Actors on Actors: Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan – Full Video

I suppose the first thing I wanted to ask you was when you read the script of Brooklyn hmm did you know it was being sent you so were you excited that it was coming your way or did you just read it completely cold um I guess it was a bit of both I mean I was aware of the story so I had read the book when I was maybe about 60 and I think and I loved us and what at the time didn't know that there was gonna be a screenplay when you read the book you subconsciously in any way put yourself in those scenes even looking but you always do do you not feel like you do that with with books I always feel like if it really grabs me I start to act out imaginary sayings that maybe arrington the book yeah I'll find myself sometimes saying little pieces of dialogue yeah sometimes on your own although I did read the reader a long time before I was actually cast in the film and I remember when I read it sitting down having a conversation with somebody else about who possibly play Hanna Schmitz and I never thought of myself really he never why do you think that was I think maybe because I was I was I was probably in my late 20s at the time that I had read the novel and then when I came to shoot the film I was about 34 or something like that 33 34 and the jump between sort of 26 27 to 33 is actually very substantial yeah and so I think that was probably why I just never pictured myself doing it did you love the script of Brooklyn when you first got it straight away yeah I loved it straight away I think are you connected with it straight away because um my mum and dad had made that journey in the 80s so they went over to New York they worked there for you know 10 11 years they had me there in the Bronx and got married in City Hall you know and the registry office had dinner that and I went back to work the next day like that that's the story that I've grown up with so initially that was kind of the connection for me but then by the time we actually made it again kind of what you're saying how you can kind of grow into a part about a year or so had passed and in that time I moved to London and I was homesick I was really homesick and I really missed being Irish in Ireland and and I think to go in I don't know if you've ever had this before abou to go into a film where emotionally you're sort of in the same stage as your character it's terrifying there's nowhere to hide well that's what I was going to ask you I wanted to say in preparing for the role I imagine that actually that process must have been very difficult because I'm sure on the one hand I can imagine you doing almost nothing at all and yet at the same time having to simply think a lot about your mother your auntie your grandmother and also how your own relationship I'm sure has evolved with your mother because between the ages of 16 and 21 a lot shifts in that dynamic I think it does I think it can be one of the most complicated relationships sometimes I mean really for myself and my mum we've always been sort of like soul mates you know she's old we've always been incredibly close to each other and I've always depended on her and for so many things and so I think of anything and that's just gotten stronger like hey how did you how did you feel when you moved away at first was there somebody at home that you sort of was almost like your filter and you felt like that relationship just grew because all you felt like I just fell in love with my mom even more when I moved away John sound Irish I need to make this big know part of me is Irish Italian oh my my parents are so what were you dealing as an Irish dunce don't the Italians have dances yeah I know what I want to tell you too one may behave like Italians only what does that mean no no and too many of them I guess it could seem that way if he wasn't out listen I want everything out in the open I came to the Irish dance because I really like Irish girls and I was the only one who would dance with you I know it wasn't all to see you dance with loads of others I'm from quite a big family so I'm I'm one of four you how many you one of one are your wasnae so I'm I'm one of four and in and we grew up in a very small house actually a tiny interest house in reading the town I grew up in which is about an hour outside of London my father was a struggling actor always was a struggling actor and my mother my mum was at home and so actually when the time came to move away I was really ready ready to have another experience out of life and to be honest had to have space yeah shared a bedroom with my older sister she was wanting to be an actress I was wanting to be an actress so there were lots of dynamics at home which were whilst they were great there simply wasn't enough space for it all and I moved away to London and then very quickly actually started working I did have any creatures with Peter Jackson when I was only seven when you're a seventeen and that was the first film that you did right first audition for a film I'd ever even had oh so that was a it was a it was a huge turning point for me and I look back on that experience and it's not just that what a stroke of luck to be in something that was so accomplished and critically applauded in the way that it was but to have many boxes that I could tick in hindsight yeah you know working with someone like Peter Jackson who then became Peter Jackson of Hobbit Fame and Fran Walsh his co-writer who I know you have also worked with have having written a brilliant screenplay and to play those parts myself and and melanie lynskey we were cast in these wonderful roles playing two women who had really existed and the total immersion that was required of both of us to be able to pull that off is absolutely something that I have kept with