Saoirse Ronan
speaker
109 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Nov 2024
Saoirse Ronan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
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 on. 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.
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. 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 in 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 honouring the mother-child relationship and 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 screen and getting to do it with this sort of backdrop was just incredibly exciting.
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 me 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 from when they had started.
And so I wanted Elliot to have the same experience, really.
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 uh 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 um
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 that so lucky. And I realise 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, you have to remember about certainly about filmmakers is that they're big kids. 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.
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
that a director 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 they're 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 E.T. 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.
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 didn't. 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 had me.
Showing 61–80 of 109 · page 4 of 6
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