Atonement’s

Saoirse Ronan

by Lynn B

She’s only 13 but young Irish actress Saoirse (pronounced Sheer-Sha) Ronan was nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as young writer Briony in the weeper Atonement. Saoirse lost the award to Cate Blanchett but was completely shocked and flattered just to be nominated. The awesome young actress is now working with Lord of the Rings’ director Peter Jackson as the lead in his film adaptation of the popular novel “The Lovely Bones”.

We got to chat with Saoirse on her third trip to L.A. recently. She was about to head off to New Zealand to continue shooting “Bones” and we were lucky enough to corner her for a short time. We noted that the actress was a way more modern teen, with her hair up and wearing jeans, beige tee and green and beige hoodie, than her character Briony who was stuck in stuffy 1930’s-style dresses and a severe bob hairdo. We dished about her friendship with Keira, her desire to work with Johnny Depp, her fave music and TV shows and her next projects. Check it out…

AGW: How did you find out about your Golden Globe nomination?

Saoirse: I’m 13 so anything at all is exciting, you know? [laughs] I was in Pennsylvania [shooting The Lovely Bones] when I got the word. It was my last day in Pennsylvania. My dad was up waiting for the announcement. I just happened to wake up when the phone rang. And I just heard my dad shout, ‘Yes!’ So I ran out and I said, ‘Oh God, that must be good news! He must be happy for some reason.’ He told me, and we jumped around a little bit. Had a cup of tea. Calmed ourselves down. No, but it was great though. And it's really great for Ireland as well. Because we're such a small country, and that doesn't really happen every day.

AGW: Keira Knightley had a lot of nice things to say about you. Is she a friend and did you get to have fun and goof off on the Atonement set?

Saoirse: Yeah, I mean, I did [goof off] with her and James [McAvoy] and [director] Joe [Wright]. They've all become my friends now, you know? And whenever I get to see them, I get really excited because it's like you haven't seen your friend in a long time. Keira’s great and she's just really
professional, and she has her feet on the ground and she's just a really
nice person.

AGW: She also said you had a very natural, innate acting ability. Where does it come from? [note: Saiorse’s dad is actor Paul Ronan].

Saoirse: And I think, until you experience it and until you actually do it, then you don’t know that you're interested in it. That's definitely what it was like for me, anyway. I started when I was about eight and I was just thinking about school and being with my friends and everything. And then I just happened to get this part in an Irish drama, and I really liked it. And then I did another Irish drama. And then I did my first film. And it was really when I did Atonement that I knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my life.

AGW: How challenging was Briony? She’s a pretty deep and intense character.

Saoirse: Briony was pretty challenging. I had a lot of discussions with Joe. And without Joe, I couldn't have done any of it. He's just amazing. I think the main thing to being Briony is just to imagine, because that's what she did. As soon as I started playing Briony, I got really, really close to her. I mean, I'm not a method actor at all, but I felt like I kind of became Briony in a way. Every day, I'd just think about it in my head and think, ‘Well, in what way would she react’ to whatever it was that we were doing that day?

AGW: She sort of destroys lives with her lie. What did you think of her behavior?

Saoirse: I think a lot of people say that Briony was a brat and she was a
b**ch and everything. I get really defensive when I hear people say that [laughs] because she was 13 and she was a child in the 1930s. No TV. All she had were her stories. And she is a storyteller. And when she saw all these things, she got really confused and she tried to put some order to it in her head and she made herself believe that ‘well, this has to happen in
order for it to fit into my story.’ So she did. She made herself believe.

AGW: Briony is played as an older person by both Vanessa Redgrave and Romola Garai. Didn’t you all have to act and move similarly?

Saoirse: Yeah. Me and Vanessa and Romola did rehearsals together. We had a choreographer with us, and Joe, and they said to me, ‘Okay, just sit down on a chair the way you think Briony would sit down.’ So I sat down and I put my hands on my knees, and I kind of wrapped my leg around my other leg, which is what I do anyway. I think Briony's this girl who keeps to herself, and she's not one of these people who is very affectionate. She doesn't hug people all the time or anything. And then we just walked around in a circle and they followed me, and we just walked the way we thought Briony should walk. It was pretty cool.

AGW: Did you go to sets with your dad as a little kid? Was that your first exposure to a set?

