Saoirse Ronan says her experience as a child actor continues to shape her work

The entertainment industry is notorious for its mistreatment of child actors, but Saoirse Ronan says that wasn’t her experience. Maybe it was because her father was an actor, and her mother was there to protect her. Ronan says: “My mom and my dad always made me feel like, at its core, this should be fun. And as soon as it stops being fun, don’t do it anymore.”

Nominated for her first Oscar at just 13 for the 2007 film Atonement, the Irish actor says she was also “very lucky” to work with a string of supportive filmmakers when she was younger — including Peter Jackson, Peter Weir and Amy Heckerling.

“It was such an incredible environment to grow up in, where youth and innocence is sort of encouraged, in a way, and play is never forgotten about,” she says. “That’s really shaped who I am as an actor now.”

Ronan is currently starring in two films, Blitz and The Outrun. In the former, she plays a mother living in London with her young son and elderly father during the German bombing campaigns of World War II.

“Honoring the mother-child relationship was just something that I couldn’t really pass up,” Ronan says of Blitz. “I’m incredibly close to my own mother and we’ve spent a lot of time together where it was just me and her, so that dynamic is something that I’ve always wanted to bring to life on screen.”

The Outrun is based on the bestselling memoir by Amy Liptrot. Ronan plays Rona, a young woman whose life is derailed because of her addiction to alcohol. Rona makes several efforts to get sober before moving back to Orkney, Scotland, to help her father tend to his farm. In one scene, which Ronan describes as “the most insane experience I’ve ever had on film,” the character assists in the birth of a baby lamb.

“The really interesting and really humbling thing about it was that sheep don’t stick to a schedule,” Ronan says of the birthing scene. “And so we had to bend our shooting schedule to nature. I would get ready at, like, 4:00 a.m. We’d go into the shed and we would just wait and the camera would be ready to go.”

Interview highlights

On reading Amy Liptrot’s memoir The Outrun

I think it was the first time that I had been exposed to an addiction story that didn’t feel like it was all doom and gloom. And it allowed me to get to know the whole person. Amy Liptrot wasn’t defining herself by her addiction to alcohol, but was acknowledging that it played a huge part in her life and the destruction of her life for a long time. I was really drawn to the fact that we would follow a young woman as she struggles with alcoholism. I think that usually when you think of that as a story, you would imagine probably a man, middle-aged, or a woman who’s going through a divorce or she’s lost her family or there’s a domestic sort of element to it. And the fact that we were going to follow someone who, as bad as it sounds on paper, “shouldn’t” have this addiction and yet does, just reminds us of how this is something that can affect everyone.

On tackling the subject of addiction 

It is a particular topic that is very personal to me. It’s an addiction that I haven’t struggled with myself, but I’ve watched people very close to me struggle with it. And some of them have seen the light eventually and others have not — and that’s incredibly painful. And I think as someone on the receiving end of that, there’s a lot of anger and resentment that is born out of that experience because you’re not going through it yourself. You don’t understand or I certainly didn’t understand, really, how addiction works. … Unless you actually sit down to examine the effect that a substance is having on your brain, you don’t really take the time to unpick it because you’re so hurt by it and you’re so hurt that it has been chosen over you. So I think I spent a lot of my life carrying that around with me. But it was scary. … It just brought up a lot of pain for me, I suppose.

On Steve McQueen’s WWII film, Blitz

I, of course, knew that it was going to be a sort of fresh take on a World War II British epic, but I didn’t know exactly how. And so when he started to explain to me that it would follow a mixed-race little boy … and that it would really focus on the people left behind, essentially the ones who had to keep society going, which was the women, children and older folk, it just piqued my interest straight away.

On her memorable first time on a movie set as a young child  

It was some film about the Troubles, of course, and there were lots of explosions. And we definitely went through a phase of that in Ireland. … I think that’s where I got my sort of mild tinnitus from. I still have a ringing in my ears and I think it’s from this. There was an explosion that happened … that they hadn’t prepared anyone for, and Dad ran for me and put his hands over my ears to protect them from this massive explosion that had gone off. And he always said, “I just don’t know if I got to you time,” because I’ve got a ringing in my ears right now, even as we speak to you. And he’s got really bad tinnitus because of it. So that’s my first memory of being on a film set. And I remember even though I was young, I was 5 or something. And even then I remember loving the atmosphere of the film. So I just loved how cool everyone was and how much fun everyone seemed to be having.

On feeling out of place both in the U.S. and in Ireland

I was born in the Bronx. I was there till I was 3. I always sounded Irish. I was only really surrounded by Irish people when I was there anyway. And then with two Dublin parents, I moved to the countryside and so still didn’t really fit in and was reminded of that quite a bit. And so I never really felt like I fully belonged anywhere — and I still don’t really. I think there’s parts of me that belong in different places. And I suppose the older I’ve gotten and the more people who have become a part of my bubble, they are my home. My partner is my home … and so it’s not site-specific. … What’s really great about being on the road from so young is that you can create a home for yourself anywhere. And you know what you need to feel safe and to feel and comforted. I think any actor, any filmmaker, any musician, I’m sure they become experts in setting up camp anywhere, really.

On working with filmmaker Greta Gerwig on Lady Bird and Little Women

[Gerwig] actually put a line into Lady Bird where I think the nun in the movie says that the greatest form of love is to pay attention. … It’s the most beautiful line. And that is what Greta does. She pays attention.

Saoirse Ronan

Put simply, what I love and admire most about Greta is that she loves actors. She is not afraid of actors. She’s not intimidated by them. She knows how to handle them. She gives them support and structure, but also allows them to just play and be free. And it’s quite incredible how many directors can’t seem to do that. She enjoys being on set so much. She’s such a positive influence on all of us. And she has the most impeccable taste. And that girl will never stop working to make something better. She pays attention to every little detail without it feeling clinical. She actually put a line into Lady Bird where I think the nun in the movie says that the greatest form of love is to pay attention. … It’s the most beautiful line. And that is what Greta does. She pays attention. I’ve never met someone who is more genuinely interested by human nature and people, and I’ve never worked with anyone like her. And she always makes me better.

Lauren Krenzel and Anna Bauman produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.