scruffy side-parting. ‘So, ironically, it’s the best thing ever.’
It’s one of many such insights that come as an unexpected bonus of an interview that, in theory, should be an impossible equation: a conversation with a four-time Oscar nominee, whose performances have mesmerised, charmed and broken the hearts of audiences for nearly 20 years, in which we can talk about anything except films. Like her peers, in a campaign for better pay and working conditions for their community, she is supporting the SAG-AFTRA strike, which prohibits actors from promoting or even naming any studio TV or movie projects, past or present. On the one hand, this is frustrating, as I have much to ask about her fantastic-sounding forthcoming releases – but on the other, side-stepping the specifics of her career does present an opportunity for Ronan to step back and reflect on her broader storytelling motives, ambitions and interests. (For starters, she is fast becoming something of a fashion-world darling, and you can see why – few people could work a Gucci gown and Cartier diamonds in the pouring rain as deftly as she does on her Bazaar cover shoot.)
Born in America, Ronan grew up in Ireland, the only daughter of a nanny and a bartender who both also acted; her first television appearance was as a child, and she had secured an Oscar nomination by the age of 13. She hasn’t stopped showcasing her dramatic versatility on the silver screen since. Recently, however, she has begun to set herself new challenges: in 2021, she made her UK stage debut as Lady Macbeth at the Almeida, to great critical acclaim. ‘It was probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, professionally,’ she says now. ‘Because of the discipline that it required – getting on my bike at 5 o’clock night after night, in the dead of winter, to do a play that dark and at a time when the country was still in the throes of Covid, meaning we were all carrying a heaviness already.’
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