Saoirse Ronan Says Being A Child Actor Shaped Her — For The Better

Summary

Podcast Summary: Fresh Air – "Saoirse Ronan Says Being A Child Actor Shaped Her — For The Better"

Introduction

In this episode of Fresh Air, host Marie Baldonato engages in an in-depth conversation with acclaimed actress Saoirse Ronan. A four-time Oscar nominee known for her roles in Atonement, Lady Bird, Brooklyn, and Little Women, Ronan discusses her latest projects, The Outrun and Blitz. The interview delves into her experiences as a child actor, her personal background, and her perspectives on the film industry.

Recent Projects: The Outrun and Blitz

Ronan stars in two distinct films released concurrently: The Outrun and Blitz.

• The Outrun: Based on Amy Liptrot's bestselling memoir, Ronan portrays Rona, a graduate student battling alcoholism. The film explores her journey through various stages of sobriety, including rehab, relocating to Orkney, Scotland, and finally seeking solitude on a remote island. A poignant scene illustrates Rona waking up after a night of heavy drinking, expressing her determination to overcome addiction:

  [02:24] Ronan: "Whatever I did, I'm not drinking anymore. I'm sorry. I'm so tired of hearing you say that."

• Blitz: Directed by Steve McQueen, this World War II drama features Ronan as a mother in London striving to protect her son during the German bombing campaigns. The film highlights the emotional turmoil and resilience required to survive such harrowing times. An early scene captures the son's reluctance to leave his family:

  [09:53] Ronan: "I want to stay with you. Yeah, I know. It's only until all this is over, and then the schools will open again and life will get back to normal, I promise. Please don't go. And I love you."

Experiences as a Child Actor

Ronan reflects on her beginnings in the acting world, highlighting both the advantages and challenges of starting her career at a young age.

[06:39] Baldonato: "You do some interesting things... What was that like?"

[07:08] Ronan: "It was the most insane experience I've ever had on a film. Sheep don't stick to a schedule, so we had to bend our shooting schedule to nature."

Her first on-set memory involved an unexpected explosion while she was five years old, an event that left her father with lasting tinnitus.

[25:46] Ronan: "There was an explosion that happened... He ran for me and put his hands over my ears to protect them."

Personal Background and Moving Between the US and Ireland

Born in the Bronx, New York City, Ronan's early life was marked by frequent relocations between the United States and Ireland, influenced by her parents' pursuit of better opportunities and her father's burgeoning acting career.

[22:49] Ronan: "My dad started out in construction. He eventually became a bartender and was discovered... So we went back."

These moves contributed to her sense of not fully belonging anywhere, a theme that resonates in her work and personal reflections.

Accents and Linguistic Skills

Ronan discusses her proficiency with various accents, attributing her versatility to her multicultural upbringing and early exposure to different dialects.

[34:49] Ronan: "It's not dissimilar to being bilingual... your ear remains open to that and your brain is tuned into that from quite an early age."

While adept at adopting regional accents for roles, she expresses a growing preference for using her natural voice, valuing authenticity in her performances.

Working with Greta Gerwig on Lady Bird

Ronan elaborates on her collaboration with director Greta Gerwig for the film Lady Bird, highlighting the strong mother-daughter dynamic portrayed in the movie and its semi-autobiographical elements.

[38:38] Ronan: "Laurie and I just kind of built something that was very personal for us. We got on so well off-screen, and we had so much fun doing those scenes together."

She praises Gerwig's directing style, emphasizing her ability to support and inspire actors.

[40:11] Ronan: "What I love and admire most about Greta is that she loves actors... She pays attention to every little detail without it feeling clinical."

Reflections on Child Actors' Treatment on Set

Ronan voices concerns about the current environment for child actors, advocating for better protection and support systems.

[18:41] Ronan: "Kids need to be protected far more than they are. If a kid has a great chaperone, then that's amazing."

She underscores the importance of a stable and nurturing relationship between directors and young performers, drawing parallels to the respectful and considerate approaches of directors like Steven Spielberg.

Notable Quotes

• On addiction and personal pain:

  [05:23] Ronan: "It is a particular topic that is very personal to me... that experience has been chosen over you."

• On sense of belonging:

  [30:50] Ronan: "I never really felt like I fully belonged anywhere."

• On accents and authenticity:

  [34:49] Ronan: "I'm actually really, really keen to just use my own now."

Conclusion

Saoirse Ronan's conversation on Fresh Air offers a compelling glimpse into her multifaceted career and personal journey. From navigating complex roles in challenging films to addressing the nuances of her upbringing and the responsibilities that come with being a child actor, Ronan demonstrates a profound understanding of her craft and the industry. Her reflections not only illuminate her own experiences but also shed light on broader issues faced by young performers in Hollywood today.

Transcript

[Ben Mankiewicz]

This message comes from Talking Pictures, a podcast from TCM and Max about movies and memories hosted by Ben Mankiewicz. This season's guests include Bill Murray, Margot Robbie, Carol Burnett and more. Listen to Talking Pictures wherever you get your podcasts.

