Saoirse Ronan will be appearing on MTV’s “The Seven” next week, Tuesday April 5th. If anyone is interested to be a part of The Seven’s audience, send an email to for tickets. Please include name, age, email, phone, number of tickets, and date you’d like to attend. Remember we’re LIVE 5 days a week, you must be there from 3:15-5:30 and must be at least 16 years old or appear to be younger than 25.

LOS ANGELES—In her new film, Hanna, Saoirse Ronan has hair so blond it appears white, and bleached eyebrows from beneath of which her eyes are a startling blue. She looks like an ethereally lovely forest sprite—the kind that snaps people’s necks like chopsticks and has exquisite aim with guns, knives, and anything else that’s handy. “I just missed your heart,” her Hanna says sweetly when she hasn’t quite managed to kill. Then she finishes things off.

In real life, in an L.A. hotel room, the 16-year-old Irish actor is explaining how to pronounce her first name. She is slender, her eyebrows are now visible, and she doesn’t look particularly dangerous. “Well, there’s a few different ways to pronounce it, actually,” she says thoughtfully. “ ‘Seer-sha’ is how Irish people would pronounce it, usually. But I would pronounce it ‘Sir-shuh’, like inertia.”

Inertia doesn’t exist in Hanna (which opens in Vancouver next Friday [April 8]). The titular heroine lives with her ex–CIA agent father, Erik (played by Eric Bana), in a cabin in a Finnish forest very near the Arctic Circle. When she’s not shooting elk with a bow and arrow and expertly removing steaming innards, she’s engaged in intense combat games with her father. Guns are frequently pointed.

“It was cold,” she says, recalling filming in Finland. “It was cold; it was cold; it was cold. One day it was minus 30 degrees. Fantastic. Eric and I, for the whole week or two that we were there, we were wrapped in a bit of deer fur and we had cloth around our hands, but they were fingerless. And we had to fight in this. We fought on a frozen lake on the third day. But it’s beautiful there, one of the most beautiful places that I’ve ever been to. It’s like a winter wonderland.”

Familial bliss is interrupted, however, when Hanna decides she’s ready to face the dangers of the outside world and embarks on a secretive mission for her father. Shortly thereafter she’s being hunted from Finland to Morocco to Germany by assassins led by an intelligence agent (Cate Blanchett) with a deceptively friendly Texas accent.

While preparing to kill or be killed, Ronan was no slouch herself. “I trained in martial arts and stick fighting and weapons,” she says. “I learned more skills than I’ve ever learned on a film. I don’t necessarily remember them all, but still.”

Before Hanna, Ronan hadn’t needed to learn the proper way to slit a person’s throat. Playing the devastatingly deceitful little sister in Atonement and the loquacious murdered teenager in The Lovely Bones, she won many awards. “I like characters that I’m thinking about for ages and ages after I’ve finished reading the script,” she says, “Usually ones that are different from me or something that I’m not or wish I was. Or maybe a piece of me that I haven’t brought out yet and I want to explore.”

She looks decidedly believable exploring her lethal side in Hanna. “Do I?” she asks. “Good. That’s good.”

Picking up a nearby butter knife, she bangs the end hard on the table.

“Ha! See, I’m getting the passion now to fight again. Better take this away from me.”

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Thanks to Book My Show via missbones.tumblr.com for this brand new photoshoot of Saoirse.

Your role in Hannah is completely different than any other role you have done. What did you learn about yourself personally or as an actress?
Hanna is a simple minded fresh young girl and because she’s not judgmental or prejudiced at all and that certainly made me think about things in a different light. As an actress it felt like a collaboration between me and Joe Wright and this film helped us develop into a terrific working relationship.

You mentioned you worked with Joe Wright previously. How was the experience working on this movie? Did you find yourself exploring the subject matter differently [than when you worked on Atonement]
We’ve always have a really good relationship, and he never treated me like I was a kid, and he certainly didn’t when we did Hanna together. I can see in myself that I have definitely grown as an actor and I think he can see that too. I guess it left us with more creative freedom, and I was able to try more creative things and I was a little bit more in control of what I could do.

