Saoirse Ronan Web | s-ronan.com

Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones, Atonement, Hanna) came into the GLAMOUR.com offices to answer your questions live on Twitter. Find out what the Irish actress had to say about training in -30 degrees wilderness for her role as a teen assassin in Hanna, why she loves Lady Gaga so much and what’s going on with her rumoured roles in The Hobbit and The Host.

Question: In The Lovely Bones was it difficult to play someone who meets such a tragic end? (by @missmelinki)
Saoirse: The atmosphere on set was always light, that was down to the people involved. I only needed to go to that place some of the time.

Q: Who’s your style icon? (by @Rebecca_Cox)
S: I like Sienna Miller and Kate Moss because they know what works for them and stick to it.

Q: Who do you not want to miss out at the Oxegen fest? (by @kmaa)
S: Jesse J, The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys.

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Q: Did you do many of your own stunts in the film [Hanna]?
S: I did all of ‘em. I trained before hand in the gym and in martial arts.

Q: What do you think of playing Melanie & Wanderer from The Host?! (by @TwilightMOMS)
S: I’d love to be involved. Let’s hope.

Q: How was the Met Ball? Do you ever get nervous? (by @leisabarnett)
S: Butterflies! It was a very glamorous night.

Q: Hey Saoirse, I love your name, it’s so unique. What does it mean? (by @JustMeLenii)
S: Thank you. It’s Irish for Freedom and/or Liberty.

Q: Will you be working with Peter Jackson again in The Hobbit?
S: Unfortunately I won’t be able to do it. It breaks my heart. I love Bilbo and New Zealand.

Q: What attracted you most to Hanna. Are you similar? (by @KrisVamp)
S: Not really but it’s more fun to play a character who’s different.

Q: What advice do you have for teens to get into acting? (by @Rhonda_Anaconda)
S: Try to get involved in a drama group, and watch good movies.

Q: What did the cast do to get into the mindset of living rough in Hanna? (by Samantha Jane Cropper)
S: We trained in the wilderness in -30. That was rough enough!

Q: Would you be up for a sequel to Hanna? Joe Wright said he’d do one if you would…
S: Absolutely. I love the character. It’ll give me an incentive to get back in the gym.

Q: Sersh, any news on Emma Thompson’s Effie? (by @CorkConan)
S: I’m hoping and waiting for some news myself as I’d love to play her.

Q: What are your favourite countries? (by @ShenekaShirly)
S: My favourite countries are Ireland, New Zealand and the United States.

Q: What are your hobbies? (by @ShenekaShirly)
S: Swimming, surfing and being awesome! Nah, the last one’s a lie.

Q: What do you like about roles that are physical? (by @TwilightLexicon)
S: It makes me feel better about not exercising between roles.

Q: You’re a huge Lady Gaga fan. What is it about her that you love so much?
S: She’s a true artist who works her arse off for her little monsters. Everyone watch the Judas music video tomorrow!

Q: What causes are you passionate about? (by@gabriellamer)
S: I’m an ambassador of the ISPCC that works to prevent cruelty to children.

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Thanks to Caro for the heads up.

Gallery Link:
Photoshoots from 2011 > 2011 : Session 01

Oscar-nominated at just 13 for Atonement, Saoirse Ronan is playing a trained assassin in her latest film, Hanna. She’s already tackled death and betrayal on screen, but remains charmingly girlish – and says that being a child is an asset in the make-believe world of movies
Saoirse Ronan is looking forward to her first ever music festival. She’s already booked her ticket for Oxegen in County Kildare and is very excited about a line-up that features some of her favourite bands (Arctic Monkeys, Black Eyed Peas) and the chance to sleep in a caravan with three of her best friends. ‘That will be so cool,’ she giggles. ‘I wouldn’t even mind a tent in the mud, I so want to go!’

Like most 17-year-olds she’s music-mad, and is all set for an adventure that has become a rite of passage for teenagers across Europe. That is, if work doesn’t get in the way.

Because while her mates will be fretting about exam results and part-time jobs this summer, Saoirse (pronounced Seer-sha) will be on the other side of the world from her native Ireland making a blockbuster movie. With a CV that’s the envy of many twice her age (including an Academy Award nomination for Atonement), she’s on course to make the tricky transition from child success to genuine grown-up star, like, say, Jodie Foster, the Oscar-winning actress she is often compared to.

‘The people I’ve worked with have been lovely. Keira was sweet. And Cate was great – she’s like a wicked witch in Hanna!’