[Terry Gross]

This is FRESH air. I'm Terry Gross. Our guest is four time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan. The star of Little Women, Lady Bird and Atonement stars in two very different new films, the Outrun and Blitz. She spoke with Fresh Airs and Marie Boldonato.

[Marie Baldonato]

Saoirse Ronan's performance as a precocious young girl in the war drama Atonement got her her first Oscar nomination. She was only 13 at the time and three other nominations were to follow. One for the 2015 film Brooklyn, about a young Irish woman in the 1950s, torn between her new life in the US and her homeland. She got two nominations for the film she made with Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird in 2017 and Little Women in 2019. Her other movies include the Grand Budapest Hotel, the Lovely Bones and Mary Queen of Scots. This fall, she has two films in theaters. In the movie Blitz by the director Steve McQueen, Ronan plays a mother living in London with her young son and elderly father, all trying to survive the German bombing campaigns during World War II. And in the film the Outrun, she plays a young woman whose life is derailed because of her addiction to alcohol. It's based on the bestselling memoir by Amy Liptrot. Ronan plays Rona, a dramatized version of Liptrot who's a graduate student living in London. When her drinking takes over, she tries different things to get sober, going to rehab, moving back to Orkney, Scotland, to help her bipolar tend to his goat farm, and then to an even more remote island off the coast of Scotland, where she spends most of her time alone working on nature conservation. Here's a scene from the Outrun. Rona is waking up after a bad night of drinking. She doesn't even remember what she's done, but both she and her boyfriend, played by Papa Esiadu, are both hurt and bandaged up. He's had enough and wants to break up.

[Saoirse Ronan]

What did I do last night? You don't remember? Danan, I'm so sorry. Whatever I did, I'm not drinking anymore. I'm sorry. I'm so tired of hearing you say that. I can't hear you say that again. What do you mean?

[Unnamed Character]

I don't even recognize you anymore. I wish you were a completely different person.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Don't say that.

[Unnamed Character]

I can't do this.

[Saoirse Ronan]

What do you mean you can't do this. I just can't do this. Did I do that to you? Shh. I'll never do that again. Right. Whatever I did, I'll never do it again. I'm never gonna drink again. I promise you. Right. Cause I don't want to lose you. I don't want to lose you. Please don't go. And I love you.

[Marie Baldonato]

Saoirse Ronan, welcome back to FRESH air.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Thank you.

[Marie Baldonato]

I know you read the book the Outrun and loved it so much that you wanted to make it into a movie, produce it and play the main character. What was it about the book that you found so compelling?

[Saoirse Ronan]

I think it was the first time that I had been exposed to an addiction story that didn't feel like it was all doom and gloom. It allowed me to get to know the whole person. Amy Liptrot wasn't defining herself by her addiction to alcohol, but was acknowledging that it played a huge part in her life, in the destruction of her life. For a long time, I was really drawn to the fact that we would follow a young woman as she struggles with alcoholism. I think that usually when you think of that as a story, you would imagine probably a man, you know, middle aged or a woman who's going through a divorce or she's lost her family or, you know, there's. There's a sort of domestic sort of element to it. And the fact that we were going to follow someone who, as bad as it sounds on paper, shouldn't have this addiction and yet does just reminds us of how this is something that can affect everyone.

[Marie Baldonato]

Now, you said that there were parts of this story of dealing with. It was scary for you because it was too private, something that you hadn't completely explored before. And I'm not sure if you mean like in the film or in your life or both. What was so scary to you about it?

[Saoirse Ronan]

It is a particular topic that is very personal to me. It's an addiction that I haven't struggled with myself, but I've watched people very close to me struggle with it, and some of them have seen the light eventually and others have not. And that's incredibly painful. And I think as someone on the receiving end of that, there's a lot of anger and resentment that is born out of that experience because you're not going through it yourself. You don't understand, or I certainly didn't understand really how addiction works. I know that's kind of a silly thing to say, but I think unless you actually sit down to examine the effect that a substance is having on your brain, you don't really take the time to unpick it because you're so hurt by it and you're so hurt that it has been chosen over you. And so I think I spent a lot of my life carrying that around with me. But it. But it was. Yeah, it was scary. It was scary to hone in on this. It just brought up a lot of pain for me, I suppose.

[Marie Baldonato]

In this movie, you do some interesting things. You know, your character grew up on a sheep farm, and at one point, your character puts her hands in a sheep to get to help birth a lamb. And at another point, you know, you're in what seems like completely freezing water and the character is connecting with seals who are swimming there, and it kind of shocks her into her body. So you physically did those things. What was that like?

