Saoirse Ronan: She really gave birth to a lamb on the set of The Outrun

Saoirse Ronan stars in The Outrun from October 2. What awaits a possible (and well-deserved) Oscar nomination can already be considered one of the pinnacles of his career, as it is his most intense role yet. In a filmography that does not lack quality and fascinating characters, where there are many turning points.

“come back to me Be the first to change things”– he tells us when we meet in Paris. “It was also great to be a part of Hotel Grand BudapestEven though it was an ensemble film. And the next big turn was Brooklyn from John Crowley. My biggest turning point, I think, was because it was my first adult role. followed quickly Lady BirdAnother important step.”

With us, the actor recalls three challenges that he had to face after appearing in the cinema.

Overtaking: The birth of a lamb

Adapted from Amy Liptrot’s memoir, The Outrun puts Saoirse Ronan in the shoes of Rona, a young Londoner who decides to leave the city for the Scottish countryside to fight her alcohol addiction. Which especially allows him to look at the elements and the birth of lambs on the farm. actually.

“It was incredible. It was really refreshing. I love being in touch with the elements, I love the natural world. I grew up in the countryside, so this is where I feel most at home. “Comfortable. Not in a glamorous place, but on a farm, with the land and the animals, learning this new skill was amazing and scary, because when you take the lamb out, it can’t kill anything or break its neck yet. It’s very extreme.”

“But to be able to do what these farmers taught me, like vigorously rubbing to clear the lungs, or standing up and pushing towards my mother, it’s the most incredible feeling. It’s just extraordinary to give a movie.”

Come back to me: dealing with fame

On January 9, it will be exactly 17 years since the French public discovered Saoirse Ronan (and Benedict Cumberbatch, even if the real revelation is thanks to Sherlock). And many of the 303,766 viewers who saw Come Back to Me were struck by her maturity as an actress, who was not yet 14 when Joe Wright’s film was released in France.

Where many expected an encore of Pride and Prejudice, the director and Keira Knightley teaming up, it’s a drama of jealousy, lies and war spread across three eras that they offer in this adaptation. Ian McEwan’s novel of the same name, in which we also meet James McAvoy, or even Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave, who play the same character of Saoirse Ronan, through whom everything happens, at different ages.

The Golden Globe, BAFTA and then Oscar nominated actress found herself in the limelight at a very young age and had to manage this sudden fame. But this experience served him well in the long run: “I’m sure it helped because when I came back to Brooklyn, it wasn’t a complete shock. I already knew what Oscar was like.”

That’s how I got into an intense and extreme situation, from which I got out later

“Come back to me the difference is I was just a kid then. I was 13. And I only went to the Oscars. The Golden Globes were canceled this year – there and I don’t remember going to the BAFTAs. The Oscars was the only one I attended because I was in New Zealand at the time. I was shooting a movie.

“So I went into an intense and extreme situation that I came out of. What I wasn’t prepared for with Come Back to Me was the interviews and the awards season, which hasn’t grown like that in years. The Comeback era wasn’t as big as the Brooklyn era, and everything grew year by year. , which is expected of actors, so I don’t think he was ready for all that.”

Hannah: Doing her own stunts

However, there is one area in which Saoirse Ronan has been able to train: acting. Because if we associate the actor with drama, comedy and independent cinema, we forget that he was the main character of Hana, a clash between the story of a fairy tale and the world of espionage with the electronic music of the Chemical Brothers in the background. And her reunion with Joe Wright.

Relatively little known, despite gaining popularity in France (especially since she started broadcasting the series on Prime Video), Hannah allowed Saoirse Ronan to break the image we had of her until now by investing 200%: “I did all my stunts and loved it. Now I know that if I have the opportunity to prepare months and months for a role, that’s the best way to enjoy the project and my work on it.”

Physically we feel very strong, but we are also very alert, very focused.

“This is what I was able to do with Hannah. I was in physical training for about three months and I was training five hours a day. I was 15 years old and I was working out in the gym. Sports for two hours. In the afternoon it was my daily life.

“I’d love to do something like that because you gain that presence of mind that you can sometimes lose from working on different projects all day.” Why not, like Dev Patel recently did with Monkey Man, by making his own action movie? “Yes, I would love to!” us too.

Commentary collected by Maximilien Pierret in Paris on September 25, 2024