The actress says her role in The Outrun was cathartic. She and its author Amy Liptrot talk alcoholism, accents and wild swimming. Saoirse Ronan is reeling off a list of the worries that run through her head while she is acting.
“Does the audience like me? Do they accept me? Do they think my performance is worthy of their time?” She smiles and says she has become better at silencing these thoughts that have plagued her for the past 22 years, since she started acting aged eight in an Irish TV drama called The Clinic . Turning 30 has made her feel less anxious — as has her new husband, her fellow actor Jack Lowden. They got married in July near where he grew up in Edinburgh, and she refers to him as “comrade”.
“None of it ever goes away but that desperate hoping for approval used to be worse,” says the actress, who by 24 already had three Oscar nominations, for Atonement , Brooklyn and Lady Bird . “It helps that I’m more secure in my life personally. I completely trust and love the people around me and I feel strong enough to approach things that are painful.
” She seems happy and relaxed, in a long cornflower-blue dress, her ears stacked with gold hoop earrings and bleached blonde hair tied back from her delicate, freckled face. Arguably, she is being harsh on herself, having always taken on “painful” parts, from an assassin in Hanna in 2011 to Lady Macbeth at the Almeida Theatre in 2021..