Irish-American actress Saoirse Ronan flies in to soar in Lady Bird…says BAZ BAMIGBOYE

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Saoirse Ronan is determined not to let the film world engulf her

Saoirse Ronan is determined not to let the film world engulf her.

‘It’s very easy to make the industry your whole life and just stay in that bubble, but it’s not good for you to work and do nothing else,’ the 23-year-old told me.

Ronan’s been acting for half her life, garnering the first of three Oscar nominations aged 13 for Atonement, so she knows of what she speaks.

‘In order to have a perspective on life, you have to live it,’ she said.

The Irish-American actress took herself off to New Zealand last year and travelled around the Asia-Pacific region, meeting up with friends. ‘I needed to do that,’ she sighed.

When she returned from her trip, she went straight to work with director Josie Rourke, taking the lead role in Working Title’s Mary Queen Of Scots. 

She was filming the historical drama in London when Lady Bird, a movie she’d made earlier with Greta Gerwig directing, had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, where critics fought over which superlative to best describe it. 

The guy from the New York Times simply called it ‘perfect’.

The picture, written by Gerwig, is set in Sacramento, with Ronan playing a high school student called Christine who insists on being called Lady Bird.

It’s a coming-of-age story that overlaps with a mother-daughter relationship tale and explores class, gender sexuality and a little thing called love. 

‘Coming-of-age films, especially the ones with teenage girls, seem to focus mostly on romance and are a little superficial, where I think this whole world has been fleshed out in Lady Bird,’ Ronan told me on the phone from Los Angeles.

Ronan notes that her character is ‘recognisably human, and even a bit unlikeable at times, but she has a lot to offer. All the highs and lows of what it is to be a teenager seem to be in this one young woman’.

Ronan’s portrayal reels you in. I saw the film three times because I was fascinated by her sublime performance and the tiny details Gerwig had poured in to her screenplay, such as how Lady Bird’s often exasperated mother (a fabulous Laurie Metcalf) works double shifts at the hospital to make ends meet and how she’s tougher on her daughter than her soft-hearted husband.

Lady Bird, written by Greta Gerwig, is set in Sacramento, with Ronan playing a high school student called Christine (pictured) who insists on being called Lady Bird

 ‘Be the best version of yourself,’ the mother pleads.

Lady Bird — like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Shape Of Water and, to some extent, The Post, which all have strong female lead roles — arrives at a time when, as Ronan put it, ‘girls are finding their voice in a way they haven’t before’.

She added: ‘Even before #MeToo sexual allegations, people were hungry for stories led by women.’

She wondered whether Lady Bird would have elicited as much attention if it had opened at a different time.

In my view? Absolutely. The film would have won attention whenever it chose to open.

Ronan’s heading to London next weekend for the Baftas, and then back to Los Angeles for the Academy Awards on March 4, where Lady Bird has five nominations, including Best Picture.

Gerwig (pictured, with Ronan) is in the Best Director race — shamefully, it’s only the fifth time a woman has been nominated for director in the Oscars’ 90-year history

For Best Actress, Ronan will be up against four powerful performances — Sally Hawkins in The Shape Of Water, Frances McDormand in Three Billboards, Margot Robbie in I, Tonya and Meryl Streep in The Post.

Gerwig is in the Best Director race — shamefully, it’s only the fifth time a woman has been nominated for director in the Oscars’ 90-year history.

In June, Ronan can be seen in Dominic Cooke’s beautiful adaptation of Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, and in September, Mary Queen Of Scots opens.

At some point, she quite fancies the idea of doing a movie musical, an idea prompted by singing audition scenes in Lady Bird. ‘It has to be in a film. I can’t sing on stage — I’m not Anne Hathaway! Anyway, Broadway hasn’t called me up yet,’ she joked.

Bard to get Games of Thrones makeover  

Timothee Chalamet, the dashing young actor who has become the award season’s heart throb, is in talks about playing Prince Hal in a film based on Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V.

Chalamet is likely to work with the Australian actor and film-maker Joel Edgerton, who has adapted the two plays. He has been working on the scripts for several years.

He once told the film site Indie Wire that he’d written the Henry plays ‘as a period film, but with our own (modern) dialogue.

Timothee Chalamet (pictured) , the dashing young actor who has become the award season’s heart throb, is in talks about playing Prince Hal in a film based on Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V

‘For lack of a better explanation, it’s Game Of Thrones meets Shakespeare only in that you can watch Game Of Thrones and understand what’s going on,’ he said. The Bard ‘does the kind of roundabout version of telling you simple things.

‘So we just wanted to let the audience understand exactly what’s going on, and not just some people but everybody.’

The film will shoot on locations in the UK and Hungary, starting in late May or early June.

Chalamet made his name in Homeland, playing the son of the Vice-President. He went on to appear in several films, including favourites of mine, Lady Bird and Hostiles, but he broke through playing a youth who has a summer of love with a slightly older man (Armie Hammer) in Call Me By Your Name.

The movie garnered four Oscar nominations including a Best Actor citation for Chalamet, who finds himself in contention with Daniel Day-Lewis, Daniel Kaluuya, Gary Oldman (the favourite) and Denzel Washington for the Oscar crown.

Chalamet has met with director David Michod, who will direct the Shakespeare film, called King.

The movie’s being backed by Netflix and will have a theatrical run first and then go onto the streaming service.

It’s being produced by Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, who run Brad Pitt’s film company, Plan B. They were also closely involved with Oscar-winning Best Films 12 Years A Slave and Moonlight.

Edgerton starred in last year’s inter-racial romance film Loving, also starring Ruth Negga, and will soon be seen in the spy thriller Red Sparrow with Jennifer Lawrence.

Revealing The Jungle's human side 

The Jungle is on the move. The breathtaking Young Vic sensation could take root at the Playhouse Theatre, near Charing Cross.

The play, by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, explored the ramshackle refugee and migrant camp in Calais.

All too often the occupants of the Jungle camp are depicted as less than third-class citizens, but this production gave them names and faces, and, for a change, told their side of the story.

Director Stephen Daldry and designer Miriam Buether are liaising with the Young Vic, the National Theatre, Sonia Friedman Productions and Good Chance Theatre on how Buether’s excellent set can be shifted into the Playhouse.

Discussions are ongoing about how to reconfigure the Playhouse stage and transform the auditorium.

The project’s at an early stage, but if the design can be sorted then The Jungle hopes to be up and running in the Playhouse by early June. It’s an unmissable theatrical experience.