Several years ago, a filmmaker suggested that Saoirse Ronan try keeping a diary as her character. “Directors were really into this for a while,” the Irish actor says. “I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, I should do that. I’ve never done anything like that before. Cool. I’ll make notes, and I’ll think like the character, and I’ll write it all down.’
“I think I wrote a line on one page and just never went back to it, because that’s just not my way in,” she continues with a laugh.
Despite efforts to add to her toolkit over the years, that “way in” has remained largely the same since she was 12 years old, when audiences were introduced to her preternatural talent in Joe Wright’s 2007 period romance “Atonement.”
It’s carried her through a career that’s included four Oscar nominations (she’s the second-youngest performer to reach this milestone, after Jennifer Lawrence) and taken her into an incredibly busy 2024. In this banner year, she’s tackling back-to-back starring roles—first in Nora Fingscheidt’s addiction drama “The Outrun,” which debuted in select theaters earlier this month; then in Steve McQueen’s World War II epic “Blitz” (out Nov. 1 in theaters, streaming on Apple TV+ Nov. 22).
“I’ve tried, over the years, to evolve [my process] and make it more ‘mature,’ ” Ronan says, with a hefty dose of air quotes around that last word. “But I always just come back to: How does the character sound, and how do they move? When I have that, it gives me a strong enough foundation to then dig deeper and build around it.”
As the old adage goes: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And judging by this year’s one-two punch, Ronan’s “way in” is still working. In “The Outrun” (which she developed and produced alongside her husband, Jack Lowden), she plays Rona, a recovering alcoholic who returns to her tiny hometown on Scotland’s Orkney Islands in an attempt to quiet her turbulent mind. In “Blitz,” she portrays Rita, a mother who’s desperately trying to reunite with her young son, George (Elliott Heffernan), as German bombs fall on war-torn London.
Though the two films couldn’t be more different in time period, scale, and budget, they have two important things in common: For one, they put Ronan back into familiar territory as an early contender in the Oscar race. They’re also both showcases for the singular talent that’s made the actor such a cinematic force for nearly two decades. With stunning, ethereal stillness, she reveals more about her characters’ inner worlds than any amount of showiness could.
She uses that stillness to startling effect in “The Outrun,” giving more weight to the chaotic moments when Rona’s attempts at sobriety tragically, inevitably fail, like waves crashing against the sturdy Orkney shores. In “Blitz,” McQueen juxtaposes Ronan’s grounding presence against the blare of air-raid sirens and the whistling of bombs dropping just outside her living room walls.
“The Outrun” Credit: Martin Scott Powell/Sony Pictures Classics
“It’s interesting; when I am me, I find it really hard to be still,” Ronan says when I bring up her screen presence. To illustrate her point, she fidgets with a steaming cup of tea. “I’m never comfortable. I’m always having to get up, sit down, move around, and adjust things. I’m always using my hands; I can never really sit still for very long.” She reveals that her lively, Oscar-nominated performance as Jo March in Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” (2019) was a conscious attempt to shake up that onscreen persona.
“There’s something about the focus required to make a film. It really centers and calms me,” Ronan continues. “There’s this message being passed back and forth between the actor and the camera that feels so powerful; for some reason, it’s almost meditative for me. Even my partner says it. He’s like, ‘There’s a quality that comes out in you that only seems to exist when you’re working that isn’t there the rest of the time.’ ”
“Making a comment on a take is not the same as directing someone. You need to know when to give an actor the space to explore [the scene] for themselves and when you need to very clearly guide them...”
That connection between her physicality and the camera began when she was working on “Atonement.” To play the imaginative, impulsive Briony Tallis, she says that Wright “encouraged me to do movement rehearsals with a choreographer. We really thought about how I was going to walk, how I was going to stand, and the mannerisms that the character would have.”
Ever since, what Ronan considers to be her “process” has largely been shaped by her relationships with directors. She credits collaborators like Gerwig and Peter Jackson, whom she worked with on 2009’s “The Lovely Bones,” with introducing her to the way music on a set “puts a soundtrack in your ear.” She says that the opportunity to work with the Academy Award–winning McQueen convinced her to sign on to “Blitz” before she even saw the script.
To this day, Ronan still seeks advice from “Brooklyn” director John Crowley, who led her to a second Oscar nod in 2016. “When I’ve been in situations where I’ve been really stuck on how to bring a character or a certain scene or monologue to life, I will speak to him about it,” the actor says. “He has such a human-to-human approach, but it’s never preachy; he’s never telling me how to do something. He has a good enough read on people to know what will evoke a certain reaction in me.”
These influential partnerships made Ronan particularly cognizant of Heffernan during the filming of “Blitz”; the project marks the 11-year-old actor’s screen debut. “I was so conscious
of [his experience], because those first couple of jobs that you do, in particular, are so formative,” she explains.
At the age of 30, Ronan is already an industry veteran—and she recognizes that she’s been shaped as much by negative experiences as positive ones. “Oh, you started me now. I have a lot of thoughts on that,” she says with a laugh when we start to discuss what directors shouldn’t do. It turns out she doesn’t just have thoughts about this subject—she has a rubric. Here are her three essential pieces of advice for filmmakers who are new to working with actors:
Rule 1: “Making a comment on a take is not the same as directing someone. You need to know when to give an actor the space to explore [the scene] for themselves and when you need to very clearly guide them—but in a way that’s not manipulative or controlling, especially with actors who are more experienced, which I’ve [gone through] recently. I hate it when a director tells you what you need in order to give your best performance.”
