Saoirse Ronan as Mary Queen of Scots

by Murtada 

Here’s our first peek at Saoirse Ronan as the title character in Mary, Queen Of Scots. The film just started shooting in the UK with theater director Josie Rourke making it her feature directorial debut. It has a mix of veteran and upcoming actors from the non-American English speaking world in its cast. Margot Robbie, Jack Lowden (Dunkirk), Joe Alwyn (Billy Lynn himself), Guy Pearce, David Tennant, Brendan Coyle (Mr. Bates in Downton Abbey) and Gemma Chan.

The film charts the turbulent short life of Mary Stuart and her rivalry for the throne with Elizabeth 1, played in this version by Robbie. One can think of it as a sort of sequel to Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth The Golden Age (2007). Produced by the same people, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. The first draft of the script - hence rewritten by Beau Willimon of House of Cards fame who gets sole credit - was written by those films’ writer, Michael Hirst. It’s as if they’ve taken Samantha Morton’s Mary from the second film and given her center stage. Of course many actresses have played these two women over the years. Mostly in movies about Elizabeth although Vanessa Redgrave played Mary to Glenda Jackson’s Elizabeth in a movie with the same title back in 1971.

Ronan continues her busy post Brooklyn career. Lady Bird is coming out this fall. The adaptation of Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach will play TIFF. The Seagull adaptation that she made with Annette Bening almost two years ago must come out eventually. We wonder which one of these projects will get her invited back to Oscar? Maybe more than one. She seems like the sort who would become a regular.

'Lady Bird' Picked Up by A24

By Spencer Coile

After stellar performances in Greenberg, Frances Ha, Mistress America, 20th Century Women, and countless indies in the past decade, it was only a matter of time before Greta Gerwig got behind the directorial seat. Her debut film, Lady Bird, the story of a Sacramento teenager (Saoirse Ronan) who prepares to go to college in New York City has officially been picked up by A24 and is looking at a fall release. Co-written with frequent collaborator Noah Baumbach, Lady Bird also features Laurie Metcalf, Lucas Hedges, and Tracy Letts. 

With any luck, Gerwig's debut will begin generating Oscar buzz already -- A24 has seen some great success in the past few years (one notable example being 20th Century Women and recent Best Picture winner, Moonlight). And although it is too soon to call the film's Oscar chances, one thought remains abdundantly clear: Greta Gerwig's career is at a steady trajectory, and we are just lucky enough to be witnessing it firsthand. 

Stage Door: The Crucible w/ Ben Whishaw & Saoirse Ronan

On Monday's (the "dark" night for many shows) Stage Door, we talk theater ...and often its film connections.

Arthur Miller's classic allegory about the Salem witch trials The Crucible is back on Broadway for a limited engagement currently scheduled to run through July. Expect Tony nominations as it's a gripping night of theater with high profile actors like Saoirse Ronan as the vengeful aggressive Abigail, fresh off her Oscar nomination, and acclaimed Brits Ben Whishaw and Sophie Okonedo as the doomed Proctors.

The Crucible has only been adapted to cinema twice, once in French in 1957 and most famously in English in 1996 with Winona Ryder, Daniel Day Lewis and Joan Allen (Oscar-Nominated) in the principle roles. That film was no classic so it's easy for the current production to obliterate it in the mind's eye. But for Joan Allen's utterly brilliant rendering of Goody Proctor. [More...]

Click to read more ...

Posterized: Saoirse Ronan

Since we forgot to celebrate Saint Patricks Day and since Brooklyn is fresh on DVD, let's talk everyone's favorite current Irish lass! Saoirse Ronan is only 21 years old (she turns 22 next month) but she's already logged over a decade of work having started as a child in a Irish television series called "The Clinic". Her first movie role was as Michelle Pfeiffer's daughter in the romantic comedy I Could Never Be Your Woman shot in 2005 though it took along time to emerge due to behind the scenes studio and distribution dramas. Her breakthrough Oscar-nominated performance in Atonement (2007) quickly followed. She's now ascended to a real movie star with her warm engaging film-carrying work in Brooklyn (2015).

Let's repeat a bit of Oscar trivia since it's quite impressive and important: Saoirse Ronan (nominated at 13 and 21) is only the 4th child star in history to received an Oscar nomination before and after turning 18. The very short list includes only the icons Jodie Foster (first nominated at 14), Natalie Wood (first nominated at 17) and Sal Mineo. (first nominated at 17) so that's astonishingly good company for Saoirse! (If you count "special" non competitive Oscars you can include Judy Garland, too, who received a "juvenile" statue for The Wizard of Oz when she was 17.) Most child stars peak when they're children, you see, but Saoirse is surely just getting started. 

How many of her films have you seen? (all posters after the jump)

Click to read more ...

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Atonement (2007)

Briony's eyes. Every shot is telling, this one directly, confrontationally to the camera.

Stupendous. It's stupendous, darling."

That's Mother Tallis's review of her precocious daughter Briony's (Saoirse Ronan) very serious new play at the beginning of Atonement (2007). It's also any sensible person's reaction to this amazing motion picture. Seeing it again (I hadn't seen it since 2007) was close to overwhelming. Praise be to Director Joe Wright and Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey because this thing hasn't aged a single day. If anything it's become more beautiful with the passage of time, a neat trick since memory is one of its great subjects. It's superbly acted (particularly by James McAvoy in what is certainly his most moving performance), and features a veritable parade of emblematic, gorgeous, and thrillingly visceral images for this exercize of ours. What to even choose: Cecilia wet and haughty at the fountain; The lovers, already "characters" in future novelists Briony's mind erotically pressed against books in the library (my runner up for Best Shot); that amazing tracking shot at Dunkirk which pulls us out of the story (sort of) just long enough to stingingly remind us that War doesn't care about Individual Characters and Their Arcs -- it's ready to soil everything; any closeup of Briony whether she's imaginatively confused (Saoirse Ronan), guilt-ridden shellshocked (Romola Garai), or, wide-eyed with the fraternal twins of truth and fiction (Vanessa Redgrave); and of course anything and everything involving Keira Knightley in the green dress, the dress that should've won Jacqueline Durran the Oscar in a landslide.

Here are the choices from our Best Shot Club, open to anyone who wants to join after the jump...

Click to read more ...