me that sense of preparation commitment professionalism that you have to have and that level of focus just to get through any film shoot as a man did you did you feel like you brought that two jobs as well when you were playing Joanna who obviously was another real life character Rice was named Joanna you know quite a strong woman yeah playing Joanna Hoffman was um no it was it was an experience that I that I really wanted to have you know it's it's it's a wonderful thing to be 40 years old which I am now and all of that stuff that you sort of bother about in your 20s and early 30s just kind of evaporates and actually all you want really and truly is to work with lovely people and to be challenged as much as possible what the stuff that evaporates the stuff that evaporation is what do I look like what do people think right that just literally goes away and I also think that's to do with having children that's going to ask it just yeah it just disappeared yes and so playing Joanna Hoffman for me it wasn't just about the experience of playing a woman who had been so pivotal in the life of Steve Jobs but playing someone who had left Poland at the age of 14 come to America to look for a whole other life as of and actually ended up training as an archaeologist she was an archaeologist before she was hired by Steve Jobs his predecessor a man named Jeff Raskin and she suddenly was thrown in as head of marketing of the Macintosh she was like my dad I mean I did that at college for a couple of semesters okay and so and that was who she she then became and it became this huge part of her life but playing Joanna was something just so different to me unlike you in Brooklyn I I don't know anyone like this person it was now absolutely which is the trees to do it's such a pleasure to play someone like it really really was you can escape into us you can complete as you say yeah just like with heavenly creatures I mean I hope you weren't like that when you were sent definitely will didn't want to kill anyone come on I don't think I was a lesbian murderess now there's nothing No at that time but now maybe mids changed yeah but but no it was it was a huge luxury to play somebody who was absolutely nothing like me yeah and also who I could spend time with I mean I spent a lot of time with Joanna Hoffman not just hearing how she spoke which was so important for the part right but just getting a sense of what her relationship with Steve had really been about it is that's what people are fascinated in what was he like how did they function working with this man who was clearly a perfectionist of extreme proportion and she just she just wasn't fazed by him she came out like a frat boy he was just like the Steve Jobs who cares yeah she said you know I had been through a lot in my life and this was not a big deal yeah so just hearing that from her was tremendously useful and also I think in particular hearing about the level of affection between the two of them because there was genuine warmth genuine love and respect I guess he was able to be himself with her right because she was so kind of honest about yes exactly she wasn't a yes person now and I think that those people in Steve's life are from what I could tell were perhaps a little bit lacking and it was it was an extraordinary relationship founded on mutual respect I think and their friendship lasted throughout Steve's life and actually it was quite hard for Joanna to talk about him she found it really it was really emotional for her what does she thinks as a fan she likes it a lot that's God and she approved of the accent that go thank me yes yes that's the biggest thing playing someone who's apparently she think about Armenian moved back to Poland some of her family spoke Russian came to America as a 14 year old hello cut your head off nightmare you don't think you're having a bizarre overreaction to a 19 year old girl allowing her mother to list her own house she could have tried she supposed to stop her mother that particular mother from Liv she gave my blessing to sell the house and she did it despite I don't care if she put a pipe bomb in the water heater you're going to fix it now she's been acting weird for months she's turn them fix it fix it Steve take it easy fix it or I quit how about that I quit and you never see me again how about that I know you've you've obviously played a lot of English characters as well but accents is kind of something that we need to have in order to get jobs because it was it yes it was it strange playing Ailish and really not having a dialect coach to turn to having nobody just you yes well well this is the thing is that I went into it and they said straightaway I'm not using my own accent I've never used my own accent the only time that I came close to that was on grand Budapest and it was sort of a milder version because I've got like a Dublin accent ooh yeah and I come from all over the place as well I mean born in New York grew up in the countryside are my family are from Dublin so I'm from nowhere and everywhere you know and and she comes from Enniscorthy anyway a-listers she comes from the countryside it's very rural but that town and again another reason why it was so close to home to me because it was literally close to home the Enniscorthy was 20 minutes away from where I grew up in Carroll oh so suddenly we were shooting in this town with all of these people that I had you know cross pacts with her over the years I had heard you really yeah kids that were my age that you know I didn't really know that well but I'd see them at sports days or art competitions and all of a sudden em Thursday there's one shot of me availa in the dance hall at the very start and it's kind of I suppose it's it's too kind of em I get the point across that she is leaving this world that