What is it about this starry-eyed young actress that makes directors see a monster? Saoirse Ronan, soon to be 17, stars in the new action-thriller Hanna as a single-minded child assassin targeting the CIA, in particular an ice-cold agent played by Cate Blanchett; and in her next film, Violet & Daisy, she plays the comedic version, as a bubble-gum popping, gun-slinging hit-girl. After making her breakthrough in Atonement, earning an Oscar nomination for playing a unforgiving, heartsick young girl who ruins the lives of two adults, she became the go-to actress for sinister characters with a sweetheart veneer. Even in Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, as the victim of a child-murderer, the Irish actress was the centerpiece of the darkest of storytelling, narrating the aftermath of her own demise, including the story of the man who slayed her.

Hanna delves deep into another disturbed psyche — of a little girl who has only learned two things: how to survive and how to kill. Directed by Joe Wright, who also guided her in Atonement, it is a surreal and truly grim fairy tale (accompanied by a techno Chemical Brothers score) about a young woman reared in the wilderness who is finally unleashed on Blanchett’s wicked step-mother-figure. Hanna is simultaneously Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, joined into one.

“She’s not a very human person,” Ronan concedes. “She’s grown up as, not cold, but she’s quite detached.” Wright had Ronan’s hair bleached blond, including her eyebrows and eyelashes, rendering them almost invisible and lending the character an eerie blank expression. “It was done to have the center of the face be the eyes,” she says. “If you’ve seen Atonement, you can see Joe focuses a lot on my eyes. I guess he wanted to do that on this as well. He wanted to take away everything that took away from the blue of my eyes.”

Show ▼

Ronan’s eyes may be the movie’s most intense special effect. And let’s face it — they make the rest of us look like our eyes are two raisins sunken in bread dough — a comparison that makes Ronan laugh and say she’s flattered. A sense of humor is not something Hanna the character shares with the actress who plays her

“She experiences everything very honestly,” Ronan says. “She’s grown up in the place where she is surrounded by wildlife and animals and no other person except this man. So she doesn’t have anything to take reference from.” When given the choice to return to civilization and find this mysterious CIA woman, she’s as eager to go as any teenager with a freshly acquired driver’s license (something Ronan is about to get in real life.)

What separates Hanna from other child assassins — like Hitgirl in Kick-Ass, or Natalie Portman in The Professional — is the character’s naïveté. “I find with Hanna, she’s an animal,” Ronan says. “That kind of innocence is really different from what we’ve seen connected to other killers before her. The younger action heroines we’ve seen have always been quite cute and a little bit cocky, and come up with these really cool catchphrases after they shoot someone in the head. And it’s all made quite light.” The actress shrugs. “Maybe that’s why people will like her, because she’s not cool. She doesn’t have cool purple hair. And she doesn’t wear a cape.”

She gets to play that side — the cocky, catch-phrase-y kind of gunslinger — in Violet & Daisy, an independent movie that hasn’t yet set its release date. Directed by Geoffrey Fletcher, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Precious, Ronan plays Daisy and Gilmore Girls’ Alexis Bledel is Violet, two pretty young things who are also contract killers. “I was worried for [Fletcher] to have an actor who had just done a film where I am a killer. But you’ll see when Violet & Daisy comes out, they couldn’t be more different [from Hanna],” Ronan says. “Daisy is a really, really sweet girl. She’s not a natural killer like Violet is. Violet is a bit messed up, and she’s quite tough on the outside. She’ll face anything. And she seems quite cold, but she’s been through an awful lot.”

This time, Ronan plays the mother figure. “Daisy’s the one who keeps them together and keeps everything intact. But it’s bizarre.” How bizarre? “Well, they meet at a doll hospital,” Ronan says. “They are the best of friends and live together and don’t really mix with the outside world. They have their own little world. And everything is poppy and fun and about puppy dogs and dresses. They’re taking on this job because they want to get this dress that their pop idol has. Her name is Barbie Sunday.”

