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Home , Saoirse Ronan

IRISH EYES Saoirse Ronan is only 21 but already has two Oscar nominations under her belt. Jane

Cornwell tells why you need to learn how to pronounce her name. Snow & Licensing/Raven Partner McLellan/Art Alasdair by Photography

sl • 12 aoirse Ronan might already and it was tough and scary and I came making her international theatre debut be a household name if WE CAN ALL out the other side.” on Broadway in a version of Arthur only people knew how to $e "re? “Yeah, you know, getting Miller’s !e Crucible. say Saoirse. Pronunciation RELATE TO used to doing your own washing,” she Asked if she has a career plan, she is never a problem on the says wryly. “$at "re. $at really shakes her head. “Not really. I just go for Emerald Isle, where the THE GRIEF terrifying "re.” great scripts,” she says. “But eventually it actress has lived, on and o!, since the age As a baby she accompanied her father would be nice to be more creatively of three: Sersha. Neither is the spelling of THAT COMES on set when he was working on movies involved in "lmmaking, whether suchs tricky Irish names as Eilis (Ay-lish), such as the IRA drama !e Devil’s Own through directing or producing. “Over the character Ronan plays in , (“Apparently I met Brad Pitt when I was the last couple of years I’ve felt really a 1950s-set drama about an Irish country WITH two; I don’t remember and I’m pretty strongly about how women are perceived girl forced to seek opportunity in New sure he doesn’t”). Home schooled while in the industry, and within a movie.” York. Eilis "nds love in her adopted LEAVING living in Carlow, she would put on She smiles. “I want to see female home, but is called back to Ireland where shows in her bedroom: “It was my relationships on screen that are she meets a new paramour, and thus YOUR HOME dream to be Jean Butler in Riverdance. authentic and realistic, so that hopefully must choose between two men – and I’d position all my teddy bears around we can get to the stage where we don’t two very di!erent ways of life. AND SAYING me like my dancers and I’d be in the need to have this conversation anymore. “I’d been on the lookout for an middle in my little velvet dress and red Where for someone to be a female and a authentic Irish project for a while,” says GOODBYE TO shiny shoes, pogoin’ away.” director is not this novel idea.” Ronan, 21, curled up on a couch in She made her screen debut in a 2003 Last year she publicly backed the Yes a boutique hotel in Soho, London in ALL YOU’VE Irish television medical drama called !e side in Ireland’s historic gay marriage a pair of cream palazzo pants, her white Clinic. “As soon as I got on the set I felt referendum. “It was an amazing day,” Louboutin brogues tucked beneath her. KNOWN. at home,” she has said. “I liked she says of the 62 per cent victory. “I couldn’t "nd anything that wasn’t pretending. I liked the challenge of “I looked around at and it felt that stereotypical down-the-farm, somebody asking you to do something like I was in a new modern city.” no-potatoes thing.” acting royalty as , who then trying to do it.” At age 11, she Ronan is single again, after dating A meeting with Irish director John plays a kindly Irish priest, and Julie appeared as Michelle Pfei!er’s daughter English actor George MacKay who she Crowley and English writer Nick Walters, in her element as a bossy in the "lm I Could Never Be Your Woman, met in 2013 on the set of Kevin Hornby, who adapted Brooklyn from boarding house owner. complete with an impeccable American Macdonald’s . “I am Colm T#ibín’s popular novel, reassured It was only once the movie had been accent. $e "lm’s vocal coach more than happy to be single; it’s the former child star that here was the wrapped that she realised how closely art recommended her to director , empowering to have so much energy, perfect vehicle for her "rst adult role. and life were entwined: Ronan was born who cast her alongside especially with all the attention Brooklyn And she was right: earlier this month in to Irish immigrants, who, and James McAvoy in . is getting,” she says. Ronan received a best actress Oscar initially, were in the US illegally. Her “Keira and James looked after me on Not long after our interview, at