Her latest film, the thriller Hanna (directed by Joe Wright, who also cast her in Atonement), sees her holding her own alongside Hollywood big hitters such as Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana. She plays the title role, a young girl who has grown up in the wilds of Finland and been trained by her father (a former CIA agent played by Eric) to avenge her mother’s death by killing her murderer (Cate).

‘I love Cate! She’s like a wicked witch in Hanna and she’s great,’ says Saoirse. ‘She brought her little baby Iggy [Ignatius] on to the set and he was just adorable. She’s really lovely – and she’s professional and focused, and I like to be that way, too.’

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Ms Blanchett doubtless recognises a kindred spirit. Saoirse has been constantly in demand ever since she appeared as an eight-year-old in an Irish TV hospital soap called The Clinic, and acting is all she’s ever wanted to do.

‘I’ve always liked being in front of the camera. My dad always had the camcorder out.’ The only child of character actor Paul Ronan (from Ballykissangel, as well as films including The Boxer and Veronica Guerin) and Monica, a former nanny, Saoirse has been on film sets all her life. ‘When I was a baby my dad took me on set when he was in The Devil’s Own with Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford, although, to be honest, I don’t remember that.’

She’s about to play Itaril the Elf in Peter Jackson’s film based on Tolkien’s The Hobbit, which has begun shooting in New Zealand. Peter also chose her for the highly coveted role of Susie Salmon in his 2009 movie The Lovely Bones (for which she got a Bafta nomination), so he’s clearly a fan. But of course it would mean missing Oxegen. ‘I know! It’s crazy, but I’m going to see if I can fly back for it – that’s how much I want to go!’ Saoirse may have been flown around the world first class several times – and rubbed shoulders with some of the biggest names in Hollywood – but she’s polite and endearingly straightforward, despite inhabiting a vastly different world from most of her friends.

‘I don’t feel I’ve had to grow up faster because of my job,’ she explains. ‘In a way, it helps to be a child, because children always act – it’s natural to pretend. Being around adults and involved in in-depth stories and thinking about characters has certainly helped me to mature. But I’ve always been kind of mature anyway, without forgetting that I’m still young.’

Saoirse has already tackled some serious issues – playing a young girl who is murdered in The Lovely Bones, and exploring the repercussions of deceit in Atonement, as the young Briony, a 13-year-old who accuses a man of a crime he didn’t commit, with devastating consequences.

She doesn’t get fazed by the stars she works with: she has already appeared alongside Michelle Pfeiffer, Catherine Zeta Jones, Rachel Weisz and Colin Farrell. And the stellar cast of Atonement included Keira Knightley and James McAvoy.

‘I love my job but it’s just what I do and I don’t think it has changed me’

‘The people I’ve worked with have been lovely to me. I remember Keira as very sweet to be around. She didn’t seem to think of herself as a movie star, and that’s always good in my book.’

Atonement was nominated for seven Academy Awards in 2007, including best supporting actress for a 13-year-old Saoirse, although she lost out to Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton. The night itself, with Saoirse dolled up in her finest designer frock, went by in a bit of a blur.

‘I wore a green Alberta Ferretti dress, which was very nice but kept getting caught in everything,’ she laughs. ‘I wanted to wear a green dress just to say, “Hey, I’m at the Oscars and I’m Irish!” But everybody thought I wore it because Keira had a green dress in Atonement.’

Off duty she’s at home in high-street fashion – today she is curled up in Levi’s and a striped top – but is developing a taste for high-end: ‘With stores like Topshop and H&M you can find really great stuff, but I do like designer things as well, and I’m lucky because they approach me to wear their stuff. I really love Miu Miu.’

Alabaster pale with cornflower blue eyes, Saoirse is willowy and strikingly pretty. She’s also aware of the body-image pressures that young actresses face. ‘But I think it’s changing. I mean, look at Helena Bonham Carter. She’s beautiful but she often plays against how she looks and I really respect that. I like to look good but you have to be individual too.’

Born in New York, while her father was working there, Saoirse returned to the County Carlow countryside when she was three years old, and the family still lives there now. Today, Mum and Dad are pottering about nearby, keeping a watchful eye on proceedings. ‘They travel with me and it’s great to have them by my side because it makes me feel safe. We’re very close.’

There’s no serious boyfriend on the scene yet. ‘I mean, I have boys who are friends, but not a boyfriend as such,’ she giggles. That’s for the future
– in the meantime, she wants to hang out with her mates and see bands in Dublin.
Her close friends are proud of her achievements, but not – she stresses – overawed by her life as an actress. ‘I would hate it if the people that I know from school or my village treated me differently. I don’t take my friends to see my films.

I like to watch it once – just out of curiosity to see how it turned out – but after that I’m kind of done with it.’