she's kind of slowly and stepping back from this world and so we did this one shot as a Steadicam shot on me and I'm kind of observing this world I'm not really a part of anymore and when we did us they didn't empty the dance hall they didn't get anyone out of there so I had my childhood staring at me while I was doing this close-up and it was amazing it was very overwhelming it really was a bit and said the scene when you're back from New York you're walking down the streets of that town you've got your glasses on you believe German I've done it I've done that since I was a kid you know but the accent was something that and I'm sure it is for you as well because you do accent so much and you're so good at them but that is one of the first things that I think about when I read a script the first thing that comes into my head before the visuals or anything is was this person gonna say sound like yeah how are they gonna speak and I honestly to be able to it's a lovely to be able to have to attach yourself to that to be able to end a thing isn't it it's like it's it's always so comforting because I think when it is when it is literally just you it's really scary it's hearing you might as well be walking onto set with no clothes on yeah that's a terrifying that's what it feels like and it's very it's very Intimus I think you know and I've always been so fascinated by I think because I was always surrounded by so many different accents and so many different sounds I realized that your accent in the best possible way you can really kind of define you you know with an iron axe and we're very forwards we're kind of apologetic everything's very melodic and up and down and it really mirrors who we are as people I think the English accent for example is kind of a little bit more reserved and a bit more level to the American accent is even more laid-back the Scottish accents kind of a bit more defensive you know to me in the Welsh is very soft and yeah you know and it's so and again with the with the Polish accent that you have in in jobs it's like it's such a huge part of our character that's what it was so fascinated by when I watched it yeah it is a it's a it's a very big part of who she is and the thing that was hard about it to be honest was that you know when you do a nice and European accent on screen you're only one step away from a fast show or a Saturday Night Live yeah because if you go too far in the wrong direction it's just an it can be it can all go toast go down and so so my thing with Joanna was you know because it can be quite staccato you know when you do an accent like that it can be really cut but Joanna you know she's been an America's yes he was a young girl and she's learned how the rhythm is and so those were the things that actually I think I really loved it how to latch on to rhythm almost more than Sam so that was something really new for me - yeah - almost realize you know the ripe old age of 40 now to suddenly go wow my god I've been sort of I've been ignoring that part of doing accents all of these years but actually the rhythm really is something that is almost more important than the specificity yet so I was extremely young when I realised that I wanted to be an actress but I I have absolutely no idea how old you were and did you have that moment of going yep I'll do that when I realized or when I actually started it's both because I know that's probably two separate things they are and I saw my dad as an actor as well like yours and he we had moved back to Ireland he was doing this short film and they needed a kid it was like a bizarre weird arrêtez film and they needed a kid to dress up as a clown of course and so he came to me and he asked me to do it and it wasn't really something that I was keen to do straightaway you know I wasn't um I wasn't really one of those kids that liked a lot of attention necessarily but by the same token my way of sort of surviving and being an only child was to talk to myself a lot and I couldn't entertain myself by disappearing into a different world so it was something that was always there but I didn't know what that was I didn't realize that that could translate into something like acting and and so I did us and I remember I was on the set and there was this guy and he kept talking and talking and talking and it was right before I take I must have only been about six or seven there it was maybe about seven and I just turned around to him he musta thought I was such a little bra I turned around him I was like Shh quiet on the set I was like Jesus okay and I kind of I felt like I adapted to being on a film set straightaway I didn't you know I did skill plays and things like that but it wasn't really necessarily a road I wanted to go down I didn't think about I was a kid you know I wanted to be like a waitress when I was a kid because I used to go into the living room and take my dad's order and then they feed and like some plastic burger or you know something like that and I think it was probably I started to work then and go up with a son and loved it but it was by the time I got to atonement which was the third felon they had done and again like what you were saying I think especially when you're a kids to play someone who's completely different to you and have that escapism that's almost M it's kind of similar to pretending you're a wizard or you know a tree or a princess or whatever it is to escape into this person Briony who was in every way the polar opposite to me was wonderful yeah and I suddenly realized that I don't think I could ever give up this feeling you know basically magic oh god I can't go back yeah it's an extrordinary I'm you Joe I don't even know if you realize it necessarily when you're a kid because you've got that uninhibited sense of M expression and there's no guilt