BROOKLYN PART WAS THE ‘RIGHT ROLE AT THE RIGHT TIME’
People still have trouble saying and spelling Saoirse Ronan’s first name (it’s pronounced sur-shuh) but her Oscar prospects are much more distinct.
Her star turn as Eilis Lacey, a homesick and love-torn Irish immigrant in John Crowley’s romantic drama Brooklyn, has been garnering serious awards buzz since its world premiere last January at the Sundance Film Festival.
Ronan sat down with the Star following the film’s Canadian debut at TIFF in September.
The Irish-American actress talked about how Eilis was the perfect role for her and how at age 21 she’s the source of Oscar talk for a second time; she had a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Atone
ment in 2007.
People have been buzzing about a Best Actress Oscar nomination for you since Brooklyn debuted at Sundance in January. Does that get tiresome?
Oh God, no! The fact that people are even talking about it in that way, and have been the last few months, has been a dream and we couldn’t have really asked for a better reaction than what we’ve got at Sundance.
Whatever becomes of it, I know that buzz sometimes only goes so far, and that’s fine, too.
You play an Irish immigrant in Brooklyn, but in real life you were born in New York City, raised in Ireland and have dual U.S.-Ireland citizenship. How do you define your status?
I am an Irish-American, and quite proud of it, but Ireland is where I grew up. This is an Irish film about an Irish person for Ireland. I wanted it to be all for Ireland, and it is, but then we got to Sundance and so many people came up to us afterwards who had no connection to Ireland at all. They were just as affected by it, because it transcends nationality and the era, the (1950s) period that it’s in. I feel like it’s very universal for everyone.
It’s refreshing to see an immigrant narrative told from a female perspective, which is becoming more common in film but is still a relative rarity. Why do you think that is?
It is rare, and I don’t know why that is. Women are fascinating, absolutely. I feel like with this film, even though the men in it are sort of like the representation for each country, it’s Eilis’ relationship with all these other women that drives the film forward. She goes full circle by having these women hand down different tokens of wisdom, or help her along the way, or push against her where she has to fight back. And she comes out the other side. Then suddenly she’s become one of those women who are passing on advice to someone else and it’s just so simple. That’s the way it works.
There’s a strong theme of homesickness in the film. Could you relate to it?
Homesickness is something that stays with you for a while and then one day just moves on to somebody else. And it’s true. One day you wake up and you’re kind of all right. I think it’s absolutely that way for both men and women. This story is for anyone who’s left their family home. That’s what I found when I left . . . I knew home was never going to be quite the same thing again, and that’s why it took me a while to get over.
Maybe it’s because you’ve often appeared in period pieces, but your acting has a certain timelessness to it. What’s guiding your work these days? Do you have a preference for period films?
I don’t have a preference when it comes to period. I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve been attached to certain things for a couple years sometimes, and I’ve actually grown out of them by the time it actually comes to making it because I’ve done quite a few period things. You don’t want to be defined as one thing, no matter how great it is for people. With Eilis, she’s just normal and I was kind of crying out then at that stage (for a role like that). It was one of those things where it was just the right role at the right time. This interview was edited and condensed.