How working class Saoirse Ronan was home schooled & taught herself to act before becoming Hollywood icon with Bafta nom

SHE'S a hot favourite to walk off with the Best Actress BAFTA this evening – but win or lose, Irish star Saoirse Ronan has never been happier. As she takes to the red carpet tonight for the 78th EE British Academy Film Awards – AKA the BAFTAs – there are few who would argue that Saoirse Ronan doesn’t deserve her place there. The low-key Irish star – who recently hit the headlines after clashing with male guests on The Graham Norton Show (more on that later) – has more nominations and awards to her name than any other actress her age, having worked continuously since childhood on a string of acclaimed movies.

Saoirse, now 30, made her film debut in Amy Heckerling’s romantic comedy I Could Never Be Your Woman, released in 2007, but it was her portrayal of Briony Tallis in Atonement that same year that really got her noticed, earning her BAFTA and Oscar nominations at the tender age of 13. She now has seven BAFTA nods and four Academy Award nominations, as well as one Golden Globe win for Best Actress In A Musical Or Comedy with Lady Bird, making her one of the standout actresses of her generation.

Yet Saoirse has always preferred to fly under the radar. Born in The Bronx, New York City, in 1994 to Irish parents Monica and Paul Ronan, Saoirse moved back to Ireland aged three, with the family settling in rural village Ardattin in County Carlow. As a child, she attended Ardattin National School for a time, but was largely homeschooled. The fact she taught herself to act is probably no surprise, given that her father Paul is an actor who most famously starred in BBC1’s Ballykissangel, as well as had roles in movies The Devil’s Own with Brad Pitt and Veronica Guerin with Cate Blanchett.

Saoirse’s parents played an active role in her career from the start, with her mother accompanying her on set when she was a child. She is incredibly close to her mum and dad, and previously said of her mother: “We’ve always been very, very close, but when I moved away to London, where I lived for a year and a half, I remember feeling so homesick. “I always need to talk to her, but she really helped me through it and helped me to get the courage to keep going with it.”.

She added that her mum is her “best friend”. Meanwhile, dad Paul recalled on The Late Late Show in 2010 how he realised his daughter had talent at a young age. “From the age of two, I spotted something in her. “She was an amazing kid, very friendly and sociable. “More so than any kid I have seen. “Eventually, when she was seven or eight, I put her in a short film I was doing. “They needed a kid and I said: ‘I’ve got one.’”.

Just a few years later, she starred alongside her dad in RTÉ series The Clinic, and the following year bagged a role on mini-series Proof. London-based Irish director Thaddeus O’Sullivan, who worked with Saoirse on Proof when she was just 10 years old, knew she was special even then. “She struck me, the way she strikes me now, as very gentle, self-assured and highly intelligent,” he says. “It was obvious to everyone really that she was a star, that she had something exceptional.”.

Thaddeus found her easy to work with, as she instinctively knew what was being asked of her. “The one thing you worry about when directing young people or children is whether or not they’ll get [the character]. “You can’t go into some great big character analysis, or break down dialogue, so you’re relying on something instinctive, and Saoirse had it.”. Part of the reason for her success, he believes, is her choice of roles.

“She’s quite careful about the parts she opts for and she takes them, not for their potential to win awards, but because she feels strongly about them and is invested in them creatively,” T­­­­­haddeus says. Saoirse has starred in a string of high-profile movies, including The Lovely Bones (2009), Hanna (2011), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Mary Queen Of Scots (2018), Little Women (2019), Ammonite (2020), See How They Run (2022), The Outrun – for which she received her Best Actress In A Leading Role BAFTA nomination this year – and, most recently, Blitz (2024).

Most would agree that no matter what the role, Saoirse’s standard of acting is always incredible. She’s also known for her ability to mimic accents. “I think it’s a very Irish thing to do accents,” she said in a 2018 interview. “When you’re telling a story, you just naturally go into the character’s accent. “I had grown up with Mam and Dad doing that an awful lot.”. Despite all of her success, however, Saoirse remains grounded.

“I believe she hasn’t let fame go to her head. She seems very comfortable in that [film] environment,” adds Thaddeus. It’s all the more impressive, given that she’s grown up in the public eye, which for others would be a daunting prospect. Perhaps it’s because she has been acting for so long that her closest mates are all actors. Her best friend is Irish actress Eileen O’Higgins, whom she met while filming Brooklyn in 2014.