Ronan is more circumspect about another potential role, reteaming with Jackson on The Hobbit, though it’s a safe bet she will turn up. “Well, according to IMDB,” she says, coyly, “I’m playing an elf called Itaril. But I’d love to be in it. Pete and I want to work together again. It’s something that hopefully we’ll work out.”

Ronan says she felt like she changed on Hanna. On previous movies, she tended to sit quietly and just do as she was told. But now she feels more invested, more in control of the story she’s helping to tell. “I’m surprised it happened on this film, because I didn’t think it would. But I felt like I walked away from that film more grown up.”

In some ways, she didn’t walk away at all. Hanna hangs with her, and as Ronan steps into adulthood, she wonders about the fate and future of her character. “A lot of people have been asking about whether we should do a sequel or not. I think it would be interesting because she is such a blank canvas.” After a long pause, she adds: “It’s probably a bit dramatic to say she would kill herself, but I actually wonder if she’d be able to handle it. She has no one.”

There’s a line in the movie where Hanna wonders if there are other children like her out there, whose lives were stolen solely to make them killing machines. It sounds silly, but maybe she’d become a kind of distaff Rambo figure, tough as nails, and waging a solo war on behalf of other innocents. Ronan laughs at any comparison between her and Sylvester Stallone. “But she could do something like that, couldn’t she?” Ronan agrees. “She’s really affected, and it’s a beautiful line when she says: ‘Were there other children?’”

Maybe someday, Ronan will return to the character. The future is wide open. All lives are a work in progress, even for a character trained to end them.

Source

Saoirse Ronan
Forget “Atonement.” Forget “The Lovely Bones.” Fantastic as those performances are, “Hanna” brings Ronan her big breakout role. Describing her as mini-Jason Bourne does not do justice to the incredible feats of physical, mental and emotional strength this young killer accomplishes over the course of this film. Ronan’s already had quite the diverse career, and her step into the action genre is a bold and exciting one.

The Supporting Cast
Eric Bana turns in a reliably compelling performance as Hanna’s mentor and father, though it’s Cate Blanchett as the wicked Marissa Wiegler who steals the show. The spread of thoroughly evil characters in Blanchett’s resume are few and far between, and her turn as the relentlessly ruthless Wiegler is a deeply-cut notch in her accomplished belt of performances. Beyond Bana and Blanchett, major props go out to the other supporting players from Tom Hollander as the whistling sadist Isaacs to the true-to-today’s-youth-culture performance from Jessica Barden.

The Action
Make no mistake—though “Hanna” plays with many genres and storytelling motifs, it is fully populated by frenetic violence, intriguing espionage and impossible feats of power. It’s an eye-popping visual ride that director Joe Wright handles with surprising expertise, especially given his reputation a period piece filmmaker. Just as “Hanna” marks a bold new career move for Ronan, Wright proves here that he’s a force to be reckoned with in the action arena.

The Chemical Brothers
Have you heard that soundtrack? It’s brilliant, isn’t it? Now imagine that very same score humming and thumping beneath and above the surface of numerous sequences where the hell-bent Hanna efficiently and decisively tears her way through African and European landscapes. Need I say more?

The Complexity
“Hanna” is not a simple film. From genre-bending to visual trickery, this is a movie that blends many different elements of cinema into one wholly unique package. As Ronan herself explains: “I came out of the film and I kind of thought, what have I just seen? It was amazing. My heart was pumping. The music was so heavy the whole way through. And I still had all the characters in my head. But what the hell had I just seen?” Indeed, “Hanna” is not forgettable. It’s the kind of movie that sticks with you for the rest of the night, long into the weekend and then some. I won’t speak for you, but that’s more than enough reason to earn my ticket money.

Source

I’ve added the captures from Saoirse’s interview on Young Hollywood and you can watch the interview here. Thanks to Caro for the link.

