Saoirse Ronan on 'Hanna' and More
We'll be hearing Saoirse Ronan's name quite a bit in the coming years. Having already turned in stunning performances in Atonement and The Lovely Bones, the Irish actress delivers her most surprising turn yet as the title character of Hanna, a teenage assassin raised in isolation and sent off into the world on a high-risk mission of revenge.
In Hanna, Saoirse kills deer with a handmade bow and arrow, snaps people's necks like chopsticks, takes down bad guys with guns and knives, and travels alone across African deserts and European cities. In real life, the Irish actress sits in a hotel room, explaining how to pronounce her first name. "Well, there's a few different ways to pronounce it, actually," she says thoughtfully. "Seer-sha is how Irish people would pronounce it, usually. But I would pronounce it Sir-shuh, like inertia."
Inertia doesn't exist in Hanna. The titular herione was raised by her ex-CIA agent father (Erik Bana) in a remote Finland forest, near the Arctic Circle. When not killing elk and removing their innards, they're engaged in intense combat games. In real life, Saoirse - who turned 17 on April 12, four days after Hanna opened - can pick out her own clothes and laptop. That's about it.
"I've never been on my own," she said in her soft Irish accent. "My parents would never allow me to. I'm glad they wouldn't. When you have people around you that you know you can definitely trust, that are not part of whoever you're working for, your welfare is the most important thing to them. You're able to relax a little more."
Saoirse (one week short of her 17th birthday) at the New York City screening of Hanna, April 6
Even so, Saoirse is starting to think about venturing out of the nest. "I've asked, 'When will I be allowed to travel on my own?' " she said. "It wasn't a very serious conversation. Maybe they'll let me when I'm 18 or 19, but it is kind of a scary thing to think about. You've been with your parents your whole life, and suddenly you reach a certain age and there's more responsibility."
Saoirse may sound like a typical teenager, but she isn't. She was only 13 when she received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her work in Atonement (2007). But still, Hanna is unlike anything she's done before. "Hanna is not your typical action heroine," Saoirse said. "I like her because she's weird and a bit of a blank canvas. She's not bad-ass. She doesn't come out with these awesome comebacks when she kills someone. Hanna is completely innocent when it comes to the normal things we deal with in life. She's used to being a cold-blooded killer, using weapons, climbing trees and jumping off buildings. She's not used to human emotions. I think that's pretty fascinating."
In Violet & Daisy, a black comedy due for release later this year, Ronan plays a very different assassin. "It's not really an action film," the actress said. "It's about these two hit girls, Alexis Bledel and me, who go on this job to get money to buy some dresses that our pop idol has brought out. The guy we're going to kill is James Gandolfini - Tony Soprano! It's very funny, bizarre and quirky. It reminds me of Juno."
If this sounds like an unusual choice for a teenage actress, that's no accident. Saoirse rarely chooses lightweight material - her only comedy to date has been Amy Heckerling's I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007), her first film. "I'm not a silly person," she said. "When we're considering a project to do, it's a group discussion between me, my parents and my agents. A lot of thought goes into it, although sometimes, if I've fallen in love with a project, I don't care how much they're going to pay me."
Saoirse was born in New York, and almost started her career there. "When I was a baby, my parents took me to an audition for a commercial," she said. "We were in the waiting room, and there were loads of other babies. I wasn't happy in that environment, so they whipped me out right away. Even now, as great as everything is going," she said, "they say from time to time, 'If you're ever unhappy doing this, stop.'
"'Good to know,' I tell them," the young actress said. "But I love it so much."