Saoirse Ronan fears winning her first Academy Award will prevent her from enjoying the ceremony and after-parties.
The 23-year-old star received her third nomination last month (Jan18), earning a nod for Best Actress for her portrayal of Christine McPherson, a precocious but unruly teenage girl in Greta Gerwig’s comedy-drama Lady Bird.
However, despite losing out on two occasions at the Academy Awards, she tells Agence France Presse (AFP) that she “hasn’t thought about winning” and in fact is worried nabbing the prize will spoil her evening at the event held in March.
“When you win you have to do all the press afterwards, and you don’t get a chance to have a dance,” she explains. “So it is also quite nice losing because you can enjoy the night.”
The star, who was first nominated for an Oscar in 2008 when she was just 13 years old, also blames fame and her resulting press commitments for giving her acne.
“Weirdly I never got bad skin as a teenager at all,” she says. “It was only when I was 21 or 22 when I was doing loads of press that I got it. So, it was you (the press) that did it.”
However, Saoirse says her skin trouble helped her to play Christine, as she kept her spots for the role
She explains, “I had a bad skin at the time so we just didn’t cover it up.”
Saoirse, who won a Golden Globe Award last month and was also nominated for Best Actress in 2016 for her role in Brooklyn, says that a lack of vanity about her looks helped her growing up as teenage actress.
“Going through puberty on screen can very easily be terrifying,” she adds. You are so aware of what you look like, and to have a lens pointed at your face. So you have to have the attitude that it is more important to get what you are doing right than worry whether you look pretty.”
The Irish actress will find out her Oscars fate at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre on 4 March.
