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: 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.
Byzantium
Violet & Daisy
Hanna 
The Way Back
