Saoirse Ronan

Saoirse Una Ronan, pronounced SUR-shə OO-nə ROH-nən, is an American-born Irish actress born on 12 April 1994 in the Bronx borough of New York City. The only child of Monica and Paul Ronan, both Dublin natives, she was born to parents who had left Ireland during the economic recession of the 1980s and were undocumented immigrants during their time in New York. Her father worked in construction and in bars before pursuing acting training, while her mother had acted as a child and worked as a nanny. The family relocated to Dublin when Ronan was three years old, and she was subsequently raised in Ardattin, County Carlow, where she attended Ardattin National School before being tutored privately at home. In her early teens, she was living in the seaside village of Howth in Dublin. She was raised Catholic and has cited Dame Maggie Smith as her greatest acting influence.

Ronan began her screen career in 2003 on the Irish medical drama series The Clinic, which aired on national broadcaster RTÉ, and also appeared in the mini-serial Proof. Her first film role came in Amy Heckerling's romantic comedy I Could Never Be Your Woman, filmed in 2005, in which she played the daughter of Michelle Pfeiffer's character alongside Paul Rudd. The film received a limited theatrical release internationally in 2007 and a direct-to-video release in the United States in 2008. Her breakthrough came when, at age 12, she auditioned for Joe Wright's 2007 adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement, winning the role of Briony Tallis, a 13-year-old aspiring novelist whose false accusation alters several lives. She acted alongside Keira Knightley and James McAvoy in the film, which earned over $129 million worldwide against a $30 million budget. The performance earned Ronan nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award, making her the seventh youngest nominee in that Oscar category.

Also in 2007, Ronan appeared in the supernatural thriller Death Defying Acts, playing the daughter of a character portrayed by Catherine Zeta-Jones. The following year she starred as Lina Mayfleet in the fantasy film City of Ember. In 2009, she took the lead role of 14-year-old Susie Salmon in Peter Jackson's supernatural drama The Lovely Bones, appearing alongside Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg, Susan Sarandon, and Stanley Tucci. The role required extensive work in front of a blue screen and earned her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role nomination.

Ronan continued to build her screen profile in the early 2010s. In Peter Weir's 2010 war drama The Way Back, she played Irena, a Polish orphan who joins escaped Siberian convicts on a 4,000-mile trek to India, co-starring Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell, and Ed Harris, with filming taking place in Bulgaria, India, and Morocco. In 2011, she reunited with director Joe Wright for the action film Hanna, portraying a 15-year-old girl raised in the Arctic wilderness as an assassin alongside Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett. In preparation for the role, Ronan spent several months training in martial arts, stick fighting, and knife fighting and performed her own stunts. That same year she voiced the lead role in the English-language dubbed version of Studio Ghibli's anime film Arrietty and appeared alongside Alexis Bledel in Geoffrey S. Fletcher's action film Violet & Daisy. At age 16, she had been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2014, she appeared in Wes Anderson's ensemble comedy The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Ronan received Academy Award for Best Actress nominations for three consecutive roles: an Irish immigrant navigating life in New York in the 2015 period drama Brooklyn, the title character in Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird in 2017, and Jo March in Gerwig's Little Women in 2019. Her performance in Lady Bird also earned her a Golden Globe Award. In 2024, she produced and starred in the drama The Outrun.

On stage, Ronan made her Broadway debut in 2016 in a revival of The Crucible, in which she portrayed Abigail Williams. She subsequently appeared in the 2021 West End revival of The Tragedy of Macbeth, playing Lady Macbeth. In 2016, Forbes included her in two of its 30 Under 30 lists. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her tenth on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century. Across her career, Ronan has received a Golden Globe Award and a Scottish BAFTA, along with nominations for four Academy Awards and seven British Academy Film Awards.