Child actors can be notoriously difficult, but despite starring in several high-profile movies, Carlow's Saoirse Ronan shows no sign of being spoiled by success, writes Róisín Ingle
Rising star Saoirse Ronan is sitting in a rented house in Holywood, Co Down, playing with her dog Sassie and assessing the careers of Hollywood starlets such as the troubled Lindsay Lohan. "I haven't seen them in anything serious, so I wouldn't class them as my favourite actresses. What I mean is I haven't seen them do a proper, meaty acting role," she says. "Anyway, I find that real acting is when you do things like Atonementand The Lovely Bonesand stuff that people will remember. That's just what I think."
It's at moments like these you have to remind yourself that Saoirse Ronan is just 13. When she mentions the film adaptation of Ian McEwan's Atonement, directed by Joe Wright, and Peter Jackson's upcoming The Lovely Bones, it's because she has a starring role in the former and at the end of this month will start filming the latter in the US and New Zealand. And in case you are thinking, oh, not another annoying child star, there is nothing arrogant about her assessment of the Lohans of this world. Spend even a few minutes in this bright-eyed teenager's company and you discover an instantly likable charmer, with a strong Dublin accent and a maturity that falls refreshingly short of precocious.
She is staying in Holywood - just the one "l" - while finishing work on the Tom Hanks-produced City of Ember, a science-fiction adventure that stars Tim Robbins, Liz Smith from The Royle Family and Bill Murray.
"Bill? He was brilliant, great craic. He's so funny, always making me laugh when I was trying to do a scene," she says. Monica Ronan, Saoirse's personal assistant, on-set minder and, most importantly, her mother, sits listening and can't help marvelling: "I mean, these are people you've watched in the cinema over the years, and there's my child working with the likes of Bill Murray."
Her daughter has also worked with the likes of Michelle Pfeiffer in I Could Never Be Your Woman, with Catherine Zeta Jones and Guy Pearce in Death Defying Acts, with Joely Richardson and Tom Berenger in The Christmas Miracleof Jonathan Toomey and with Keira Knightly and James McAvoy in Atonement, which is due for release later this month. She does as astonishing turn in Atonement, playing, with a crisp English accent - she has, directors say, a remarkable ear for accents - the young Briony, who is responsible for Robbie, played by McAvoy, being imprisoned and sent off to war.
Briony, she says, is her favourite character so far. "I really understood Briony. I got where she was coming from. I am like her in some ways. At the start of the film she has written this play and she wants her cousins to do it her way. I am not a control freak like that, but when I do a little movie at home with my camcorder I rope my friends into it even though they might not want to do it . . . When I am away from real films I just want to keep doing them at home."
She knew Atonementwas going to be a "special film, because of Joe and because everyone I mentioned it to said 'oh, I've read that book.' I'm really proud to be in it".
She has yet to read the book herself. "I've been told it has a few tricky scenes, so I'll wait until I'm older," she says, laughing, going on to talk about the tricky scene in the movie where her character walks in on Keira Knightley and James McAvoy having sex in the study.
"Hmm . . . It was weird, it was awkward," she says. "Keira was up on the bookshelf and James was kind of blocking her, and I'd never done anything like that before . . . but once the cameras are on you just forget about it," she says, dissolving into giggles.
Monica and Paul Ronan, both from Dublin, emigrated to New York during the 1980s; they were there for 11 years. "I was a nanny, Paul was in construction and they were tough years," says Monica. Eventually, Paul Ronan began working as an actor in New York, but the couple returned home and settled in the village of Ardattin, Co Carlow, when Saoirse was three. Her first acting job was on RTÉ's The Clinic, which also starred her father, when she was nine years old. A part in the TV series Prooffollowed, before she was cast in the Michelle Pfeiffer movie. "I don't want to brag or anything, but I always found it came very naturally. It's just easy. And I love the people you meet on set, and I just love doing it all and I never want to stop," says Saoirse.
She says school can be difficult. "I am away a lot, so I miss out. People say: 'Do you remember when that happened? Oh no, you weren't here.' It's strange, but I get to do what I love and then be at home in Ardattin, which I also love. It's like that Hannah Montana song Best of Both Worlds."
She is supposed to be starting secondary school this month, but being cast in Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson's adaptation of Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bonesmeans she will be away with a tutor for the first half of first year. "When I heard about it I was like, 'Oh my God, a Peter Jackson movie,' but then I heard it was about a little girl who is raped, and I was a bit worried," she says.
"We were nervous at first. It didn't matter who was directing it," says Monica. "But we've been reassured that there are no graphic scenes."
"And it's a Peter Jackson movie!" says Saoirse, barely able to contain her excitement.
She seems so natural and unaffected, despite mixing with movie stars, this week attending the premiere of Atonementat the Venice Film Festival, that I ask Monica how she keeps her daughter's feet on the ground. "We don't stay in hotels. We always rent a house and make it a home, so we have our own dinners rather than ordering room service," she says. "And we've always told her that on film sets nobody is above her or beneath her, so she treats everyone the same, from the grips to the costume people to the make-up artists."
"That's the only thing I don't like about film sets," adds Saoirse. "There are some people who treat the actors as though they are better than everyone else. We aren't. Everyone works hard and everyone is important. If one department wasn't there, the film couldn't be made."
You hope, for her sake, that she holds tight to this unstarry attitude. Luckily it turns out the young actress has a radar for those people who are "fake".
"I don't like people who are over the top, who keep asking how are you today, saying 'You're so cute,' and all the rest. I'll say to my mam, 'I'm not sure about her or him,' but most of the time everyone has been brilliant. I've been really lucky," she says.
Ronan may turn out to be an Irish first. Male Irish movie stars surface from time to time - the Pierce Brosnans, Colin Farrells and Cillian Murphys of this parish - but Ireland doesn't have the same record when it comes to producing internationally recognised female movie stars. We don't seem able to keep up with the Catherine Zeta Joneses and that never-ending production line of young, beautiful starlets ripe for export who emerge each year from Britain. Ronan, meanwhile, has the looks, the work ethic and that incredible talent, all of which should keep her in the spotlight for decades to come.
She has burning ambition too. She'd like to work with Johnny Depp (more giggles) and Meryl Streep and "oh yeah, Jack Nicholson, that would be amazing". Two of her favourite films are School of Rock and Adam & Paul. "There's been an awful lot of weather lately," she says, in a perfect imitation of the heroin-addled main characters of Adam & Paul.
We say goodbye and I go home and Google the lyrics of Best of Both Worlds:
"You go to movie premieres (is that Orlando Bloom?) . . .
Livin' two lives is a little weird (yeah)
But school's cool coz nobody knows
Yeah you get to be a small-town girl
You get the best of both worlds."
It really couldn't have happened to a nicer, more talented girl.
Atonement opens nationwide on Friday