American-Irish actressSaoirse Ronanboasts a rather impressive array of roles and accolades, and has garnered recognition from critics and fans alike for her versatile, compelling acting in period dramas, comedies, or thrillers. Born in 1994 in The Bronx, she grew up in Ireland, and started acting at the age of 13 inThe Clinic, a medical TV series set in Dublin. Yet it wasn’t until she played Briony Tallis inAtonement, opposite Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, that she made her international, Oscar-nominated breakthrough as Best Supporting Actress.
Since then, she’s been nominated for 3 roles at the Academy Awards:Brooklyn,Lady Bird, and Greta Gerwig’sLittle Women, and has received a Golden Globe Award forLady Bird.
As a matter of fact, she’s second only to Jennifer Lawrence in having secured 4 Oscar nominations under her belt before the age of 25. You may have admired Saoirse Ronan’s expressive blue eyes and subtle portrayals inThe Lovely Bones(for which she won Best Young Performer),Ammonite,Mary, Queen of Scots, orThe Grand Budapest Hotel, but she has given remarkable performances in other films.
Related:Best Saoirse Ronan Movies, Ranked
Izzie—I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007)
Inthis romantic comedywritten and directed by Amy Heckerling, 45-year-old Rosie (Michelle Pfeiffer) falls for a younger man (Paul Rudd), with a little magical help from Mother Nature (Tracey Ullman). Ronan plays Izzie, her feisty, opinionated, foul-mouthed 13-year-old daughter who is experiencing her very first crush.
Look out for the scene in which the teenage girl sings and dances to Britney Spears’Oops!…I Did It Againusing her own explicit lyrics, and this charming exchange:
Rosie:Congratulations! You’re a woman.
Izzie:Let the games begin.
Rosie:I’m trying to be mature.
Izzie:That’s not really your style.
Benji—Death Defying Acts (2007)
Death Defying Actsis a supernatural romance directed by Gillian Armstrong and starring Catherine Zeta-Jones as Mary McGarvie, a fake psychic who tricks and seduces renowned illusionist Harry Houdini (Guy Pearce) on his 1926 tour. Ronan plays Mary’s daughter and apprentice, Benji, who helps her with her music hall séances by subtly gathering information from the attending crowd. She also narrates the film in a fine Scottish accent.
Benji:It wasn’t death that scared Mr. Houdini. He’d been diving into deep water all his life. What scared him was the truth. It wasn’t his body that was in chains; it was his heart.
Hanna—Hanna (2011)
Hanna, starring Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana, is directed by Joe Wright, who had previously worked with Ronan inAtonement. The titular character is a gifted teenage girl who is the only survivor of a failed genetic experiment. She is raised off-the-grid and trained in the arts of combat by her adoptive father, an ex-CIA agent, for the sole purpose of turning her into an assassin capable of defeating the head of that aborted project.
Related:Best Joe Wright Movies, Ranked
Daisy—Violet & Daisy (2011)
A surreal comedy-thriller,Violet & Daisywas written, produced, and directed by Geoffrey Fletcher, and follows two teenage, emotionally immature assassins-for-hire in New York City: strong-willed and practical Violet (Alexis Bledel) and naive, bubbly Daisy (Ronan). The girls like fashion, pop music, and sweets, but are generally ruthless when it comes to offing a target…until a new mission makes them question their line of work.
Daisy:Now I usually don’t talk to people like you in the first place. But if I did that sort of thing, I would say that you girls should have a TV show. And that they should call that program, “The Adventures of Donnie’s Bitches”. But like I said at the top, I usually don’t talk to people like you. Because talking to people like you doesn’t make much sense.
Man:What do you mean, people like us? What the hell kind of people are we?
Daisy:Dead ones.
Eleanor—Byzantium (2012)
In this movie directed by Neil Jordan, Saoirse Ronan plays Eleanor Webb, a 200-year-old vampire with a painful past who is yearning for human connection. She writes her story and express her feelings on pieces of paper that she then throws away. She roams the world with her mother, until their journey takes them to a deserted seaside guesthouse. With her naturally pale complexion, slender silhouette, and pensive expression, Ronan’s portrayal of a melancholic and tortured vampire inByzantiumis a testament to her acting depth and maturity. Moreover, she had trained for weeks in order to play a difficult extract from Beethoven’sPiano Sonata Opus 2, No. 3.
Eleanor:My story can never be told. I write it over and over, wherever we find shelter. I write of what I cannot speak, the truth. I write all I know of it, then I throw the pages to the wind. Maybe the birds can read it.
Florence—On Chesil Beach (2017)
Dominic Cook’s feature directorial debutOn Chesil Beachis a romance drama based on a bestsellingbook of the same name, and delicately explores two newlyweds' anxious expectations, sexual ingenuity, and lack of communication in the early 1960s. Ronan portrays Florence Ponting, a shy, sensitive, and accomplished musician from a wealthy background and with an overbearing, possibly molesting father.
Florence:I want to make you happy. But I think I’m always a disappointment. You’re always advancing; I’m always backing away, and we can’t talk about it. We can never just be happy… or just be. You’re always demanding something more, and I’m useless at… And you go silent and unhappy, and it’s all my fault. And when I do… I mean when I say yes to something, even if I don’t really want to, I know there’ll be another thing that I’m expected to do. I’m no good at these demands.
Whether as a lead or a secondary character, Ronan always manages to grab your attention (and your heart), and is sometimes considered an indie movie’s most redeeming quality.
