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Interview: Lady Bird Star Saoirse Ronan

Saoirse Ronan is one of the leading candidates to win Best Actress for her work in Lady Bird.

By Sean PatrickPublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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This interview originally aired on WKAI FM Macomb, IL.

Actress Saoirse Ronan is among the frontrunners to win Best Actress at the Academy Awards for her performance in Lady Bird. Written and directed by Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird stars Ronan as an iconoclastic teenage girl who clashes with her straight-laced mother, played by Laurie Metcalf, while trying to figure out who she is and what she wants to do with her life. Ronan’s performance is remarkable in the way she transforms from a 24-year-old Irish woman into a 17-year-old from Sacramento with flawless detail.

Lady Bird is one of the most heartfelt and authentic films of 2017 and it was my pleasure to have the chance talk with Saoirse Ronan during a recent radio tour to promote Lady Bird as the film moved into wide release and as it was garnering numerous accolades including 8 Critics Choice Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Director for Greta Gerwig.

Sean Patrick: How does it feel to be part of something that is continuing to grow into so much positive attention?

Saoirse Ronan: It's incredible, it really is, and like for any film to receive this kind of attention is unbelievable but especially one that, you know, was made on a budget that wasn't very high and is about a teenage girl and is really... I don't know, it gives me a lot of belief in audiences within America, that this is the film they want to go see, it means a lot.

Tell me about the plot of Lady Bird, you play a teenager in Sacramento, California in the early 2000's, dealing with her mother.

Ronan: Yeah, I mean her relationship with her mother is the heart of the story, for sure and the relationship between them at this point in the film is quite fraught and strained and but, you know, it hasn't always been that way, I think they just don't quite understand each other and I mean it's really just about her whole world at that time in Sacramento and it's set in 2002 and 2003 and she's just about to leave home to potentially go to university and so the questions that arise with a change like that which are who do I want to be, where do I want to be, what do I want to be and that means that we are finding her at a place where she's figuring all of that out and hasn't quite yet and it's unusual and a bit more realistic in the sense that the lead character doesn't have all the answers and hasn't quite found who she is yet and we are sort of watching her figure that out.

Part of the thing that is striking people is the remarkable dynamic between you and Laurie Metcal as your mother, talk about working with Laurie.

Ronan: Laurie is incredible, she's incredibly open and as an actor and as a person and is just kind of more than willing to try anything really, when she's working. You can tell the actors that genuinely just care about doing good work and she is one of those and I think she sets the bar so high that you have to meet her there in order to keep up with her because she's so good.

It is said that some of this story is based on the real life of writer-director Greta Gerwig, did she talk with you about that?

Ronan: I mean a little bit, it's, it sort of rhymes with the truth as Greta says and so it's not strictly auto-biographical. Greta is from Sacramento and she did go to New York when she got older and she did become a writer obviously and things like that but I think that for both of us it was when we both came together and started to work on this, that was when this character of Lady Bird was born because there was so much on the page already and then there was so much that came to it when we started to work together on it and she really just took on a life her own so she was very much her own person and we were both just kind of trying to keep up with her.

What's it like to work with Greta Gerwig, a female director, her first time directing? Talk about that collaboration.

Ronan: I mean, I have worked with a lot of female or a lot of first time directors and female directors but a lot of first time directors and to see someone with as much, I don't know, belief and bravery that Greta has to allow people in, you know, sometimes people can be quite protective over their baby which, you know, their script, which is understandable but she's been exposed to really great directors and I think she's learned a lot from them and then just her as a person. She's just naturally, very, very good at this. And so to watch someone take to this so quickly and be so available from day one was amazing to watch and she only got better and better.

What is your process as an actor?

Ronan: I think it's different on every job. I think it's sort of, it's been something I have probably been more aware of what the process is as I get older but it really hasn't changed that much, I mean for me, I learn the lines, I read the script a lot, and one of the things that always helps me is finding the physicality of the character, so like the character's walk and how they hold themselves and their posture and things like that and just by sort of you know, physically being in touch with the character before you start, it can kind of get you out of your head and I just did that on a film I've just done about Mary Queen of Scots and it was very important that we knew how she held herself, the same with Lady Bird, like Lady Bird has a real purpose and a drive and you needed to sort of see that in her physicalities, so that really helps.

Does it help also discovering the voice? In Lady Bird for example you have a specifically American voice, does that help you in finding the character?

Ronan: Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, the accent is, that is really the first thing that I think about whenever I am doing anything. Because I have always had to do accents, I have always loved doing different accents and I think it's such a great gateway into who a person is and how they express themselves and how they interact, I think an accent says a lot about a culture or a certain place like Sacramento.

My accent personally, my Irish accent, it's very, when it's not 6 in the morning or whatever, is very sort of melodic and up and down and there's a lot of muffles used in the sounds whereas in a Sacramento accent it's a lot sort of flatter and more laid back and the fact that it's sunnier for longer in the year and it's warmer and things like that, that probably has an effect on how these people sound.

Last question The Lovely Bones is one of my all time favorite films, would you mind sharing one memory from the making of that movie?

Ronan: Oh, well thank you, one memory, oh my gosh, well, I remember, I went to the Oscars the year we shot, we shot it kind of over the course of two years but we were in New Zealand when I went to the Oscars for Atonement and I remember I went and it was a complete whirlwind and we went for like a day and a half and it was amazing but then it went by so quickly and then we were back on a plane, back to Wellington and my very first scene was the murder scene, when they found me, in the underground room. That was the first thing when we got back and I also just remember shooting in New Zealand and having all of that beautiful scenery around me was amazing and it is a country I love so much now because of that film.

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About the Creator

Sean Patrick

Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.

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