[Saoirse Ronan]

I love to swim in cold water. I've been doing that since I was a kid. So that's like my happy place. That was not a challenge at all. If anything, it was a challenge to pretend that it was freezing cold. Like, so cold that I just wouldn't get in. Am I a sheep farmer? I am not, and I was not before this experience. However, since then, I have, like, gotten in touch with every farmer I know in, like, Ireland and Scotland and been like, let me know when lamb season starts, guys, because I'm ready. It was the most insane experience I've ever had on. On. On a film. And just in life, it's so intense. And we actually shot the lambing seque before we started principal photography. So it was probably about five months prior to us starting the production, because lambing season in the Orkney island starts in, like, sort of April time. It's a little bit later than the mainland. And then I was thrown straight onto the Orkney mainland and I had my hand up a U and was pulling a lamb out. And I did that seven times. And I was sort of coached by different farmers that I met in Orkney, and they were incredible. But the really interesting and really humbling thing about it was that sheep don't sort of stick to a schedule necessarily. And so we had to bend our shooting schedule to nature. I would get ready at, like, 4:00am, we'd go into the shed and we would just wait and the camera would be ready to go. And sometimes you would go in and there wouldn't be a ewe that would go into labor that day. Other times they would. And as soon as they did, Kyle, our farming consultant, was just like, okay, go get her. Go tackle that, you to the ground. And he would coach me through it from off camera. And it was just the most amazing experience. So that really sort of set the tone for the rest of the movie, I think.

[Marie Baldonato]

Now, the other movie that you have coming out this fall is Blitz by the director Steve McQueen. It's about a mother during Germany's bombing attacks on London in World War II. She's worried about her son's safety, so she follows the government's recommendations, which is to send all children to the countryside to avoid the bombing campaigns. I'm gonna play a scene from the beginning of the film. The son, played by first time child actor Elliot Heffernan, doesn't want to leave his mom and his grandfather.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Why can't you come with me, sweetheart? I told you, it's an adventure for children only. Grown up's not allowed, but it's gonna be great. You're gonna make new friends. My friends already are.

[Marie Baldonato]

Yeah.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Well, you play games in the countryside, that'd be nice. There'd be cows and there'll be horses, but they smell. I want to stay with you. Yeah, I know. It's only until all this is over, and then the schools will open again and life will get back to normal, I promise. Please, Mum, don't turn me away.

[Marie Baldonato]

That's a scene from the film Blitz. Now, I read that a photo that Steve McQueen saw while researching another project ended up inspiring this film. Is that your understanding of how it came about?

[Saoirse Ronan]

Yeah, he was doing research and came across this incredible photograph of this little black boy on a train station platform on his own, and he had a little cap on and his little suitcase, and I think, I'm assuming a tag around his neck. And Steve was, of course, very intrigued by him and wanted to know what his story was. And so that's where the inspiration for Blitz came from.

[Marie Baldonato]

And what drew you to the film? I'll say that it's a different kind of World War II film that focuses on those left in London during the bombing attacks.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Yeah, I mean, that's really the reason why I wanted to get involved. I, of course, wanted to make a film with Steve McQueen. I'm such a huge fan of his and I've wanted to work with him for years. I, of course, knew that it was going to be a sort of fresh take on a World War II British epic, but I didn't know exactly how. And so when he started to explain to me that it would follow a mixed race little boy who he'd found already at that stage, I think Elliot had already been cast and that it would really focus on the people left behind, essentially the ones who had to keep society going, which was the women, children and older folk. It just piqued my interest straight away. And knowing that my sort of role that I would play would be in honoring the mother child relationship was. Was just something that I couldn't really pass up. I'm incredibly close to my own mother and we've spent a lot of time together where it was just me and her. So that dynamic is something that I've always wanted to bring to life on Scre. And getting to do it with this sort of backdrop was just incredibly exciting.

[Marie Baldonato]

The actor who plays your son, Elliot Heffernan, hadn't ever acted before, and you started acting around the same age that he started. How in particular did you want to help him on set? I'm sure there are things that you remember that were great for you as a kid and things that weren't were less great.

[Saoirse Ronan]

I guess I just wanted him to have the kind of experiences that I had when I was younger. I think I was very, very lucky that probably partly because I had my mother with me to protect me, but also because the people I was working with were so positive and supportive. And, you know, people like Stanley Tucci, James McAvoy, Juno Temple, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rachel Weisz, you know, Guy Pearce, like, they made me feel safe, they respected as a fellow actor, but they were sensitive to the fact that this was my first time, this was new for me, and it's special. And I think they obviously remembered that from when they had started. And so I wanted Elliot to have the same experience, really.

[Marie Baldonato]

You mentioned Stanley Tucci and in 2010, Stanley Tucci came on Fresh Air and he talked about working with you on the Lovely Bones, which was a film with difficult subject matter and you were still young at the time, playing the girl who was murdered. Stanley Tucci was asked about working with a young actor with you and playing the murderer. And I actually wanted to play that part of the interview where he talks about you. So let's take a listen.