the nomination for Brooklyn. mother, Monica, worked as a nanny, set, which made a huge di!erence,” she Hollywood Film Awards in Los Angeles, It’s her second Oscar nomination; her while her father, Paul, was a construction says. “Since then I’ve always been presented the actress with "rst was at age 13, for her performance worker and bartender before taking up conscious when I’m working with the New Hollywood Award for her as a sly tween aristocrat in Atonement. acting. When the family moved back to younger people of giving them your time performance in Brooklyn. But "rst he Make-up free apart from the pawpaw Ireland it was to in the and energy. was like that gave a lesson on how to pronounce her lip balm she dabs on at the start of our south-east, to a one-pub village just 20 with me, and Guy Pearce (her co-star in name: “It’s not Say-or-see or Seer-say or interview (“Great Aussie stu!; I brought minutes from Enniscorthy, where the Gillian Armstrong’s 2008 supernatural Sorcery, though it probably should be,” it to impress you”) and more comfortable Irish scenes in Brooklyn happen to be set. thriller Death Defying Acts) – who is still he said. “It’s Ser-sha like inertia.” in jeans and trainers than the out"t she’s “Brooklyn is totally my mam and dad’s one of my favourite people in the world.” Saoirse Ronan. We’d better get used wearing (which has been borrowed for a story,” says Ronan, who is only just able Ronan was in New Zealand "lming to saying it. • photo shoot – “I want to keep the shoes to watch the "lm without bursting into !e Lovely Bones with Weisz and director but I’m not allowed”), Ronan is tears. “$ey arrived in New York without in 2008 when she and her refreshingly down-to earth. While anything and basically made a life for parents %ew to Los Angeles to attend the THREE FACTS Oscar talk is waved away with a grin, themselves. It’s my story too,” she says. “I Oscars ceremony, then %ew all the way SAOIRSE RONAN her passion for the "lm is palpable. made a decision to move from Dublin back within 24 hours. Her overriding “Brooklyn is an Irish story but with [where her parents relocated when she memory of the event, she says, is sitting Ronan was a frontrunner for the universal themes,” she says in her gentle was 18] to London for a while. I didn’t in the front row and feeling hungry. role of Katniss in !e Hunger lilt. “Longing, grief and loneliness are want to be one of those actors who’d “It went on for 3&/' hours. Jon Stewart Games but lost out to things that a!ect all immigrants, grown up in the industry and didn’t know was presenting and he came around with . whether they’re your ancestors or they how to pay a bill or wash their clothes or a box of liquorice, which kept us going moved over last week. We’ve also had an not know how much a pint of milk is.” for a bit but not that long. My category She felt like her childhood ended amazing reaction from people with no For much of 2012 Ronan lived on her was the very "rst one and when I didn’t when her sheepdog, Sassy, passed connection to Ireland; we can all relate own in leafy Highgate, north London. It win, which I knew I wouldn’t, I was like away. “Having her put down was to the grief that comes with leaving your was a big move for an only child whose ‘Mam, I’m feeling sick, can we leave the saddest day of my life.” childhood home and saying goodbye to parents, particularly her mother, had now?’ ” She laughs, and shifts around on everything you’ve known, probably for always accompanied her on "lm sets and the couch. “Me mam said she was glad She loves the music in her the rest of your life.” to interviews: “I was the age when many I didn’t get it, because to get an accolade parents’ CD collection: the $e "lm’s surprise success has largely people go o! to university,” she says with like that you need to have struggled a bit Smiths, Talking Heads, David been put down to Ronan – hers is a a shrug. “And this whole other world more, have a career to fall back on.” Bowie. She saw Fleetwood Mac Photography by Alasdair McLellan/Art Partner Licensing/Raven & Snow & Licensing/Raven Partner McLellan/Art Alasdair by Photography compelling performance, alongside such opened up. I’d walked through the "re Next month Ronan be in New York, in concert three times in a row. sl • 12 sl • 13