Honestly, what’s not to love about Saoirse Ronan?
At just 26 years old, the Irish actress has continually wowed us all with her talents throughout the years and her charm in countless interviews.
If you don’t know her, get ready for a cinematic treat. If you already know and love her, get ready to wrap yourself in the comfort of all things Saoirse Ronan. We’re talking the age-old question of how you pronounce her name, random facts that are far more interesting than her birth name, tidbits about some of her most celebrated and most underrated movies, plus Saoirse Ronan memes and tweets from fans––including a familiar celeb…can anyone guess who?
Fine, we’ll tell you how to pronounce Saoirse Ronan
Let’s get this over with – how do you pronounce Saoirse Ronan?
It is pronounced “Sur-sha.” Got it?
When Saoirse Ronan guest hosted a December 2017 episode of SNL, she acknowledged the difficulty pronouncing her name.
“I have an extremely Irish name, some would say too Irish,” she says in her opening monologue. “It’s Saoirse, it means freedom, but I’ve got a little problem. You see it’s spelled––well it’s spelled wrong. It’s a full typo…if it were a Wheel of Fortune puzzle you couldn’t afford it––it’s too many vowels!”
saoirse ronan: hi-
interviewer: lmao so what’s the weirdest version of your name you’ve heard lol go on sharshee what’s the wackiest anyone’s come up with lmaooo— hattie (@hattiesoykan) January 22, 2018
If I ever get to interview Saoirse Ronan, I promise I won’t ask this. I’ll research beforehand (like every writer should be doing!).
Saoirse Ronan did NOT give us critically acclaimed performances since she was 9 fucking years old for dusty interviewers to joke about the pronunciation of her name in every single interview and not ask actual questions about her work
— Ina (@THEHUNCERGAMES) December 15, 2018
Honestly y’all, just Google it and move on already!
Saoirse Ronan facts that are far more interesting than how her name is pronounced
Oh yes, we went there.
- Her go-to breakfast is rye bread, mashed avocado, poached egg, and spinach (according to her 2018 Vogue interview)
- Her dog’s name is Fran.
- Dirty Dancing is her favorite coming-of-age film, according to a 2018 New York Times interview.
- Her father Paul Ronan is also an actor who starred in The Devil’s Own alongside Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford.
- Try to look up Saoirse Ronan on Instagram? Sorry, but she doesn’t use social media. In a 2018 interview, she said it was “too stressful.”
- She starred in Ed Sheeran’s music video for “Galway Girl.” In the video, Ed Sheeran gets a tattoo in her handwriting, and the tattoo is real! She deliberately misspelled the tattoo “Galway Grill” because she thought it would be “funny and edgy” to misspell it, according to an interview with James Corden.
- The Ed Sheeran video is not the only music video where we’re graced with Saoirse Ronan’s talents. She stars in Hozier’s “Cherry Wine” music video as a victim of domestic abuse.
- Although Irish, Saoirse Ronan was born in the Bronx. In fact, Brooklyn was shot just 20 minutes away from where she grew up.
Alright, moving on to the good stuff: some of the most celebrated and underrated Saoirse Ronan movies!
Saoirse Ronan movies: Atonement (2007)
At just 13, Atonement was Saoirse Ronan’s breakthrough role. Based on the book of the same name by Ian McEwan, Saoirse Ronan plays the young Briony Tallis, a “young girl with a very powerful imagination living a very privileged background in Southern England in 1935 in the shadow of the Second World War,” which is how the book’s author describes her in this behind-the-scenes interview. Briony’s vivid imagination causes her to feel convinced that her sister Cecilia’s lover Robbie committed a crime (Keira Knightly plays her sister and James McAvoy plays the boyfriend).
She earned her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. One of the youngest Academy Award nominees, critics
You can watch Atonement for free (with ads) on Amazon Prime Video.