[Unnamed Character]

Well, Saoirse is a very mature 13 year old now and a very mature 15 year old. Mature as an actress, but mature as a person to. She has a worldliness and a wisdom that I've never seen before in anybody that ages, and a very wonderful, sophisticated, ironic, caustic sense of humor, which was the saving grace for all of us. Saoirse is the one who made us feel comfortable about the movie that we were making. I Looked to her maybe for security in a way. If I knew she was okay, then everything was okay. And sometimes after the, you know, after takes, I'd say, are you all right? Did I hurt you? Did that happen? Did it hurt your leg when you were on the ladder? Did you. And then sometimes I would just say, are you okay? Meaning just emotionally. And she always said, I'm fine. You know, she's this little, skinny Irish girl. She'll say, I'm fine, Stanley. Don't worry about it. I'm all right. I'm all right. You know, and then, you know, in the makeup trailer, it was lots of jokes about murder and lots of jokes about whatever, because you have to do it to sort of keep yourself sane. I remember her coming up to me in the makeup trailer and putting her arm around me and saying, stanley, you know, if anyone had to kill me, I'm awfully glad that you're my murderer.

[Marie Baldonato]

Well, that's.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Oh, boy.

[Marie Baldonato]

That's Stanley Tucci on Fresh air, recorded in 2010.

[Stanley Tucci]

Yeah.

[Marie Baldonato]

It seemed like your family worked really hard for you to be professional and poised on set, even when the subject matter was so dire.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Yeah, I mean, I think, as Stanley said, especially when the subject matter was so dire, I think I was really lucky. I'm sure, just through the people that I was brought up with and maybe the fact that my dad is an actor as well, and just the way they are as people that, like, I didn't ever take it too seriously. I was very, very focused and very disciplined, but I knew that I needed to leave it at the door. And I think that's the really incredible kind of the. The capability that children have in general. And. And that's sort of, I suppose, what Steve wanted to highlight in Blitz. Like, kids, of course, it's going to affect them in some way, but they have this ability to just float through life to a certain extent that's not, of course, sidestepping the reality that, of course, everything affects everyone and it stays with you. Of course it does. But the fact that there was this levity from the very beginning, I think really helped me. And I was really, really lucky. So lucky. And I realized that now more than ever that the filmmakers that I was working with in those first few years really promoted fun. You know, Pete Jackson, Peter Weir, Amy Heckerling, who discovered me essentially. She was the first director that I worked with on a movie, and they were just great people to be around. And, you know, what you have to remember about, certainly about filmmakers is that they're big Kids, you know, they get into this because they want to stay in that world of make believe. They want to take something that's real and build something else from it. So in a lot of ways, it was such an incredible environment to grow up in where youth and innocence is sort of encouraged in a way and play is never forgotten about. And I think that's really shaped who I am as an actor now.

[Marie Baldonato]

You know, a lot has come out about how children and women, young women get treated on sets. Do you think the way children are treated on film sets has changed since when you started out?

[Saoirse Ronan]

Not as much as I'd like, to be honest. I think that kids need to be protected far more than they are. If a kid has a great chaperone, then that's amazing. But I think that the relationship between director and young performer really needs to be given the time that it deserves. I think it's incredibly important that a director is. Is a solid influence on their young performer, that they're not mercurial, that they're not unpredictable around them in the way that you wouldn't want a parent to be with a child. It's so important that there's someone that the kid can rely on, that they always bring an element of fun to the set for them. I always think about Spielberg. I feel like it seems like Steven Spielberg was really, really incredible with kids with, like Drew when they were on ET and stuff. And I think that we cannot forget, no matter how impressive a child can be at acting, for the first time, they're still a kid and their innocence has to be protected. I think the real danger, though, comes, which has changed. It's gotten worse since I was a kid with the promotion and the self promotion that comes when a movie that a child is in comes out or a TV show. I think there's too much that's expected of kids now. I think social media hasn't helped that at all. But, you know, I've watched kids over the years, since I started out who are like, networking essentially in Hollywood and are allowed to go to parties until late at night with adults that they don't know. And yeah, I think it's a dangerous environment for a kid to be in if they don't have the right people around them.

[Marie Baldonato]

Let's take a short break here and then we'll talk some more. My guest today is the actor and producer Saoirse Ronan. She's been nominated for four Academy Awards for her films Atonement, Brooklyn Lady Bird and Little Women. She stars in two new films the outrun and blitz. I'm Ann Marie Baldonato and this is FRESH air.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

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[Saoirse Ronan]

Saatva in 2007, 2008, I went out.

[Unnamed Character]

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[Marie Baldonato]

This is FRESH air. I'm Ann Marie Baldonato, back with Oscar nominated actor Saoirse Ronan. She stars in two new films in theaters this fall, the Outrun, about a young woman dealing with her alcoholism living on a small island off the coast of Scotland, and Blitz, about a mother desperately trying to find her son during Germany's bombing attacks on London during World War II. You were born in New York City in the Bronx. Your parents had moved to the US from Ireland in the 1980s. Why did they come to New York?

