Saoirse Ronan has been a working actress for 20 years, but this is her first time attending the Telluride Film Festival. Back in 2017, Turtle bird debut at the festival, but Ronan is filming Mary Queen of Scots.
So when Vanity Fair Sitting down to talk to Ronan on Sunday, it’s clear she’s soaking up just how special this mountain festival really is. She struggled with the altitude on the first day, but is now enjoying the relaxed atmosphere that sets it apart from other festivals, where talent often rush from red carpets to parties, while still trying to squeeze through crowded, paparazzi-filled streets. “I’ve never been to a festival like this before where it actually feels like it’s about the films,” she says. “There’s nothing there that makes you feel like you’re being put on a show – it’s more like the experience of actually making a film.”
While showing her new movie BoltingRonan also received the Silver Medal at this year’s festival. She is one of the youngest actors ever to receive the honour, but at 30 she has had a longer career than most, having started at the age of nine. “Now that my personal life has happened and progressed, it’s given me more opportunity to reflect on the career I’ve had,” she said. “So I love that I can celebrate that in a place like this.”
After rising to fame in the 2007 film AtonementRonan grew up on the big screen, becoming a darling of the independent film world (Brooklyn, The Enemy) and is a close collaborator with Greta Gerwigstarred in both Turtle bird And Little WomenShe also matured in her personal life when she married an actor. Jack Lowden this summer. This year, she will be seen in both Steve McQueenWorld War II movies Blitz and indie Bolting.
IN BoltingRonan gives a fierce performance as Rona, a recovering addict who returns to her childhood home in the windswept Orkney Islands. The film, based on Amy Liptrotmemoir of the same name, directed by Nora Fingscheidt and produced by Ronan and her husband, Lowden.
Vanity Fair:I heard it was your husband who introduced you to Amy Liptrot’s book.
Saoirse Ronan: Yeah, he went to the Orkney Islands probably about a year before we got together and fell in love with it, absolutely fell in love with it. And then we went into lockdown maybe three years later and he read it for the first time, read it in two days, and as soon as he finished reading it, he gave it to me and he said, “This is the next role you have to play.” It’s an incredibly personal subject for me as it is for most people. I think everyone has been directly or indirectly affected by this disease in particular. So it was always a subject that I wanted to explore at some point and I think it was finally the point in my life where I felt strong enough and safe enough to really dig into it and open it up.
What is the biggest objection you face from potential sponsors?
The book wasn’t really easy to adapt. Amy’s a wonderful writer, and I was most impressed with her prose, the way she writes and the kind of poetry that she uses without being pretentious. It still feels very grounded. And it’s great to read, but—because it’s so nonlinear and almost deconstructed in the way it’s presented as a book—then translating it into a script, which, for the most part, needs to play out a certain way, that’s always difficult. A lot of it is based on memory or it’s a thought that she has that’s very, very far away, and then you’re tapping into it for a minute and then you’re out of it.