“It was rigorous, but it was great,” Ronan told MTV News of her training process. “I trained for about two months before we started shooting, and I learnt new skills like knife fighting, stick fighting, how to shoot a gun, martial arts. There was a style designed by Jeff Amada, who’s the stunt coordinator, and it was created specifically for the character of Hanna. It was based on the strength and energy and body type and things like that. We worked on that every single day, and I felt like I was starting to walk differently. I’d hold myself differently. I felt stronger, just after a few weeks. It was amazing. It was a great way to focus.”

“I didn’t think I couldn’t do it, but I wanted to do my best,” Ronan said of tackling such an action-heavy role. “I’m a bit of a perfectionist, I guess, so I pushed myself quite a bit. I had a personal trainer to push me quite a bit as well. It was probably the most preparation I’ve ever done for a film, definitely the most physical preparation.”

“I think he held back a little bit, because he was fighting a little girl,” she said. “But I had a little voice in my ear — maybe it was Joe Wright, I don’t know — and he said, ‘Just go for it! Just do it!’ So I went for it. You just gotta do it.”

And don’t expect her to feel guilty about it, either. “It was good fun, kicking the Hulk’s ass!” she laughed.

Source

“I’m so boring,” she laughed when I asked her for an update on her “Hobbit” status. “Nothing’s confirmed, but I know that [Jackson and his team have] been working on the script really hard and I think they’re going to introduce a few more characters, so we’ll have to wait and see.”

Saoirse, who previously collaborated with Jackson on “The Lovely Bones,” said that she would love to go back down to New Zealand to work on the fantasy films. “I love New Zealand. It’s amazing — it’s so far away from Ireland, which is where I live, but it’s like a home away from home,” she explained. “I’d love to go back down there. And like you said, everybody is so excited about ‘The Hobbit.’ Everybody can’t wait to see it. There are so many great people involved, especially the cast, so give me a job, please!”

Something tells me that after people start seeing “Hanna” this weekend, Saoirse won’t have to do much begging for jobs. Still, if she does make her way to Middle Earth, she already has her eye on which mythical creature she’d like to play: “You know, I think the elves are quite elegant. I’ve always fancied being with them.”

Source

Rumors have pegged Saoirse for a supporting role in Wright’s developing adaptation of Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina,” with the director himself admitting that he’d like her to join the film. But as of now, Ronan says she’s not a part of the project.

“Well, nothing… not really,” she answered when asked if there was truth to her involvement in “Anna Karenina” (a title that I can’t correctly pronounce, it seems). Disappointing news for many, as Ronan and Wright make a heck of a team, and the classic novel would provide the young actress with a great environment to test those chops even further.

Still, she’s not closing the door on the possibility entirely: “There’s a lot of things going on right now and nothing has really been confirmed. So we’ll see.”

Source

Saoirse was on G4′s Attack of the Show, screencaps have been added to the gallery.

At only 16, Saoirse Ronan already has 9 films and an Oscar nomination under her belt. But spend a few minutes with her while she’s munching on french fries and lounging barefoot, and you’ll see that this Irish actress is actually refreshingly normal. From geeking out over Lady Gaga to showing off her favorite Miu Miu brogues, the almost-17-year old is totally charming. In other words, we were totally relieved to find that she’s the exact opposite of her scary hit-girl alter ego in the new action movie, Hanna. We caught up with Saoirse the day of the film’s New York premiere.

So the premiere for Hanna is tonight. Are you pumped?
Yeah, I’m ready for everyone to see it! We’ve had so many screenings and Q&A’s, and the reaction has been pretty great. I’ll be interested to see the response.

What drew you to the film originally?
The whole project seemed a really exciting thing to be a part of. It was very well-written, and the writer, Seth Lochead, was only 24. I liked the fact that the character was different than other action heroines than I’d seen before. She’s weird, a bit of a misfit, and quite alien as well. She’s just now experiencing all these things that we’ve had our whole life to experience. Joe Wright [the director] got on board soon after I did.