[Saoirse Ronan]

It was a rite of passage really. They left school when they were 15, 16. They needed to get to work. There was more work in the UK And America than there was at home. And I think a couple of their friends had gone over ahead of them, had gotten a bit of work and had something lined up for dad. So he went over and then mam followed a couple of months later. And yeah, and they just, they lived there. They experienced life outside of Ireland. And you know, it was really hard. They didn't have anything, they didn't have money. They, you know, she had me and of course couldn't afford health insurance. And so it was actually, I think it was like it was a Catholic church charity or something that helped her a lot when she, when she had me. The point being that she sort of really had to rely on other sources in order to Live. But it was. It was tough. You know, my. My dad started out in construction. He eventually became a bartender and was discovered by a bunch of actors from the Irish Rep in the pub that he worked in. He auditioned for a play. He got the part. He became an actor, a theater actor. Mam was a cleaner and then eventually nannied for different families and took me to work with her. And I think at a certain point, my mom in particular realized that this just wasn't the life that she wanted me to have. You know, if you're. If you want to live comfortably in New York, and I would say London as well, you need money. And they just didn't have that. So they went home where they had, you know, a proper support system.

[Marie Baldonato]

And was your dad's acting career that brought you back to Ireland, is that right?

[Saoirse Ronan]

Yeah, it was. So it was a combination of them just needing more support, I suppose, from their family, them wanting me to, you know, have a garden and fresh air to grow up with and in. But also, it was. It was a time where the Irish film industry was sort of starting to boom a little bit because of filmmakers like Jim Sheridan and Neil Jordan and just a lot of American filmmakers who were becoming and really fascinated with Ireland, either because of their heritage or Irish playwrights that they'd grown up reading and. Yeah, and so work took him home. So we. We went back.

[Marie Baldonato]

Do you remember your first time on a set as a child?

[Saoirse Ronan]

Yes, I do. I remember. What was dad doing? It was some film about the Troubles. Of course, there was lots of. Lots of explosions. We. We definitely went through a phase of that in Ireland. And so he was. I can't remember what the movie was, but I think that's where I got my sort of mild tinnitus from. I still have a ringing in my ears and I think it's from this. There was an explosion that happened. I was in a pram and there was an explosion that happened that they hadn't prepared anyone for. And dad ran for me and put his hands over my ears to protect them from this massive explosion that had gone off. And he always said, I just don't know if I got to you in time because I've. I've got a ringing in my ears right now even as I speak to you. And he's got really bad tinnitus because of it. So that's my first memory of being on a film set. And I remember even, like, I was young, maybe I wasn't in a pram, but I was like, I don't know, I was like five or something, and even then I remember loving the atmosphere of a film set. I just loved. I loved how cool everyone was and how much fun everyone seemed to be having.

[Marie Baldonato]

Now, your role in the 2015 film Brooklyn Got you your second Oscar nomination. And Brooklyn is about a young woman who immigrates to the US from Ireland because her sister wants her to leave so that she can have more opportunities. And your character, Eilish, is torn between the life she's starting in the US and her life back in her. The small town where she grew up in Ireland was part of what drew you to this movie, the fact that your parents immigrated to the US when they were that young. Of course, you know, it's a different time period, but was that part of the appeal of the movie?

[Saoirse Ronan]

Absolutely. Up until that point, I hadn't really played someone who was properly from Ireland. I'd used my own accent in the Grand Budapest Hotel, but I'd never helped to bring to life a sort of stereotypical Irish experience, which millions and millions of us have gone through for a very, very long time. So to be able to explore that, I suppose on screen, was absolutely part of the reason why I wanted to do it. Although I think what I hadn't anticipated was actually how overwhelming the experience would be, because I had only recently just left home and I'd moved from Ireland to London. Assuming that London's just a bigger Dublin, it's the same. I'll be fine. And it's not, and I wasn't. And I went through a period of just realizing that I actually didn't know that many people here. And I felt quite lonely and disconnected from what I knew and from my roots and who I felt I was back then and. Yeah. And so to make Brooklyn sort of at the very beginning of that experience in my life was kind of wild.

[Marie Baldonato]

I want to play a scene from the film. Your character lives in a boarding house but is very homesick and misses her sister and mother. And one evening she goes to a dance for Irish immigrants. She didn't really want to go, but she goes and meets a young Italian American named Tony, played by Emery Cohen. She dances with him and he walks her home.

[Saoirse Ronan]

I'm not Irish. You don't sound Irish. I need to make this clear. No part of me is Irish. I don't have Irish parents or grandparents or anything. I'm Italian, so my parents saw her anyway. So what were you doing at an Irish dance? Don't the Italians have dances? Yeah, and I wouldn't Want to take you to one? Maybe they have, like, Italians all night. What does that mean? Oh, you know, no hands. Too many of them. Oh, my. I guess it could seem that way if he was a girl. Listen, I want everything out in the open. I came to the Irish dance because I really like Irish girls. And I was the only one who would dance with you. Oh, no, it wasn't. Oh, so you danced with loads of others.

[Marie Baldonato]

That's a scene from the 2015 film Brooklyn. Now, the character Eilish is pulled in two different directions. Her new home in Brooklyn, her old one back in Ireland. You started acting and being on sets when you were so young. You were always kind of traveling. Do you think your work affected your sense of place and of home?