Saoirse Ronan movies: Lovely Bones (2009)
Based on the 2002 bestseller by Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones follows Susie Salmon, played by Saoirse Ronan), a teenage murder victim who keeps watch over her family while navigating the afterlife. In 2010, one of Hollywood.com’s staff writers said that Saoirse Ronan “is the film’s anchor, without which Jackson’s lavish visual feast would amount to little more than empty calories.”
“After a while, I think Susie started to become a part of me, and it was very easy and very natural for me to understand what way she would react to something or deal with something,” Saoirse Ronan said in an exclusive interview with Hollywood.com back in 2010. “I never really thought of her as being a dead girl. She was someone whose body had died but not her soul. It was sort of like everything had been taken away from her, and I supposed I was just able to put myself in that position.”
Buy or rent The Lovely Bones on Amazon Prime Video.
Saoirse Ronan movies: Hanna (2011)
Saoirse Ronan plays Hanna, a teenage girl raised in the wilderness of Finland by her father, an ex-CIA agent. Cate Blanchett plays a current CIA agent tasked with tracking down the father-daughter duo.
The role was physically demanding and challenged Saoirse Ronan to brutally fight while also playing a naive and innocent teenage girl who was raised in the wild. “When it came to her fighting, a lot of it had to do with the physical training that I did, I think it really helped,” she said in an interview with us following Hanna’s release. “The other side, the naive innocent side to Hanna––really it was about wiping your mind clean and seeing the world for the first time, imagining what it would be like. Once you’ve got that into your head, I guess you can develop the character further.”
You can watch Hanna on Peacock TV.
Saoirse Ronan movies: How I Live Now (2013)
Based on a Meg Rosoff novel, How I Live Now stars Saoirse Ronan as Daisy, an American teen sent to live in the English countryside with her aunt and cousins for a summer.
Considered a romantic speculative drama, this Saoirse Ronan movie isn’t talked about as much as others, but we’re including it because the actress herself has mentioned it should be appreciated more than it is.
The 2013 movie got mixed reviews. One critic said, “It’s strong stuff, and the actors are fully up to it.”
Watch How I Live Now with an Amazon Prime subscription or buy or rent it on Amazon.
Saoirse Ronan movies: Brooklyn (2015)
The 2015 historical drama set in the 1950s based on a book by Colm Tóibín stars Saoirse Ronan as Eilis Lace, a young Irish immigrant who becomes torn between two lovers.
Her role as Eilis in Brooklyn is where she earned her first of three Oscar nominations for Best Actress.
As a native of the Bronx, shooting Brooklyn hit close to home. In an interview, she said filming had her crying buckets, considering the shoots were just 20 minutes from where she grew up. She even knew some of the extras from her childhood.
Fun fact: in her 2018 73 Questions interview with Vogue, Saoirse Ronan says that a “beautiful floral skirt” was her favorite costume ever worn for a movie.
You can buy or rent Brooklyn on Amazon Prime Video.
Saoirse Ronan movies: Lady Bird (2017)
“I didn’t realize, until Lady Bird came along, how starved we are for female coming-of-age stories that don’t revolve around a girl being validated by romance,” Saoirse Ronan says in a 2018 New York Times interview.
If you haven’t seen it, the film follows Saoirse Ronan as Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson, a high school girl who “undergoes the trials of love, family and self-discovery as she dreams of escaping to college on the East Coast.”
While Lady Bird isn’t all about romance, we love seeing bestie Timothée Chalamet star alongside her as the “bad” boyfriend Kyle Scheible.
Another win for Hollywood women––and teenagers everywhere––is how Saoirse Ronan famously didn’t cover up her acne.
Directed by Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird marks the first of many collaborations between these two talented Hollywood women. The pair met at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Greta Gerwig had Saoirse Ronan read the script for Lady Bird. In a 2020 interview with Vulture, Greta Gerwig says, “I feel like we both grew into another thing together, which is the joy of working with someone like this. I hope we get to be old ladies together making movies about old ladies.”
In an interview following the release of Little Women, Saoirse Ronan says, “There’s no other working relationship I have like the one I have with Greta. I think Greta was just meant to do this. I could see that on Lady Bird.”
