Sex, politics and a royal role to relish for Ronan
Saoirse ronan said she will get her chance to portray a Queen — at the ripe old age of 22 — now that Josie rourke, the Donmar Warehouse’s artistic chief, has agreed to direct a film about Mary, Queen of scots.
‘We’re filming Mary, Queen of scots next year . . . finally! i’ve been involved with the film for four years,’ she explained. ronan told me she and rourke had met and discussed the picture, which will be produced by Tim Bevan, co-chairman of British film powerhouse Working Title.
The project was originally announced four years ago, when the idea was that susanne Bier would direct. However, Bier has since moved on to other things: she brought John le Carré’s The night Manager to the screen, turning it into a mega-hit for BBC TV. and there have been uncon-firmed reports that she will direct the next James Bond film.
saoirse, who this year won her second oscar nomination, for the film Brooklyn, has enjoyed a long association with Working Title. she made her screen debut ten years ago in the movie of ian Mcewan’s novel atonement for the company (and got her first oscar nod).
Mary, Queen of scots will mark rourke’s film-making debut. she has been artistic director of the Donmar since early 2012. Before that, she ran the Bush theatre in West London, and she worked as an assistant director at the Donmar when sam Mendes was running the Covent Garden-based venue.
rourke’s predecessors at the Donmar — Mendes and Michael Grandage — have also gone on to film-directing, while continuing to work in the theatre.
Mendes won an oscar for his first feature, american Beauty. More recently, he made the Bond films skyfall and spectre.
Grandage, meanwhile, made the film Genius (with Colin Firth and nicole Kidman) and has been working on a new big-screen ver-sion of the musical Guys and Dolls.
no further casting has been fixed yet for Mary, Queen of scots; though rourke has strong con-nections with a number of leading actors includ-ing Tom Hiddleston and Hadley Fraser, who starred in her scorching Donmar production of Coriolanus. and last night, Bevan said he and rourke would only discuss the film in the new Year. There currently seems to be a huge appetite for a film on the sub-ject of one of history’s most roman-tic, tragic figures. and it’s such a fascinating tale: with the scottish Mary stuart pitted against her english cousin, Queen elizabeth i, there are poli-tics, religion, sex and betrayal. elizabeth had her cousin impris-oned for 18 years before inflicting the ultimate punishment. saoirse has been filming the screen version of Mcewan’s on Chesil Beach, opposite Billy Howle, for director Dominic Cooke and producer elizabeth Karlsen. and she told me that she would like to ‘sleep for a month’ before going back to work. she also said that one day she’d like to work on a play with rourke, who is currently directing Gemma arterton in saint Joan, which begins perfo-mances at the Donmar tonight.