[Saoirse Ronan]

Yeah, absolutely. I think it did. But I think that goes back even further for me because I was born in the place that I didn't grow up in. So I was born in the Bronx. I was there till I was three. I always sounded Irish. I was only really surrounded by Irish people when I was there anyway. And then with two Dublin parents, I moved to the countryside and so still didn't really fit in and was reminded of that quite a bit. And so I never really felt like I fully belonged anywhere. And I still don't really. I think there's parts of me that belong in different places. And I suppose the older I've gotten and the more sort of people who have become a part of my bubble, they are my home, you know, my partner is my home. Like, wherever we are, that's. That will feel the most like home that it. That anywhere can really. So it's not. Not site specific for a long time. I think I got really bogged down by that. But, yeah, I've kind of always felt that way. But actually, what's really great about being on the road from so young is that you can create a home for yourself anywhere. And you know what? You need to feel safe and to feel comforted. So, yeah, I think any. Any actor, any filmmaker, any musician, I'm sure they become exper in setting up camp anywhere, really.

[Marie Baldonato]

Our guest today is Saoirse Ronan. She has two new films, the Outrun and Blitz. More after a break. This is FRESH air. This is Ira Glass of this American Life.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Each week on our show, we choose a theme, tell different stories on that theme.

[Marie Baldonato]

All right, I'm just gonna stop right there. You're listening to an NPR podcast. Chances are, you know our show. So instead I'm gonna tell you we've just been on a run of really good shows lately. Some big, epic, emotional stories and some weird, funny stuff, too. Download us this American Life.

[Saoirse Ronan]

If you listen on the regular to the FRESH AIR podcast, then I know you'll love some of the other NPR podcasts, too.

[Marie Baldonato]

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[Saoirse Ronan]

You get perks like sponsor free listening, bonus episodes, early access shop discounts and more for over 20 different NPR podcasts like this one. Support what you love and stop hearing promos like this [e-mail] Joe Biden's on his way out and Donald Trump's on his way back. Want to know what's happening as the presidential transition is underway? The NPR Politics Podcast has you covered with the latest news and analysis. Listen to the NPR Politics Podcast.

[Marie Baldonato]

This is FRESH air. Back with actor Saoirse Ronan. She stars in two new films in theaters, the Outrun and Blitz. She's received four Oscar nominations over the years for her roles in the films Atonement, Brooklyn, Lady Bird and Little Women. Her other films include the Lovely Bones, Mary Queen of Scots and the Grand Budapest Hotel. Now, you're very good at doing accents. You know, you're Scottish in the Outrun, English in Blitz. You do a specific regional accent in Brooklyn. And of course, you do an American accent in the Philippines, Lady Bird and Little Women. I was wondering if you think about living that living in the US As a baby helped you with your American accent. So it just makes me think about language at that early age and kind of like how weird and malleable it could be.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Absolutely. I mean, I think it's not dissimilar to being bilingual. Like, you know, you're so open to everything. And so if you're exposed to lots of different sounds, then I guess your ear sort of remains open to that and your brain is tuned into that from quite an early age. So, yeah, I think, you know, I was as I said, I was mainly around a lot of Irish people in New York, but of course heard a lot of American accents, too, and was also brought up on American TV like a lot of kids are. And, you know, a lot of my friends nowadays will say that their kids, whether they're in London or Dublin or Glasgow or or New Zealand, you know, were so influenced by America that actually a lot of their kids are kind of brilliant at doing the American accent just through like Dora the Explorer or whatever, whatever they watch now, Paw Patrol. So, yeah, so I guess I was no different. But I will say that it's funny, the older that I've gotten As important as accents have always been for me, I'm actually really, really keen to just use my own now. And I remember Andrew Scott saying that, that, you know, he spent so long, as we all do, as a lot of Irish and Celts do in particular, and Northern English do, where we have to be able to do accents because there just aren't enough parts for people who sound the way we sound. So you have to be able to talk like this or have an American accent, which is, you know, frustrating. But he. He said that for a long time, he really indulged in sounding different from himself and that that's sort of part of what acting is. And I felt exactly the same way. And then at a certain point in your life, you kind of think, oh, I'm actually not that bad, and I'm not completely uninteresting. And I'd quite like to explore acting without having to think about the accent. So I've kind of gone through a period over the last few years where I've really enjoyed using my own.

[Marie Baldonato]

I want to ask you about the film Lady Bird and working with director Greta Gerwig, who you've worked with on two films. Let's hear a scene from Lady Bird. It's at the beginning of the movie. Lady Bird and her mom, played by Laurie Metcalf, have been on a road trip visiting colleges. And your character, who's named herself Lady Bird, is talking about how she wants to leave Sacramento and go to school far away.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Way I want to go where culture is like, or at least Connecticut or New Hampshire, where writers live in the world. Get into those schools anyway. Mom, you can't even pass your driver's. Because you wouldn't let me practice.

[Stanley Tucci]

The way that you work or the.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Or the way that you don't work.

[Stanley Tucci]

You're not even worth state tuition. Christine.