In the same interview, Greta Gerwig says “I’m interested to see what movie we make when Saoirse’s in her 50s and I’m in my 60s.”
So are we, Greta. So are we.
You can watch Lady Bird on Netflix.
Saoirse Ronan movies: Little Women (2019)
Lucky for us, we didn’t have to wait very long to see another Greta/Saoirse collab.
Saoirse Ronan’s role as Jo March in the 2019 film adaptation of Little Women was one she felt destined to play.
In fact, Saoirse Ronan shared with The Guardian that she went up to Greta Gerwig and insisted on being a part of the Little Women cast. “I know you’re going to do this thing. I want to be in it, and I really think the only part I can play is Jo March,” Saoirse Ronan reports saying to Greta Gerwig. “So, if you want me to be in it, this is what I’m willing to offer you.”
A week later, Saoirse Ronan got an email from Greta Gerwig that she got the part.
It was a dream for Saoirse Ronan to star alongside Meryl Streep, Emma Watson, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, and Florence Pugh.
A dream for us, too!
You can watch Little Women on STARZ.
Saoirse Ronan movies: Ammonite (2020)
Apparently, the first movie Saoirse Ronan ever remembers seeing is Titanic, so how fitting is it that she got to star alongside iconic Titanic cast member Kate Winslet in Ammonite?
The romantic drama written and directed by Francis Lee drew inspiration from real-life paleontologist Mary Anning (played by Kate Winslet).
The movie follows Mary’s romance with Saoirse Ronan’s character Charlotte Murchison.
“I don’t want to go back to the life I had before you.” #Ammonite pic.twitter.com/mciBuInEqS
— Ammonite (@AmmoniteMovie) March 13, 2021
You can watch Ammonite on Hulu.
Saoirse Ronan movies to look forward to in 2021: The French Dispatch
#HollyGOOD news for Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet fans: the iconic actor duo is reuniting for Wed Anderson’s new movie The French Dispatch. Set to release later this year, the movie will have three separate storylines all centered around the French foreign bureau of a fictional Kansas newspaper.
Watch the trailer here:
Here’s what people have to say about Saoirse Ronan movies
Saoirse Ronan may not be on social media, but plenty of her fans rave about her anyway.
The only explanation for Saoirse Ronan is that she’s a real life angel.
— Brie Larson (@brielarson) November 11, 2015
We’re like six years late to respond but we agree, Brie Larson.
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└?Movies
└? Saoirse Ronan
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└? ERROR: Not Found— keaton kilde (@keatonkildebell) December 26, 2019
404 error not found invalid request beep beep boop
when saoirse ronan said “but im s—but im so lonely” in her monologue in little women. big quarantine mood
— trish (@ULTRAGLOSS) March 25, 2020
biiig quarantine mood
Well, it’s been six months, I’m ready for Saoirse Ronan to play an assertive young woman discovering her own strength again.
— Louis Virtel (@louisvirtel) May 20, 2020
What can we say, she’s good at it!
Saoirse Ronan was put on Earth to make me dab my eyes walking out of a movie theater and say to no one in particular, “She believed in her own strength the whole time.”
— Louis Virtel (@louisvirtel) January 5, 2020
Constantly dabbing our eyes.
saoirse ronan when she’s offered a film that is not a period piece pic.twitter.com/Uej6wUl6ZC
— coco | support ? (@atwentyfilm) March 12, 2021
She knows what she’s good at and she sticks to it, ok??
saoirse ronan is gonna play like, a really good mom role someday. i am manifesting it
— ? (@ElsieKFisher) March 11, 2020
We’re manifesting this too tbh
Now that we’ve flooded your screen with wholesome tweets and Saoirse Ronan movies to watch or rewatch, we’ll leave you with this advice that Saoirse Ronan shared in her 2018 73 Questions interview with Vogue:
“Be nice to everyone and make your own cup of tea on set.”
*publishes article and goes to make a cup of tea*
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