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Born April 12, 1994 in The Bronx, New York, Saoirse Ronan is the only child of actor Paul Ronan and his wife, Monica, a former child actress. When she was three, the family moved to Dublin, Ireland where she grew up, hence her dual American and Irish citizenship. She made her acting debut in the Irish TV series, The Clinic in 2003 when she was 9 and replaced Emma Bolger in another Irish TV series, Proof in 2005 when she was 11.

Ronan made her film debut as Michelle Pfeifferโ€™s daughter in 2007โ€™s I Could Never Be Your Woman. Two films later she was an Oscar nominee for the same yearโ€™s Atonement in a role she shared with Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave who played her 13-year-old character in later years.

In Peter Jacksonโ€™s 2009 film of The Lovely Bones, Ronan played the coveted role of Susie Salmon, the 14-year-old murder victim who watches over her family from purgatory, for which she was nominated for a BAFTA. In 2010, she lent her voice to the title character in the English language version of the Japanese anime, The Secret World of Arrietty. That same year, she played a Polish girl whose parents were murdered by the Russians in Peter Weirโ€™s historical drama, The Way Back, for which she won an Irish Film and Television award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2011, she played a teenage assassin in Hanna from Atonement director Joe Wright.

Continuing her career of playing unusual characters, Ronan was a vampire in Neile Jordanโ€™s 2012 film, Byzantium, the heroine in the 2013 Invasion of the Body Snatchers-like The Host and a girl named Rat in Ryan Goslingโ€™s 2014 directorial debut. Lost River. Later that year, she played a chef in Wes Andersonโ€™s award-winning The Grand Budapest Hotel.

In 2015, Ronan played a young woman, kidnapped as a child, who returns home to the family she barely remembers in the TV movie, Stockholm, Pennsylvania with Cynthia Nixon and Jason Isaacs. That same year she earned numerous awards, including the New York Film Critics award for Best Actress for her Irish รฉmigrรฉ in the early 1950s in Brooklyn, for which she also received her second Oscar nomination, her first in the lead category.

In 2016, she made her Broadway debut opposite Ben Whishaw in an acclaimed Broadway revival of Arthur Millerโ€™s The Crucible in the role played in the 1996 film version by Winona Ryder.

In 2017, Ronan won her second New York Film Critics award for Greta Gerwigโ€™s Lady Bird making her the youngest two-time winner in that bodyโ€™s now 82-year-old awards. The role also brought her a third Oscar nomination, her second in the lead category for her portrayal of a character based on writer-director Gerwig herself.

Ronan is up next as a newlywed opposite Billy Howle in On Chesil Beach followed by a new version of The Seagull opposite Elisabeth Moss and a new version of Mary Queen of Scots opposite Margot Robbie. The latter two are both remakes of films in which Ronan plays roles once played by Vanessa Redgrave who played the older version of Ronanโ€™s character in Atonement.

The actress has already had an impressive career, but sheโ€™s really just getting started at 23!

ESSENTIAL FILMS

ATONEMENT (2007), directed by Joe Wright

Ronanโ€™s potent star power was obvious from her first appearance in this film at the age of 13. Even with a superb cast that included Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave at their very best, she was the standout as Knightleyโ€™s trouble-making younger sister whose later life is vividly portrayed by Garai and Redgrave. It all revolves around Ronanโ€™s discovery of Knightley and McAvoy in a passionate embrace, then witnessing a rape from a distance and jumping to the conclusion that it was McAvoy who committed the rape and accusing him of it, thus ruining his life.

THE LOVELY BONES (2009), directed by Peter Jackson

It was Stanley Tucci who received the filmโ€™s lone Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for his portrayal of the pedophile serial killer who murders Ronan who narrates from purgatory, and not Ronan, but both were nominated for BAFTAs. The film received mostly negative reviews for Peter Jacksonโ€™s overbearing direction most related to his overuse of CGI, but the film features some lovely work from not only Ronan, but by Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz as her parents and Susan Sarandon as her grandmother as well. Tucciโ€™s performance as one of the vilest criminals in film history is also worth noting.

HANNA (2011), directed by Joe Wright

Ronan received several acting nods for her portrayal of a 16-year-old girl raised by her father (Eric Bana) to be an assassin, but the plot is more than a bit far-fetched. The filmโ€™s villain is the current CIA chief played by a scenery chewing Cate Blanchett between Oscars. It seems that she has been hunting Ronan and Bana since she failed to execute them fourteen years earlier when she murdered Banaโ€™s wife, Ronanโ€™s mother. Although the premise is a bit tough to swallow, the narrative action is well done with a supporting cast that includes Vicki Krieps, Michelle Dockery, Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng and Tom Hollander.

BROOKLYN (2015), directed by John Crowley

One of the best films of its year, Crowleyโ€™s film was nominated for just three Oscars โ€“ Best Picture, Actress (Ronan) and Adapted Screenplay (Nick Hornby). It might also have been nominated for the supporting performances of Emory Cohen and Domhnall Gleeson as the two men in her life and Julie Walters as her Brooklyn landlady. Ronan is superb throughout as the young woman who is torn between her love of two worlds and two men, one American and one Irish. When in Brooklyn, sheโ€™s homesick for Ireland, but when a family tragedy finds her back in Ireland, she misses her new life with equal passion.

LADY BIRD (2017), directed by Greta Gerwig

Ronan once again finds herself in one of the best films of its year, a completely different kind of role, but one that is equally complex. In this, she plays a rebellious high school senior based on writer-director Greta Gerwigโ€™s own life of sixteen years earlier. Her performance is matched, every step of the way by Laurie Metcalf in her best screen role ever as Ronanโ€™s complex mother. Also excellent are Tracy Letts as her gentle father, Lucas Hedges and Timothรฉe Chalamet as her first boyfriends, Beadie Feldstein as her best friend and Lois Smith as a bemused nun. Mothers and daughters everywhere recognized pieces of themselves in Metcalf and Ronan.

SAOIRSE RONAN AND OSCAR

  • Atonement (2007) โ€“ nominated โ€“ Best Supporting Actress
  • Brooklyn (2015) โ€“ nominated โ€“ Best Actress
  • Lady Bird (2017) โ€“ nominated โ€“ Best Actress

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