Hanna is basically this teen killing machine. How was it playing such an intense role?
It was brilliant. It was one of the best exercises you could have as an actor. She’s been in isolation her whole life, and I’ve got to play this girl who’s seeing the world through very fresh eyes and quite fascinated and shocked by everything. She never really knew the difference between beauty and ugliness and she wasn’t prejudiced and everything. She’s a blank slate and you can paint whatever you want on her.

Show ▼

Was it difficult to detach yourself from her each day?
No, actually, it wasn’t. When we had physical scenes that would usually take the whole day, it would take some unwinding.

What was the hardest thing you had to go through physically?
There was this shot in the beginning of the film, it’s close-up of me. I’m running across a frozen lake and sprinting about 400 meters and it was minus 25 degrees out. I get to the end, and I’m like, “I’ve got it, I’m about to faint, I can’t do anymore!” And then Joe says, “Yeah, we’re just going to do that one more time…need to catch something.” So we had to do it again!

How often do you come to NYC?
I was actually born in the Bronx, but moved to Ireland when I was 3 ½. It’s weird, it actually feels familiar. I feel like I’ve been here before.

What are your favorite places to shop?
I love Urban Outfitters and Topshop! Both stores are really close to each other each other in Dublin, and I always go.

What do you do when you’re not filming?
When the weather is nice, I like to go to the river. Shopping is nice for a few hours, but then I get tired and my back starts to hurt. I feel old! I just like hanging in the city, really. I love Dublin. I go to a lot of concerts.

Who’s your favorite person you’ve seen live?
I looooove Gaga. I’ve seen her live twice; I’m a total groupie. I saw her in Berlin and also about a week and a half ago in LA. My mom and dad didn’t know what to get me for my birthday, so I was like, “Listen, Gaga’s playing in LA….” So I went, and I dressed up; you feel under-dressed if you don’t. The LA concert was her 25th birthday, and at the end of the gig they brought in a cake, and everyone sang to her- it was great.

Last question: how was it bleaching your eyebrows for the movie?
It was weird! They totally paled me out by bleaching my eyebrows and the tips of my eyelashes, and I had a wig. After a while I’d forgotten I had bleached eyebrows and I’d always get looks in Berlin and stuff. I looked like a different person.

Source

Saoirse Ronan burst onscreen in Atonement with a stare that seemed to burn through celluloid. The performance garnered her an Academy Award nomination before she’d hit her teens and this Friday, Ronan reteams with her Atonement director Joe Wright for the thriller Hanna. The film stars Ronan as an almost feral teen raised (and trained) in the wilderness by her ex-CIA father, played by Eric Bana, with the purpose of taking on Cate Blanchett’s deliciously evil CIA agent. At only sixteen, Ronan carries the film on her young shoulders with surprising ease. Not only does Ronan beat a number of foes as a kind of diminutive Jason Bourne, but she delicately plays a girl coming of age in an unfamiliar world. In person, Ronan is delightful and unfailingly polite—at one point she even calls out “Bless you!” when someone in the next room sneezes. We sat down with Ronan to ask about having to stare down Cate Blanchett and having to shoot in the Moroccan heat—twice.

ELLE: There are so many films that come out with one “tough girl” but they’re in short skirts or something, whereas Hanna—
RONAN: She’s not sexy.

ELLE: No and she shouldn’t be.
RONAN: That was never really part of the story.

ELLE: Did that appeal to you when you took on the role?
RONAN: That was certainly one of things that stuck out to me. The character herself, she’s quite innocent and she hasn’t had any life experience at all—she’s never really been involved in the world or civilization or anything like that. Suddenly she’s right in the middle of it and has a mission to complete. It’s all so fascinating for her. Everything is new and fresh. As an actor, to play a character like that is brilliant. Usually the action heroines are quite cool and they know what they’re doing. Hanna is not like that at all—she’s a misfit.