[Saoirse Ronan]

My name is Ladybird.

[Stanley Tucci]

Well, actually, it's not, and it's ridiculous.

[Marie Baldonato]

Call me Ladybird like you said you would.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Just.

[Stanley Tucci]

You should just go to City College, you know, with your work ethic.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Just go to City College and then to jail and then back to City College. And then maybe you'd learn to pull.

[Stanley Tucci]

Yourself up and not expect everybody to do everything.

[Marie Baldonato]

So that scene ends with your character jumping out of the moving car. Now, at its core of the film, Lady Bird is about a daughter and a mother trying to do well by her daughter and just, you know, they often get misaligned and don't get each other. And this movie is semi autobiographical for Greta Gerwig. Did you talk? I'M sure you talked a lot about that mother daughter relationship. You mentioned that you're very close to your mother, and I was wondering if you could talk about examining that in this film.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Yeah, I mean, I guess the really interesting thing at the time was that I couldn't relate to that at all with my mom. But at the time I was 22, I think, and I needed my mom desperately and really couldn't relate to that too much. But I think my internal struggle as a young person at that point and feeling very chaotic in my head and very hormonal and very out of control is what really fed that performance. And conversations that I had with Greta, of course, really informed that as well. But also, Laurie and I just kind of built something that was very. It was very personal for us. It was our relationship that we built and we got on so well off screen, and we just had so much fun doing those scenes together because we. I don't know, I feel like sometimes when you've got distance from a relationship like that, or you're not as in it in real life, you can enjoy it so much more and kind of have clarity on. So. Yeah, so it was just. It was just really. It was just so fun. I just loved working with her.

[Marie Baldonato]

I was wondering if you could talk about working with Greta Gerwig and what in particular about the way she directs is something that, you know, you love or you're drawn to.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Put simply, what I love and admire most about Greta is that she loves actors. She is not afraid of actors. She's not intimidated by them. She knows how to handle them. She gives. Gives them support and structure, but also allows them to just play and be free. And it's quite incredible how many directors can't seem to do that. She enjoys being on set so much. She's such a positive influence on all of us. And she has the most impeccable taste. And that girl will never stop working to make something better. She. She pays attention to every little detail without it feeling clinical. She actually put a line into Lady Bird where I think the nun in the movie says that the greatest form of love is to pay attention. Something like that.

[Marie Baldonato]

Yes.

[Saoirse Ronan]

It's the most beautiful line. And that is what Greta does. She pays attention. I've never met someone who is more genuinely interested by human nature and people, and I've never worked with anyone like her. And she always makes me better.

[Marie Baldonato]

Well, Saoirse Ronan, thank you so much for joining us.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Thank you so much. It was lovely.

[Terry Gross]

Saoirse Ronan spoke with Fresh Airs and Marie Boldonato. Her films the Outrun and Blitz are in theaters. Blitz will start streaming on Apple TV November 22nd after we take a short break. BREAK Carolina Miranda will review a new film adapted from a 1955 novel that inspired many Latin American writers, including Gabrielle Garcia Marquez. This is FRESH AIR.

[Marie Baldonato]

Okay, so does this sound like you? You love NPR's podcasts, you wish you could get more of all your favorite shows, and you want to support NPR's mission to create a more informed public. If all that sounds appealing, then it is time to sign up for the NPR plus bundle. Learn more at plus.NPR.org the code switch.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Team spent Election Day talking to folks about how the outcome might impact them. It's a time capsule of people's hopes and fears before they knew the results.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

One way or another, there's a change coming.

[Saoirse Ronan]

I wanted to vote for Trump, but.

[Stanley Tucci]

I voted for her.

[Marie Baldonato]

Gays for Trump. I cried this morning. I've been crying on and off. I'm terrified.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Listen to Code Switch, the podcast about race and identity, from NPR. On Short Wave. We know the human body is this amazing singular thing capable of facing down all kinds of infection and disease, from managing UTIs to cancer to Long Covid. Our show is dedicated to destigmatizing our relationship to our bodies. Listen to the shortwave podcast from NPR.

[Terry Gross]

This is FRESH AIR. In 1955, Mexican novelist Juan Rulfo published a slim novel called Pedro Paramo, about a man who goes in search of the father he'd never met, only to discover that his father is dead and the village he inhabited is haunted by ghosts. Pedro Paramo changed the course of Latin American literature. Among the writers it influenced was a young magical realist by the name of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who went on to write 100 Years of Solitude and who once declared that Rulfo was as enduring as Sophocles. Today, a new movie inspired by the novel premieres on Netflix. Contributor Carolina Miranda had a look to see how this cinematic interpretation holds up against Rulfo's timeless book.

