Saoirse Ronan isn’t like her peers. She doesn’t have a fragrance or clothing line, and she isn’t among the teeny bopper, triple-threat, overnight sensations that Disney produces.
“I’ll leave Miley Cyrus to that,” the Irish actress said in a telephone conference call that The Avenue participated in on Oct. 15. “I don’t think I’m really that kind of actor.”
And she definitely isn’t. Ronan was nominated for an Academy Award at the age of 12 for her role as Briony Tallis in “Atonement.” And now at age 15, rumors of a second nomination are up in the air for her role as Susie Salmon in the upcoming film, “The Lovely Bones,” based on the best-selling novel by Alice Sebold.
The film is scheduled for limited release on Dec. 11. It will be officially released on Jan. 11.
The plot centers on Ronan’s character, 14-year-old Susie, who is brutally murdered and watches her family deal with the aftermath of her death from the in-between. In order to move onto the afterlife she must accept her death, which is conflicted by the vengeance she feels toward her murderer and the desire to have her family heal from her devastating death.
Prior to filming, Ronan decided not to read the book because at the time she was only 13 years old.
“The book is little bit more visual and a bit more violent than the film, so it just made sense,” she said. “But I read the book this year for the first time, and I absolutely loved it, and I think because I had been through the whole experience of making the movie and living through the story, I think that helps me to really connect with the book.”
In the book there is a very graphic rape scene that lasts for about two pages. Ronan said that this scene is not featured in the film, but she doesn’t think it drastically changes the overall synopsis.
“It can make people uncomfortable, and it can make people too disturbed,” she said. “And I find that if they do it the way that we did in ‘The Lovely Bones,’ which was a very tasteful way to do it, I think, is to just leave it up to the audience’s imagination, and let them think of it for themselves, sometimes that can even be stronger.”
With a star-studded cast that includes Mark Wahlberg, Susan Sarandon, Rachel Weisz and director Peter Jackson, there are high expectations looming by bloggers and film critics.
While Ronan sees it as a privilege to work with such high-profile people in the business, she said she has never felt intimidated but always respected.
“I’ve never really been starstruck; I’ve never been speechless or anything like that. I don’t think I could do that anyway, I’m Irish,” she said. “I usually get very excited when I meet people around my own age, whether they’re well-known or not.”
Excited and cheerful are characteristics of the actress outside of her dark characters.
“I’m not particularly attracted to dark roles. I suppose with ‘Atonement’ and ‘The Lovely Bones’ it just kind of worked out that way,” she said. “But I love the depth to them. I love just their thinking process, especially with ‘Atonement.’ And it just, you know, it takes a lot of thinking to really understand those kinds of characters. There’s a lot of parts now where it’s very easy to just be the happy girl, and you know, there are some great characters at the moment who are more than that, and who are also very uplifting, like Susie Salmon.”
Ronan said she has also been looking at scripts that are comedic and a little bit more light-hearted. But she doesn’t think that Susie Salmon’s real story is dark.
She said, “I think that the message of this movie, although it may not seem like it to people who haven’t seen it yet, is ultimately hope and how you get there.”