Saoirse: Yeah. I went on the set of The Devil's Own, which my dad was in. It did help [in that] it didn't completely overwhelm me when I came onto a set to work for the first time, because I kind of knew what certain things were
for, and what people did and stuff. And as I did more projects, I started
to learn more and more and more. I’ve still got loads more to learn, though.
[laughs]

AGW: Is there an actor you have a crush on, or someone you think is really great, that you want to work with?

Saoirse: Johnny Depp. I will say no more. Actually, when I was on the way over to LA yesterday, I saw this movie with Sienna Miller and I hadn't seen her in anything before. But she did an American accent, and she was absolutely fantastic in it so I really love her now, and I'd like to work with her. Who else would I like to work with? [ponders] Jack Nicholson. Meryl Streep. Loads of people.

AGW: Did you grill Keira about Johnny Depp?

Saoirse: Ummm... [coyly] A little bit, yeah. Because when you think someone's a really good actor or actress, you really want them to be a nice person? [laughs] So I wanted to make sure that he was a nice person, and she said he was, so I was delighted then. And she said Orlando Bloom was lovely as well.

AGW: Let’s talk about The Lovely Bones. Because your character is dead and kind of alone in the film, do you get a chance to
interact as much with the other actors?

Saoirse: I've got loads of scenes with the actors, but not as much
as they all have with each other. We haven't done the heaven stuff in New Zealand yet. I'm going next week to do all that stuff. So I'll be there most of the time on my own. And then sometimes with this girl called Nikki SooHoo, who's playing Holly, who's my friend in the film. But yeah, I had a good few scenes with Mark [Wahlberg] and Rachel [Weisz]. Basically all the Salmon family. And Susan [Sarandon] as well.

AGW: Do you think the script for The Lovely Bones deals with the unusual setup of the novel?

Saoirse: Yeah. I mean, I didn't read the novel. I'm going to wait until
I'm just a little bit older. A lot of people have said that it's such a beautiful book. It's the same kind of thing but she's not kind of sitting on a cloud and she hasn't got wings sticking out of her back. It's kind of through a child's eye, which is kind of the way Atonement is told. And it's all kind of in her imagination. Whenever Susie [her Lovely Bones character] feels happy, heaven is sunny and there's flowers and birds and everything. And whenever she's not feeling so great, it's raining or she's in the middle of an ocean. And it's really beautiful.

AGW: What's your favorite music?

Saoirse: I like loads of people. I like KT Tunstall, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Scissor Sisters. It's more if I like the song, then I'll get it, you know? I prefer to buy the single though, because I might not like the rest of the songs. I'll get bored.

AGW: In the movie I Could Never Be Your Woman, how much of the singing and music did you perform? What kind of musical background do you have?

Saoirse: I hadn't really done any music before. I want to learn how to play the piano so I'm going to do that when I go on to high school. I don't really play any musical instruments now. But that was me singing. And I learned how to play the guitar but I just kind of played a few different chords.

AGW: Any American television you've started liking?

Saoirse: I love ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ and ‘Friends’, ‘That '70s Show’, ‘King of Queens’.

AGW: You go to a public school in Ireland?

Saoirse: It's kind of like a private school, but it's not a posh school,
if you know what I mean. We don't wear like gold buttons on our uniforms
or tiaras or anything like that. [we laugh].

AGW: You are in another film that’s coming out. What can you tell us about City of Ember?

Saoirse: It's this story about Lina Mayfleet and this boy called Doon Harrow and they live in this city that runs on lightbulbs. In the heart of the city is this big, huge generator that generates electricity. And Lina finds this box one day in her apartment, and it has these pieces of paper, and it's all ripped up because my baby sister chewed them up, which is helpful. And so Lina and Doon Harrow try to piece all the bits of paper back together, in order to save the city and save the citizens of the city to get the lights back on basically. It's like a fantasy action kind of thing.

AGW: What would it mean to you if you were nominated for an Oscar?

Saoirse: I think just to be nominated for any award is nice. it's
really nice that people thought I was good in the film and stuff. But
yeah, let's not lie. It'd be really cool to be nominated for an Oscar!
Yeah, it would. It'd be really nice. But I mean, I'm 13, so if it doesn't
happen, it doesn't happen, you know?

AGW: You have lots of time.

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