Saoirse Ronan, a 4-time Oscar nominee, chasing her first win with new film 'Blitz'

Saoirse Ronan has been acting for 21 years now. Photo: Reuters

A critic darling, 30-year-old Saoirse Ronan has been nominated for an Oscar four times starting with when she was just 13 years old for The Atonement (2007). Her other nominations are for Brooklyn (2016), Lady Bird (2018) and Little Women (2020).

Now there is Oscar buzz again for her work in two new films – The Outrun (out in the United States) and Blitz, premiering on Apple TV+ on Nov 22.

Whether she feels more pressured when there’s so much hype around her performance, the Irish actress tells StarLifestyle that she doesn’t feel it as much now as she used to.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to experience that journey a few times now, and I can be pretty realistic about it, because things can change overnight.

“So I’ll always just take it as it comes,” she says during this Zoom interview with international journalists.

Ronan has yet to win an Oscar.

“But I guess, what I do really love this time round – with Blitz, and also with my other project as well – is to be a part of that conversation, which is only going to help the exposure of the film.

“It’s going to get people talking about the movie, and hopefully going out to the cinema to see it, which is ultimately all that we want,” she adds.

Saoirse Ronan (left) plays a mum to nine-year-old George (Elliott Heffernan) in 'Blitz'. Photo: Handout

Blitz, written and directed by Oscar winner Steve McQueen, is set during World War II in London.

In it, Ronan plays Rita, a mother who puts her nine-year-old son George (Elliott Heffernan) on a train to the English countryside for his own safety as London is getting constantly bombed.

However in the middle of the journey, George jumps off the moving train to get back to Rita and encounters all kinds of dangers along the way.

In a separate interview, British director McQueen describes Ronan as a great actress, adding “if not one of the greatest actresses we have now – actor, per se, female, male”.

“She’s extremely talented. I mean, what can’t Saoirse do?” says McQueen, who’s helmed acclaimed films like Hunger, Shame and 12 Years A Slave.

“The only thing she didn’t do in this movie was a somersault, and I imagine she could do that, you know, at the click of her fingers.”

Besides playing a mother for the first time, Ronan is singing live for the film in the original song titled Winter Coat.

This happens when her character is chosen to perform live on BBC radio from the munitions factory where Rita works with other women whose husbands have left for war.

McQueen recalls to StarLifestyle that he didn’t know if Ronan could sing when she was cast.

But when filming day came, he says he found out that she “could sing like a bird” and that her performance was “so beautiful and quite moving”.

The 55-year-old Londoner adds: “When you talk about (her performance) transcending the page, it was during the moment when she was singing in front of 450 women at the munitions factory.

“That performance was incredibly moving. To witness that scene was tremendous. It was really emotional. Often on set, women are in the minority, but in this situation, they were the majority. It was extraordinary – a truly wonderful feeling.”

Recalling this scene, Ronan says filming it was scary even though she had been working with vocal coach Fiona McDougall and the song composer, Nicholas Britell, for months leading up to the shoot.

“It was like the closest thing you could come to being live on stage at your own concert. It was terrifying, but also really wonderful.

“The fact that it was a sea of women in a munitions factory just made it feel very poignant. And also, the scene is about the performance, but it’s also about what comes after...her fellow workers coming up on stage to voice their concerns about how members of the public were being treated during that time.

“It became a real moment of liberation, rebellion and revolution for the women, and the song was a part of that, which made it very special.”

Steve McQueen (right) writer/director of 'Blitz', poses with cast members Saoirse Ronan (left) and Elliott Heffernan. Photo: AP

Other than finding Ronan amazing to work with, the director also highlights Ronan’s generosity on set.

“As an actress, she gives so much. She gave so much support to Elliott too because when Saoirse started acting, she was nine years old.

“And Elliot was nine years old in this picture. So there was a real wonderful camaraderie, a support system,” McQueen says.

Drawing on her experiences as a child actor, Ronan confirms to our group that she “remembers so vividly” how it felt to be on those first couple of film sets she was on.

“I remember how important a moment that was in my life – how it really shaped me as an actor and, in a lot of ways, as a person.

“So I know that this is a very formative time for any person, but especially when you’re being given so much responsibility,” she says of Elliott’s major role in Blitz. “To have other people around you who understand that can make you feel safer.”

One of Saoirse Ronan's first roles in films was in The Anotement with Keira Knightley. Photo: HandoutHaving been on set for more than two decades herself, Ronan – who grew up visiting her actor father on film sets before landing acting gigs herself – concludes that age in the entertainment industry is just a number.

“You really are just treated like another member of the crew, which I think is really great.

“That’s how I felt about Elliot; we didn’t need to make any special allowances just because he was a kid. It was really important to me that he felt comfortable, confident and safe, and that he could take a break if he needed it. He had a lot of support around him.

“As an actor, I loved sharing scenes with him,” says Ronan, continuing how her scenes with Elliott, now 11, were “momentous” for both their characters.

“They served as our motivation throughout the rest of the film, even when we weren’t on screen together. Those moments were crucial to how I played my character overall.”

Ronan’s passion for the filmmaking process comes through in this 20-minute interview as she touches on the ever-evolving nature of her work.

Besides acting, Ronan has recently gone into producing, which she has said made her fall in love with filmmaking even more.

The Outrun, which tackles the subject of alcoholism, is a film she produced alongside her husband, Scottish actor Jack Lowden.

Ronan and Lowden, 34, were co-stars in Mary Queen Of Scots (2018) who became romantically involved.

Jack Lowden and Ronan got married this year. Photo: Jack Lowden/Instagram

Ronan tells StarLifestyle that while adapting to new work environments and collaborating with different people – each with their unique working styles – can be challenging, it is also what makes her work so exciting.

“The great thing about our job is that it is built so much on creative dialogue between one person and another.

“So whether that’s the relationship that an actor has with their costume designer, or the costume designer has with the director, or the director has with the gaffer or with the editor, there’s something that we can all learn from one another.

“I think we’re all sort of affecting how the other one works. So it means that each experience really is specific to that job, and it makes it feel quite special,” she explains.

At the same time, she says she also understands why some people have a sense of disconnection when a project is over.

“It can mess people up when you’re taken out of reality and placed into a kind of ready-made family, only to have it end suddenly.

“So it’s quite an intense experience. But I love that. I love the organised chaos of it all.

“Now that I’m starting to kind of step into the role of a filmmaker myself, I’m becoming even more curious about how different departments work. I’m more inquisitive now than I used to be.

“You’re constantly being educated about the work that you’re doing.”

Jo March (Saoirse Ronan) and Laurie (Timothee Chalamet) try to figure out why they can never work in the classic tale of 'Little Women'. Photo: Handout

In the span of 21 years, Ronan has tackled various roles including a murdered teenage girl (The Lovely Bones, 2009), a writer (Atonement, Little Women), a child assassin (Hanna, 2011), a vampire (Byzantium, 2012), Lady Macbeth (Lady Macbeth, 2016), a pastry chef (The Grand Budapest, 2014), a queen (Mary Queen Of Scots) and a rookie police officer (See How They Run, 2022), demonstrating continued growth as an actress.

Now, having showcased her singing and dancing skills for Blitz, would she consider doing a musical one day?

“I would love to. I’ve always said that I wanted to,” says Ronan. “That is a real dream of mine.

“I would love to do it with Greta (Gerwig).

I feel like (Barbie director) Greta has got a musical in her and I think she said that she wants to do that.

“That would be fun; to do something like that with her. I don’t think I’d be good enough to do a musical on stage, but certainly in a film, I’d love to.”

---

Blitz premieres on Apple TV+ on Nov 22.