What do you feel you learned working with such a great cast?
We really did have a terrific cast on this movie, and everyone did something really interesting with their performance. With Cate [Blanchett], she is a wonderful actress and to observe how she works on set is quite fascinating. She is very focused and professional. You can tell she really cares about what she does and as a young actress that is a great thing to see.

What attracted you to this role [in Hanna] in the first place?
The fact that it was different and more challenging. And the fact that I got to do more physical activity. I’ve never gotten to do [a lot of physical activity] before in a movie and I’ve always been pretty athletic and I thought it would be fun.

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What is it that you look for when you choose a project?
You certainly have to think about the entire project, if it’s a well-developed script, etc. For me, it’s quite an impulsive thing, and I can feel it in my heart if it’s something that is interesting and something I’m passionate about. I always find if I read a script and I’m still thinking about it hours and hours later, it must be something that I’m interested in. I also like strange and dreamlike stories. I think it’s good to do reality type things but its’ good to have an escapism too.

How much of the stunt work did you do on your own?
I pretty much did everything. Unless there was something really really dangerous that my insurance wouldn’t cover, I did everything myself.

What was it like traveling from location to location?
It was great. It’s always wonderful to travel. I have been lucky on the films I have worked on so far because I’ve gotten to go to some really interested places. This film we were in three places—Finland for the exterior stuff, and we shot in Germany and Moracco as well.

How did you handle the big questions presented in the film?
It all comes down to imagination and the being of a person. I found it was a bit tricky at first, but it was quite important to wipe my own personal memory, because Hanna never went through those things and never really lived a life, and I found that [wiping my memory] helped to portray the innocence and naivety of her.

Since you worked with Joe Wright several years ago, did you find filming Hanna was easier because you were used to his style?
I think it was easier, but it was never difficult to work with Joe. We understand each other very well, and he has even gotten a bit braver as a director. It was nice to work with him again, and I like the idea of working with the same people over and over again. I had never done and action film before and neither had he, so it was great to go in that direction together.

Would you be interested in a sequel? What do you see in the future?
I think it would be really interesting to do a sequel and I think it is something they are talking about, because the reaction has been so fantastic. If they were to develop the character as well as they did in the first one then it would be a great thing to do, but I don’t think I would want them to do it just so they can make money off the sequel….I would like to go to college in a few years and make a Irish film in Ireland, I haven’t done that yet.

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Thanks to Caro for the heads up. Here’s the Hanna making of, the footage of the clip are from the on set interview and behind the scenes footage.

Thanks to M for the link.

Saorise Ronan isn’t the next great actress, she already is one
Ronan gives a powerhouse turn as Hanna, a girl who knows little of the outside world and, despite her “programming,” is instinctively curious about what is out there. To say Ronan rocks in this role is something of an understatement.

Joe Wright pulls off almost the impossible
The Oscar nominated director has already shown impressive storytelling skills, but here he turns a somewhat familiar conspiracy thriller on its head by making the substance just as prominent as the style.

Cate Blanchett is back
Blanchett has been something of a caricature in her last few performances veering off into the dangerously self aware world of Glenn Close in films such as “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Robin Hood,” but in “Hanna,” Wright pulls out the Oscar winner’s best turn since her work in Todd Haynes’ “I’m Not There.”

An impressive score from “The Chemical Brothers”
In this scene, Hanna realizes she’s being pursued and that the family she’s with is in danger. Notice the distinct pauses in the score setting up the eventual pursuit.

Tom Hollander almost steals the show…again
Why British actor Tom Hollander doesn’t work more in American films is incredibly puzzling. Especially considering his great work in the last two “Pirates of the Caribbean” films and the now classic satire “In the Loop.” Joe Wright knows exactly how talented Hollander is. He’s cast him in every film he’s made besides “Atonement” (conflict with those never-ending “Pirates” flicks) and once again, the mercurial actor delivers. This time he’s playing a German hitman for hire who moonlights as a Berlin club owner. Once you see the picture, all you have to know is Hollander picked out most of his own wardrobe to truly understand how fully realized his character of Issacs really is.

