“I’m sorry, my voice might be a little hoarse,” Saoirse Ronan cautions when she gets on the phone from Los Angeles, where she is doing press for “Hanna.”
The night before, the star of the hard-driving, surprisingly emotional action flick attended the Lady Gaga concert at the Staples Center. This morning, her Irish accent has an even more loamy quality.
“It was amazing. It was absolutely fantastic,” says Ronan.
The concert tickets were a birthday gift from her parents. In a little less than a week, the actress with eight films and one Academy Award nomination to her credit will turn all of 17.
Most actors who come to the big screen as children migrate to adult careers with varying degrees of success. Got it: Anne Hathaway. Figuring it out: Zac Efron. Flailing miserably: Lindsay Lohan.
From the start, Ronan eluded the box. Even at 12, she never seemed to be a “child actor,” just a gifted performer guided by intriguing choices.
“We have seen kids who are great when they’re young, but when they get into their teens, they aren’t that impressive anymore,” she says. “Because it’s a hard thing to do, convince people that you’ve developed and grown up. Because maybe they always want to see you as an 8-year- old. I’ve never considered myself a child actor.”
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Born in the Bronx, N.Y., and raised in Ireland, Ronan is the only child of actor Paul Ronan and a one-time nanny, Monica Ronan. She appeared in a couple of Irish television series. But her great promise came to luminous light when she portrayed Briony Tallis in the 2007 adaptation of Ian McEwan’s wartime novel “Atonement.”
She was 13 and became one of the youngest actors to receive an Oscar nomination, for her turn as the young girl who allows a lie to tragically derail the lives of those near to her — sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and Cecilia’s love, Robbie (James McAvoy).
Briony might have been played as a bad seed, a cold catalyst of disaster. Instead, Ronan captured a youngster who was powerfully observant but not (contrary to her own assessment) wise beyond her years.
Ronan has an almost preternatural trust in the camera to locate meaning and emotions in her blue eyes, her pale, beautiful — not easily pretty — face. And the roles she’s chosen to play — an envious little sister, a victim of a hideous crime in “The Lovely Bones,” a Russian girl on an impossible trek in “The Way Back” — speak to a career already driven by rich characters.
“Hanna” reunites Ronan with “Atonement” director Joe Wright for a ride as contemporary as the elegant romance was bound to its World War II time period.
A trained animal
“Hanna” is a kinetic, volatile fairy tale about a wicked witch (Cate Blanchett) hunting down an innocent if lethal girl. Eric Bana portrays the father and one-time CIA asset who’s done much to prepare his daughter physically for a showdown but little to aid her unschooled soul.
“She seems, to me, to have a very simple outlook on life. She’s been trained her whole life and been through very strict regimen. And she’s very disciplined. But she’s kind of like an animal who’s been trained, like a dog or something,” says Ronan.
“When she steps out into the world, everything, absolutely everything, is new to her. She’s never experienced any of it before. As an actor that’s so brilliant to play with, to basically have the mind of a young child, so fresh and naive and fascinated by everything.”
Watching Hanna’s curiosity unfold is just as satisfying as watching her take on her red-haired nemesis.
And we’d like to say that Ronan continues to make a name for herself. Only, that first name is, she admits, “the thing the press has gotten wrong most.”
It’s pronounced “SIR-shuh.” Practice. Memorize. We’ll be saying it for years to come.
Byzantium
Violet & Daisy
Hanna
The Way Back