Show ▼

ELLE: How was it to shoot on location in these very unforgiving locations like Finland and Morocco?
RONAN: We went to Morocco and it was mad because I was actually there the year before shooting [The Way Back] there. We shot [Hanna] in exactly the same place. I thought when I was making [The Way Back] ‘Ok, this is tough. The heat is pretty intense and it’s beautiful. But I’m not coming back here for another five or ten years. Maybe I’ll never come back here.’ But the next year, I go to the exactly the same place. I stay in the same hotel. I work for the same crew—it was cool. It’s an interesting place.

ELLE: You worked with Joe [Wright] before, how was it coming back together to make a totally different kind of film?
RONAN: Well we got on really well. We shot Atonement when I was about twelve years old. It was a while ago, about four years ago, but he never really treated me like a kid. He didn’t on this either. It’s basically the same relationship we always had, but it just developed. It felt like a collaboration, which I loved; I could make suggestions, which I could do before, but I didn’t have the confidence. When you’ve worked together before, you feel quite safe and relaxed. I think it was a good idea to work with someone [I] was familiar with on something that was new. Because I had never done action before and he had never done action before.

ELLE: In the film you’re alone or with adults for most of the film, but there is an interlude where you meet Jessica Barden’s character and get to be a real teen for one night—did that reflect your experience filming?
RONAN: To work with Jess was really great, because I don’t really get to work with a lot of young people. I met her in Berlin and we got on well straightaway. She’s a very easy person to get on with. She’s kind of similar to Sophie in the best possible way. She’s so charming and comes out with these crazy things and I love her. We bonded over Lady Gaga. We played her music in the make-up truck everyday. But it’s great to have a character like that introduced in the middle of the story. She’s so different from Hanna, they’re opposites who come together and develop a really nice relationship.

ELLE: Your character is sort of put through the wringer in this—how did you deal with the physicality of the role?
RONAN: The trickiest thing is remembering the fight moves and bringing an emotional performance to it as well. I wouldn’t say it’s easy but it’s simpler to just focus on step one, step two, step three or do a punch here and do a kick there, but to bring emotion to it as well, and understand what you’re doing—we had to make it vicious sometimes. That was probably the trickiest thing—but I liked doing the physical stuff. It was a great way to focus. I had to train a lot for the film and I was working out in the gym everyday. I had muscles all of a sudden. But it’s actually quite empowering.

ELLE: Well you get to take out Eric Bana in this.
RONAN: Yeah, the Hulk! After the gym or a few hours of martial arts you feel strong physically. Not only in yourself but you feel like you can handle a lot more. It’s a great feeling to have.

ELLE: There have been a few films lately where you have younger girls who are really tough like in Winter’s Bone and True Grit and they’re not overly sexualized. They’re just tough characters, did you feel Hanna was part of that?
RONAN: Yeah definitely, I mean [that aspect] is not needed most of the time to be honest. Both of the characters you mentioned are a lot more interesting than some of the others I’ve seen. There’s been a few recently where you think ‘Jesus! Is that really necessary? Did we really need that to tell the story?’ I think it’s always great to see tomboys in films.

ELLE: What was it like to face off with Cate Blanchett?
RONAN: It was great. We didn’t really have any traditional dialogue scenes, which is a shame because she’s lovely. It seems like every role she takes on she commits to and you can see that when you’re on set with her. She’s very focused and professional and she cares about what she does. It’s inspiring really—I loved working with her. With Eric—I got to know him quite well. The first few weeks of shooting it was just me and him in Finland and Germany, which is great because he’s a lovely guy. He’s hilarious as well. People seem to be very surprised that he’s actually funny.

ELLE: You’re still so young but you’ve done a lot already. Is there anything you’re dying to do or are you interested in taking a break for college?
RONAN: I don’t know yet really. I think it’s going to be quite busy—knock on wood. There’s a lot of stuff floating around. There’s nothing made definite yet, but we’ll see. I would like to go to college whenever the time is right. I don’t know what age that is, whether it’s 18 or 21. I don’t even know what I’m doing a month from now! It’s that kind of life. But college is definitely something I’d love to do. Whenever I ask people about college and the experiences they’ve had, people always say they wouldn’t give it up for the world.

Source