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“Still, the film is carried on Saoirse Ronan’s performance here and it’s certainly a memorable one. To be able to simultaneously pull off the look of a cold-blooded murderer with the uneasy emotions of a girl about to reach womanhood can’t have been easy, but she nailed it.”
- Alex Riviello, CHUD

“Hanna is powered by all-around genuinely thoughtful filmmaking and one heck of a performance from Saoirse Ronan resulting in a tense, funny, touching and, overall, wildly enjoyable experience.”
“Much of the credit for this character goes to Ronan. She is so clearly wholly committed to this role; it’s a wonder she didn’t lose herself in it completely. Hanna does change quite a bit from beginning to end, but Ronan manages to portray every single transformation in an undeniably powerful manner yet always keeping those changes within the confines of the character.”
“It’s original, enthralling, fun, thrilling and solidifies Saoirse Ronan as one of the best young actresses out there.”
- Perri Nemiroff, Shockya

“A superbly natural actress, Ronan makes every one of Hanna’s improbable ploys seem like things she just cooked up, even when they involve murder and vengeance.”
– Caryn James, indieWire

Saoirse Ronan is “phenomenal”, according to her Hanna co-star Olivia Williams.

The Irish actress, who plays the title role of a teenage soldier, impressed Olivia greatly after they acted in scenes together for Joe Wright’s action thriller.

“I was all ready to go, ‘Who does this young girl think she is?’ but then I did one scene with her, and she just blew me away – she’s a phenomenal actress,” Olivia said.

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IFTA winner Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones, The Way Back) has been receiving plaudits from critics across the Pacific for her latest role in Joe Wright’s high octane action thrill, ‘Hanna’. The Carlow born actress plays the title role, a young girl trained by her father to be a ruthless killing machine. The Hollywood Reporter has called her performance ”exceptional” whilst Variety praises her ”spirited” take on the role.

In the film Saoirse’s Hanna is a teenage girl with the strength, the stamina, and the smarts of a soldier; these come from being raised in the wilds of Finland by her father, played by Eric Bana (The Time Traveller’s Wife), an ex-CIA man. Living a life unlike any other teenager, her upbringing and training have been one and the same, all geared to making her the perfect assassin. Sent into the world by her father on a mission, Hanna journeys stealthily across Europe while eluding agents dispatched after her by a ruthless intelligence operative played by Cate Blanchett (Veronica Guerin).

Film reviewer for The Hollywood Reporter, Todd McCarthy describes Saoirse’s performance in the pursuit thriller as “exceptional” and compares her very favourably with her Oscar winning co-star Cate Blanchett, saying: “There’s little question that Ronan could eventually inherit Blanchett’s mantle, so strikingly similar are their looks and excess of talent.”

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Todd further lauds Saoirse’s command of the role, saying that Saoirse responds to the physical demands of the film “with the same absolute focus she brings to every other aspect of this demanding role, as she expresses intelligence, mental and physical resourcefulness, a bright-eyed curiosity about everything she’s seeing in the world for the first time, and an abiding aloneness.”

Variety’s Justin Chang praises both Saoire’s acting skills and dedication in the pre-production stages of the production: “In addition to the martial-arts training she undertook for the role, Ronan, as spirited here as she was in “Atonement,” endows the character with emotional and moral dimensions that the film, even at its most preposterous, takes seriously,” he notes.

The film, which is being distributed by Focus Features, goes on release in the U.S. on April 8th and will open in Ireland on May 6th. Stay tuned for IFTN’s interview with Saoirse about ‘Hanna’ and other projects in the coming weeks – in the meantime, check out the movie’s trailer below.

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“That is a question that I ask myself because a lot of people have been saying that to me,” Ronan says regarding “The Hobbit” buzz. “But nothing is confirmed or anything.”

“Well, I know they are introducing new characters in the film,” Ronan notes. “And if they ask me to play a part I’d jump at the chance. I’d love to work with him again. It would be great to work on ‘The Hobbit.’ Everyone is so excited about it.”

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