Saoirse Una Ronan (born April 12, 1994 in the Bronx, New York City) is an Irish-American film actress.note
She debuted in a short arc on The Clinic but it was her role as an apologetic younger sister who commits a misguided act with tragic consequences in Atonement that marked her as a star to watch; it netted her an Academy Award nomination at the age of thirteen. She's well-known for her leading roles in The Lovely Bones, Hanna, Brooklyn, Lady Bird, and Little Women. She received Academy Award nominations for the last three.
She's been known in recent years for her portrayal of mature characters who come of age. They are seldom Irish.
Roles:
- Atonement (2007) as Briony Tallis (young)
- I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007) as Izzie Hanson
- City of Ember (2008) as Lina Mayfleet
- The Lovely Bones (2009) as Susie Salmon
- The Way Back (2010) as Irena
- Arrietty (2010) as Arrietty (UK dub)
- Hanna (2011) as Hanna Heller
- Violet & Daisy (2011) as Daisy
- Byzantium (2012) as Eleanor
- The Host (2013) as Melanie Stryder
- How I Live Now (2013) as Daisy
- The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) as Agatha
- Brooklyn (2015) as Eilis Lacey
- On Chesil Beach (2017) as Florence Ponting
- Lady Bird (2017) as Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson
- Mary, Queen of Scots (2018) as Mary of Scotland
- Little Women (2019) as Josephine "Jo" March
- Ammonite (2021) as Charlotte Murchison
- The French Dispatch (2021) as the Principal Showgirl
- See How They Run (2022) as Constable Stalker
- Foe (2023) as Henrietta
Tropes applying to her works and roles include:
- Actor-Shared Background: Eilis Lacey from Brooklyn and Stalker from See How They Run share her Irish background.note
- Beauty Inversion: Downplayed but she opted not to hide her acne in Lady Bird at the request of director Greta Gerwig.
- Contractual Purity: Her parents would only allow her to play Susie in The Lovely Bones if the book's graphic rape scene wasn't included in the film (they had a point, as she was only 13 during filming). Besides that, she has never had much of a family-friendly image, shockingly enough. Films like I Could Never Be Your Woman, Atonement, The Way Back (2010) and Hanna helped avoid this. The only remotely family-friendly project she did as a child star was City of Ember.
- Dyeing for Your Art: She's a redhead in Byzantium, The Host (2013) and Mary, Queen of Scots (2018), and light blonde in How I Live Now.
- Fake Nationality: Her specialty. Saoirse has played English, Scottish, Polish and Finnish characters. Her role as Agatha in The Grand Budapest Hotel is the first time she's used her real accent in a film (although her character is actually a citizen of a fictional Central European country). She finally got to play an Irish character in Brooklyn - but still using a different accent to her natural one. See How They Run is the first movie to feature her playing an Irish character and using her natural accent.
- Fake American: Most of her roles. Technically she actually is an American, as she was born in New York City (and lived there until she was three years old) and holds American citizenship, but she has an Irish accent as a result of spending most of her life in Dublin, Ireland. She could do an American accent flawlessly in her first film at age twelve - I Could Never Be Your Woman.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold:
- Susie Salmon from The Lovely Bones is a pure and innocent soul whose life gets tragically cut short by a Serial Killer.
- Agatha from The Grand Budapest Hotel is as lovely and lovable as she is helpful.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: As Susie Salmon and Agatha, again.
- Playing Against Type:
- Hanna is easily her most physical role.
- Retroactively with Atonement. She carved a career playing heroic Woobies, making the spoiled Bratty Half-Pint like Briony quite different.
- See How They Run let her show off a bit of her comedic chops as an
Adorkable newbie policewoman.
- Production Posse:
- Joe Wright directed her in Atonement and Hanna.
- Wes Anderson, in The Grand Budapest Hotel and The French Dispatch.
- Greta Gerwig directed Ronan in Lady Bird and Little Women. She discussed this in an interview:"I could tell that Wes was not 100 percent thrilled that I was working with her. He loves her. I remember I asked Wes about Saoirse. He read the script and was like, 'Saoirse can do anything. She can do absolutely anything.' I may be projecting, but I think he might’ve been a little jealous because he’s trying to take her back. (Laughter.) We're in a round robin with Joe Wright."
- Star-Making Role: Briony Tallis in Atonement launched her to mainstream success.
- Those Two Actors: With Timothée Chalamet, who was her love interest in Lady Bird and Little Women (2019) (both Greta Gerwig productions) and whom she appears in alongside an ensemble cast in The French Dispatch.
- Throw It In!: Lady Bird saw her and Beanie Feldstein wearing the same nail polish by coincidence one day. So the filmmakers decided they would wear matching nail polish for the rest of the film.
- What Could Have Been:
- She could've become a blockbuster star, but didn't get a number of roles when auditioning, or simply turned them down. In particular, she's flirted with joining a franchise many times but has yet to pull the trigger.
- Auditioned for the role of Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter, which went to Evanna Lynch. She was also considered to play Queenie Goldstein in the prequel Fantastic Beasts series before it went to Alison Sudol.
- Turned down the role of Lyra in The Golden Compass because she didn't want such a long-term commitment to a project. Her fears turned out to be unfounded anyway, as the film wasn't successful enough to warrant a full trilogy.
- Auditioned for the part of Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, which went to Jennifer Lawrence.
- She had to turn down the part of Tauriel in The Hobbit because of other commitments; the role went to Evangeline Lilly eventually. She was also in talks to play Itaril but when she backed out, the character was ultimately cut from the film.
- She was very nearly reunited with Keira Knightley for Anna Karenina but couldn't do it.
- She auditioned for Rey in The Force Awakens, which went to Daisy Ridley.
- It's rumored she was up for the role of Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which ended up going to Elizabeth Olsen.
- She ended up on the shortlist for Yelena Belova in Black Widow (2021), alongside her Little Women co-stars Emma Watson and Florence Pugh. The latter ended up winning the role.
- She also auditioned for Lara Croft in Tomb Raider (2018) before it went to Alicia Vikander.
- She was always the first actor in mind for Eilis in Brooklyn but was thought to be too young when the project was first greenlit - and Rooney Mara was the original choice for Eilis. By the time the film actually got made, Saoirse was now old enough to play her.