[Stanley Tucci]

Pedro Paramo is not the sort of novel that's easy to turn into a movie. The plot, what there is of it, meanders constantly. Perspectives shift, the narrative jumps back and forth in time, strange things happen. And as you sink into the story, it can be impossible to tell what's waking life and what might be a dream. The novel is also hard to make into a movie because it's iconic. Practically every school kid in Mexico reads it, and every student of Latin American literature has wrestled with its ruminations on betrayal, power and death. Rodrigo Prieto, an Oscar nominated cinematographer from Mexico whose past projects include Killers of the Flower Moon, has bravely chosen Pedro Paramo as the subject of his first feature film. The story kicks off as Juan Preciado arrives in the village of Comala to look for his father, a prominent landowner. In the film's opening scene, a camera plunges the viewer into a hole in the earth as we hear Preciado deliver the novel's opening lines, lines so famous many Spanish speakers can recite them by heart. I came to Comala, he says, because I was told my father lived here. A man named Pedro Paramo. But as Preciado enters Comala, he discovers that the lush settlement his mother had once described no longer exists. The town is abandoned, its crumbling adobe houses occupied by the ghosts of his father's ruthless past. In the role of Preciado is Tenochuerta, best known for playing the ocean dwelling Namor in the Black Panther sequel Wakanda for Forever. His performance in Pedro Paramo is far more restrained as his character is led by one ghost and then another. Ever deeper into Comala, Preciado learns about his father's casual brutality as well as the other children he'd fathered and even loved. The actor conveys these painful discoveries and flashes of quiet, hurt and bewilderment. As in the novel about midway through the film, the narrative shifts its primary focus from son to father, charting Paramo's rise as a landowner during the years of the Mexican Revolution. Paramo murders his adversaries and takes their land. He treats the town's women like a personal harem. He knows he can disobey the law because in this corner of Mexico, he is the law. What laws? He asks. We'll make the laws ourselves. Starring Esparamo is Manuel Garcia, a Mexican actor known for playing the title role on the Netflix series the Lincoln Lawyer. Born in Guadalajara, Garcia Rufo also happens to be a distant relative of the book's author. And to the character, he brings the spoken cadences of western Mexico, where the novel is set. But the actor's approachable good looks don't always jibe with the merciless rancher described in the book. The bigger challenge facing any director who tackles Pedro Paramo is constructing a believable world. To read the novel is to get the sensation that you are being told a story by ghosts, as if you're here. Hearing voices fade in and out, the author conveys these strange and terrible events in matter of fact ways. He doesn't sensationalize or overdo the suspense. Capturing the sensibility on film, however, can be difficult, and it's why it's been a challenge to translate Pedro Paramo, as well as other novels by magical realists into movie form. The literature has a very restrained approach to the extraordinary. On screen, however, things like violence can come off as lurid, and apparitions can feel hokey. Prieto's film, for the most part, presents a convincing world. His transitions between past and present and life and death are seamless. Bleak scenes are portrayed with otherworldly beauty and sound, which Rulfo describes with great care in the novel, is used in interesting ways ways. At one moment we hear the world through the partially deaf ears of an old mule driver. In another, we're immersed in the echoes of Komala's empty streets. The movie, however, has its awkward moments. A scene that involves a woman who turns into Mother Mud feels like an intrusion of cgi in early 20th century Mexico. And the same goes for a key death scene, of which I won't say more so as not to give away plot, Prieto's film is one of several inspired by Rulfo's novel. A version from 1967 was more melodramatic. Another, released in 1977, had a stripped down spaghetti Western vibe. Prieto's version adheres most closely to Rulfo's text, and that can hamper the film's pacing. The frequent jumps between time periods, which give the book its sense of disorientation, become repetitive and extra confusing on screen, though ultimately being confused is part of grappling with Juan Rufo's masterwork, a story about love, corruption, dominance and the ways in which death comes for us all in the end.

[Terry Gross]

Culture critic Carolina Miranda reviewed the film Pedro Paramo. It started streaming today on Netflix, tomorrow on FRESH air. After the Civil War, tens of thousands of formerly enslaved people deposited millions of dollars into the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, a bank created for them. But they lost their savings when the bank collapsed in 1875. Our guest will be Justine Hill Edwards, author of a new book about the bank and how it contributed to racial economic disparities. I hope you'll join us. Our co host is Tanya Moseley. I'm Terry Gross.

[Ben Mankiewicz]

This message comes from NPR sponsor Rosetta Stone, an expert in language learning for 30 years. Right now, NPR listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership to 25 different languages for 50%. Learn more at RosettaStone.com NPR on the code Switch podcast, we think about race and identity all the time. On a recent episode, we tried to make sense of the devastating violence in Gaza by turning to James Baldwin, the writer and intellectual who thought a lot about what was happening in Israel during his lifetime. His words speak to the present in unexpected ways. Hear how they might help you think through it, too. On the Code Switch podcast, only from NPR.

[Saoirse Ronan]

On NPR's Wildcard podcast, comedian Seth Meyers talks frankly about his early career.

[Marie Baldonato]

I was far more temperamental when I was younger, and things ran very hot at snl, and there were definitely times where my instincts were to say something that would have been relationship ending to people.

[Stanley Tucci]

I'm Rachel Martin.

[Saoirse Ronan]

Seth Meyers is on Wildcard, the show where cards control the conversation.