‘I always doubt myself when I take on acting roles’– Oscar hopeful Saoirse

SHE may be up for an Oscar next month but Saoirse Ronan still frets over her talent from time to time, the Carlow actress has revealed. The 23-year-old star, who has been nominated for Best Actress for Lady Bird – her third nomination – said she still had huge doubts about herself.

‘Every time I act, I worry: Can I do it again?’ she said. ‘And every time I finish a job, I feel like, “Oh God, I got away with that one”.’

She was interviewed with Lady Bird co-star Timothée Chalamet, 22, about growing up on movie sets.

‘I’m a people-pleaser. I don’t like upsetting anyone,’ Saoirse told the New York Times. ‘But I’ve got to a point in my work where I need to stand firmly with decisions I’ve made or feel free to go in another direction – even if everyone around me is telling me to do opposite.’

The actress, left, said she looked back with fondness at her life in Ireland before her movie career.

‘I get nostalgic for being very young, like seven or eight, when I was still in the countryside, when you’d go to school and have your few friends. I miss the simplicity.’

But she is looking forward to the Academy Awards on March 4 where she was up for Best Actress playing a precocious teenager in Lady Bird, which has also been nominated for Best Film.

‘When I did it with Brooklyn [the 2015 movie for which she was also nominated], it was wonderful, but also quite overwhelming,’ she said.

‘It moves on before you have time to grasp it. This time, it feels more relaxing.’

Asked about the inequality women faced in the movie industry, she said: ‘Well, it’s really not an equal playing field. Doing press with Greta [Gerwig, the Oscar-nominated writer and director of Lady Bird], watching her speak about her experiences as a director, it’s made me think, “I’d like to try my hand at that. I’d like to direct a film at some stage. I’ll be an actor who directs on the side.”

‘But why don’t I think I can be a great director? A lot of women think a job like director is one where a woman can only succeed so much. It’s only watching Greta that’s changed my perspective.

The actress, who was first nominated for a Best Actress Oscar at the age of 13 for her role in Atonement, took to the stage last year to star in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible on Broadway last year. She said she had been left feeling drained after her back-to-back acting roles.

‘Because of the success of Lady Bird, I felt like I could take a break – which I did, last year, for six months,’ she said. ‘After Brooklyn and The Crucible and Lady Bird and [upcoming film] On Chesil Beach, I was exhausted.

‘I had nothing left. It was important for me to take a step back and say, “No more work”.’