This week on the Awards Tour podcast, our host, Jacqueline Coley, sits down with the four-time Academy Award-nominated actress Saoirse Ronan, who, at just 30 years of age, has already become a regular at awards shows and tops the call sheet for some of the most captivating and impactful films of the past 20 years. After her impressive Oscar-nominated start in Joe Wright’s Atonement, the Irish actress has since gone on to work with some of the most exciting filmmakers of recent years, including Greta Gerwig, Peter Jackson, and Wes Anderson.
This week, we sit down with Ronan to chat about the two Oscar-hopeful performances she has in contention this year. In the Sundance favorite The Outrun, she plays a young writer in a battle against alcohol addiction, trying to turn her life around. In Blitz, she plays the mother to a young mixed-race boy on an odyssey-like adventure, trying to find his way back to her after he is shipped away at the height of the London Blitz during World War II.
Saoirse Ronan and Steve McQueen – Blitz – Courtesy of Apple Films.
Directed by Oscar winner Steve McQueen, Blitz finds Ronan in familiar and unfamiliar territory; familiar as she’s receiving rave reviews for her dynamic performance, and unfamiliar as she plays a mother, desperate to find her son, for the first time in her career. In our chat, Ronan talked about how she approached her first “mom” turn after years of work as a child actress. We also spoke about what it’s like venturing into award seasons with many of her filmmaker friends expecting to join her and if she may take a seat in the director’s chair sometime soon. Please enjoy a preview of our conversation with Saoirse Ronan and watch the entire discussion in the above video.
Jacqueline Coley for Rotten Tomatoes: Talk about how you got the role and when Steve first approached you.
Saoirse Ronan: It was a couple of years ago. It was at the top of the year, and I was in Australia. I’d been away from home for four months at that stage and was just very ready to get back to my house and my dog. And I was going straight into prep for The Outrun, which, in total, was going to be a six-month job, basically, because we were producing it, and we did multiple pre-shoots and things like that.
And so I’d said to my agent during that time — because I’d love a break — so I was like, “When The Outrun’s done, I’m going away, and the only way I won’t go away is if someone like, I don’t know, Steve McQueen is going to make a movie.” And then a few days later, he contacted me, and he’s like, “Steve McQueen’s making a movie, and we’re going to get you in to meet him.”
And so I met him and had this great chat with him, which was only 20 minutes; it was really brief. But he explained to me how this would be a different take on a story that we all know so well. And I was so intrigued by the central relationship being one between a child and his mother. So yeah, I was in! I was such a huge fan of his anyway that I probably would’ve said yes to most things.
(Photo by ©Apple TV+)
RT: What was it like playing a Mom on screen after years of working as a child actor with a mom on screen?
Ronan: It’s funny that you say that about knowing all of these other onscreen mothers I had, because I’m really lucky with the majority of them I worked with; they were so wonderful with me. And even when I was a kid, I feel like kids just have a sort of a BS radar. So, I think the ones who tapped into playing my mother and were comfortable with that and were confident around me, I really responded to them. And I always thought, “Oh, there is a difference between people who are really sort of forcing that type of character and those who naturally seem to be very good at it.”
And I always thought, “OK, whenever I play a mother…” — because I do feel quite maternal myself anyway, and I have such a special relationship with my own mom. I was like, I want to feel like I’m representing what that relationship is like, and the honesty of it, and it not feeling forced, but it kind of becomes a part of who you are, in a way. I think I was probably very influenced by those onscreen relationships that I had with people like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Rachel Weisz, these amazing women who were just so gorgeous with me, so supportive and kind, and I wanted that to be what I was able to bring to life when I played my first mother.
Watch the video for the full interview with Saoirse Ronan.
Blitz
(2024)
is in theaters November 1 and available on Apple TV+ November 22.
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