For the past three years she has been home-schooled – having one-to-one tuition when she’s on a film set and taking lessons ith her tutors in Ireland. But she’s doing her best to stay ‘normal’.

‘When I’m away I keep in touch with my friends by text, emails, Skype and phone calls. I love my job, but it’s just what I do and I don’t think it has changed me. Mostly, I can leave a role behind when I go home at the end of a day’s filming, although sometimes, when you’re dealing with death or rape or betrayal, it does affect you. It makes you think about things. Especially when I was playing Susie Salmon [in The Lovely Bones]. I would think about all the girls who have been murdered, and I would get upset because I was so close to Susie and I had connected with her.’

Playing the title role in Hanna was challenging in a different way. ‘Physically, it was tough,’ she says. ‘I had a lot of fight scenes to do and I did everything myself.’ Her fitness and martial-arts sessions started three months before filming, and there were times when her aching muscles were screaming for a rest. ‘I kind of felt like, “Can I just stay in bed today?”’ she laughs. ‘But I am a very motivated person. And I knew it had to be done, so I did it.’

The film has a surreal beauty, shot in remote locations in Finland, where it frequently dropped to minus 29C, and in Morocco, where the heat soared above 38C.
It’s a thriller but also a contemporary fairy tale – a girl raised in isolation to be the perfect survivor goes out into the big bad world, where she meets ruthless CIA operative Marissa (played with relish by Cate Blanchett), an agent who
will stop at nothing to cover up a mission that went wrong and resulted in the murder of Hanna’s mother.

Hanna is physically equipped to deal with the dangers that lie ahead, but totally unprepared for the modern world. She’s both an innocent abroad, and a stone-cold killer.

‘Obviously her situation is extreme – she’s been trained to kill and nothing’s going to stop her. But, in a way, she’s going through the same thing that every teenager goes through, stepping out into the world thinking everything is going to be perfect and everyone is going to be good, and it’s not like that.

‘Hanna feels isolated – she doesn’t know anyone and doesn’t understand anyone – and there are plenty of young people who feel that way. So I was able to relate to her and that helped.’

Saoirse looks particularly striking with her hair and eyebrows bleached out for the film. ‘I was very conscious that I didn’t have any eyebrows. It was about a season before bleached eyebrows came into fashion, and later all those gorgeous models had the look, so I felt like a trendsetter!

‘Do you know what I’d like to do? I might get my hair cut a bit shorter. I’ve seen posters in Topshop where the girls have little blue and pink bits in their hair – Lady Gaga has done that and it looks really cool – so I might try it.’

In many ways, Saoirse is just like thousands of other teenage girls – bright, funny, engaging and fashion crazy, with a healthy hint of rebellion. Except, in her case, that means there’s a good chance of her making an appearance at the next Oscars with blue and pink streaks in her strawberry-blonde hair.

BOOKS The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy — stick with it and it’s very romantic. And I’ve just finished The Story of Film by Mark Cousins.
MUSIC Lady Gaga, the Strokes, Florence and the Machine and the Smiths. I’ve been listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan too, and obviously the Beatles are amazing. On Hanna, me and Jessica Barden used to do our Lady Gaga routine in hair and make-up.

CLOTHES I’m into grunge boots. And I’ve got this cool pair of multicoloured Nikes. For me, clothes are about individuality. When I wear things that are different and it works, it makes me feel good. One of my favourite things at the moment is a Calvin Klein bomber jacket with a wool collar and lots of zips.

ACCESSORIES I have a couple of pairs of sunglasses that I adore — eggshell-blue Ray-Bans and black Tom Fords. I also love bags. My favourite is a gorgeous burnt-orange Miu Miu. It’s the perfect size — I can put my phone in there, make-up, a bottle of water, sunglasses, and away I go.

MAKE-UP I don’t wear a lot when I’m doing my own thing, but I’ve always got a concealer palette for when I’ve got spots or I’m looking tired. And I’ll use a bit of glitter now and then.

STYLE ICON Sienna Miller is a great dresser — she always looks so cool. Alexa Chung wears some amazing things. And Lady Gaga is a complete style icon — she writes her own music, she’s a fantastic singer and she has created a world for herself and her fans. She loves her fans and we love her.

SAVING UP FOR An amplifier. My uncle Joe got me a record player recently and I haven’t got an amp for it yet. I’ve got the Beatles’ White Album and David Bowie’s Space Oddity on vinyl already, but I’d like some more records. You’ve got to love it when you see shelves stacked with vinyl.

DRINK Well, I’m only 17! I drink a lot of water, but that’s boring, so maybe I should say something like fizzy lizard juice with glitter mixed in. That sounds cool!

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