Rule 2: “It’s as important for the director to read the actor as it is for the actor to understand their character. The director, of course, needs to have their vision and should have stability in how they work, even if that means being honest and being able to say, ‘I don’t know.’ But they also have to be able to adapt to the person that they’re working with.”
Rule 3: “I think it’s incredibly important—and it doesn’t happen enough—for directors to leave their baggage at the door, because they are essentially the parent in that dynamic; and as with a real parent, as with your mother or father, it’s so essential to
your feeling of safety and confidence [to know] that you’ve got someone guiding you who is solid. But I don’t think that necessarily takes the shape of someone who always has the answers.”
Ronan plans to write and direct her own material in the near future, even if it’s not totally clear what shape it will take. At the Telluride Film Festival earlier this year, she made the mistake of telling a reporter that she’s working on a short film. Ever since, she’s been facing the question every screenwriter dreads: “How’s the script coming?”
“It was such a throwaway comment,” she recalls. “And then my mate sent me an article that said, like, ‘Ronan Announces Next Feature She’s Going to Direct.’ ”
There is something in the works, however, that she says is motivated by the last few projects she’s been a part of, as well as a desire to explore her voice as a filmmaker. She’s found herself drawn to surrealism, inspired by auteurs like David Lynch and Bradley Cooper, who experimented with nonlinear structure in his 2023 Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro.”
“Blitz” Courtesy Apple TV+
“Whenever I’ve tried to write, there’s always been some element of surrealism,” Ronan says. “Because if you can create a world for yourself in the way that you did when you were a kid, then you’ll let your imagination fly and let it go wherever it wants to go.
“When [a movie] is great for me, it’s when the filmmaker acknowledges that film is a kind of magic and that it is something other,” she continues. “As much as I love to watch movies that are just a very honest reflection of reality, I really appreciate those that acknowledge: We are making a movie here. This is a picture. This is something that people are going to come watch for two hours so they can disappear into it.”
Ronan sighs, then grins. She’s fallen into that trap again: picturing headlines for a project that hasn’t been birthed yet. “It’s not even finished, and who knows what it’s going to be,” she says. “Even though I have so much experience as an actor, I’ve never directed before. I’m only attempting to write now, and it’s so hard. I think it’s the hardest discipline out of everything.”
She’ll learn as she goes, of course, just as she learned who she was as an actor by doing it. And even though her approach has remained the same over the years, she’s grown along the way. Unlike many of her peers, though, it’s a path you can chart by Academy Award nominations.
“There’s this message being passed back and forth between the actor and the camera that feels so powerful; for some reason, it’s almost meditative for me.”
Her first, for “Atonement,” was a whirlwind experience for a 13-year-old with no publicist, stylist, or social media presence who was walking the red carpet for only the third time in her life. “I remember almost seeing the Oscars then through my parents’ eyes because they could absorb more of it,” she says.
Her 2016 nomination for “Brooklyn” felt the most special. It was a surprise nod for an indie film, partially shot in Ireland, that Ronan says was intensely personal to her. Her third nod two years later, for Gerwig’s “Lady Bird,” felt the most like a “career shift.”
As for her fourth and (for now) most recent nod for “Little Women”? “I knew I wasn’t going to win, and I brought my mom with me as I always did,” the actor recalls. “We did all of the necessary things that we had to do. Myself and her and my publicist went for a lovely Italian dinner, and I think I was in bed by half-11.”
“My relationship with [awards season] has definitely matured over time. I don’t think I’m as wrapped up in it now,” Ronan says. “Getting a nomination can really help your career, for sure, just because you’re part of the conversation. But I’ve been very grateful for where I’ve gotten to. [Being nominated] is a lovely thing, but I feel so proud of the work that I’m doing regardless.”
She’s seen the ebb and flow of the industry over the course of her career—especially considering she started out before the streaming era, when it was unusual for young actors to get meaty roles in high-minded adult dramas. “It was basically me, Dakota Fanning, and Freddie Highmore for a bit,” Ronan remembers. “I’m sure they would say exactly the same thing—that climbing up the ladder was a process, and it took time. I am really grateful I didn’t get instant recognition and fame.
“That’s changed so drastically over the last 10, 15 years, where someone will do one job and they will instantly become hugely famous,” she continues. “Not always, but that can have an effect on how someone views themselves. It’s usually not them that change; it’s the circus around them that just builds and builds, and that can be quite dangerous.”
But she’s seen positive changes, too, especially in younger costars like Heffernan. Hearing her describe her ideal industry shift makes it easy to imagine what a Ronan-led film set might look like (once that script is finished, of course).
“In this new wave [of young actors]—and I include myself in that—there’s a level of feeling valued. You value yourself, so you’ll be vocal about protecting your health and well-being. People feel empowered to do that now in a way they didn’t before,” she says. “I think young people used to be taken for granted a lot, and I don’t think they will stand for that now.”
This story originally appeared in the Oct. 31 issue of Backstage Magazine. To hear our full conversation with Ronan, listen and subscribe to In the Envelope: The Actor's Podcast.
Photo credits: Celeste Sloman / Trunk Archive; “The Outrun”: Martin Scott Powell/Sony Pictures Classics; “Blitz”: Courtesy Apple TV+"