attached to anything there's no second-guessing yourself you just do it and you just believe in the make-believe and there's something so wonderful about that and they think it was then we had Donna say and it actually got called out of the film but um it was with Cara and Brian he gets quite emotional and you know she's prepared this play and all of a sudden everything's kind of falling apart and so she rips up the poster in the hallway of the kind of gallery of the house and care is there and she doesn't know what's wrong with the kid you know because they didn't really I mean in that sort of society as well they didn't express anything at all or share anything so this kid was like on her own you know completely on her own and she only had her imagination to fall back on and she just gives up on it all and she rips the poster up and she looks at her and she's blaming her for all of this because she feels like it's her fault and she storms out and it was the first time I had to cry on screen properly and the release that I got from it was just amazing you know it was really amazing and it was at that point that and that I knew I couldn't give it up yes I what about you it's such a it's just it is the best feeling in the whole world so well I've had a similar moment to the one that you had of saying SH quiet on the set with actually my own daughter who she actually had a small part in a film that I did years ago but does a teeny to anything but it was enough to make her already have that feeling of like I think I need more of this yeah but yeah I was on set with her she came to visit something I had done when she was 8 or 9 and and I was I was having a snack you know in between takes and she went I mean I really really don't think that you should be eating on set I was like oh my god ok you're right I'm so she's already alright ok that's hard to get terrible guilt um but no for me I you know I remember I remember really wanting to be cast as Mary in my school Nativity when I was five yeah I remember Dreamer actively thinking it's either Mary or the angel Gabriel if they get get they give me the angel Gabriel part I'll still be ok about that but such an Erik for Mary but you know Mary you know angel Gabriel just does kind of one thing like Mary she goes on in an air will journey I mean like that I'm and clearly no one else can play the part with me so I do remember having that feeling of not determination but willing something to happen yeah inside I remember feeling that very strongly and then I had another moment probably when I was maybe 7 6 or 7 and this is really the truth I was in the bathroom and I could hear my mother in the kitchen and again I grew up in tiny small house in a tiny town so you know paper-thin walls etc could hear what the neighbors were doing right and I could hear my mom just rattling around the kitchen just really going about cooking supper and my sister came in from school and my brother was upstairs doing something and just general sort of hustle and bustle of life and I actively remember thinking if someone put a camera in the kitchen and was filming my mom doing all this stuff that would be exactly the same as if she was doing it in a film but she's not acting she's just being and that was a moment when I went ah okay so actually then there's no such thing as acting and it's being mm-hmm it's all about being yeah and that has really stayed with me yeah and when younger actors who are auditioning and excited about a possible future career will say to me have you got any advice it's always a difficult one because I don't really have any massive advice at all but my one thing I always is don't act be yeah because that give yourself up to us exactly right it is so much about it isn't acting it's being and it's playing as well like yeah what's saying before it really is about playing and playing with the other actors and that level of collaboration that and that belief that you need to have you need to have total and utter belief and that was something I realized I think every now and again when you know when you're dealing press for films you can kind of because you have to overanalyze everything and you're over explaining you know why we act and why we love acting and all that kind of stuff and you do sometimes end up actually learn and something about yourself and I remember years ago and when I was still a kid and I was doing press and people would say you know why do you love acting so much and it's such a big question we thought well why do we love my mom and dad I just do it's just an unconditional thing and it's just a feeling but I realized that the reason why something like acting and just filmmaking in general but especially acting so wonderful is because you know if you really hold on to the essence of us you're putting yourself back in that place that you are in when you were a kid yeah when you just completely surrendered to that feeling of being some someone else and being somewhere else and and there's such a freedom that comes with that that you don't want to give that up yeah it's true it's true and it's you know it's it's very important to remember that feeling of freedom yeah and remember to forget that the cameras there I mean I constantly remind myself remind myself to forget that the cameras there right and it's really only now that I think I'm getting better at it right Jen it's it's hard it's really hard to do that but you must must forget that it's there because then you're aware of it then you become self conscious then you think about how the camera is viewing you as a person right being really in those moment thanks for watching actors on actors click to the left to watch our conversation with Paul Dino and Joseph gordon-levitt click to the right to watch our full conversation with Elizabeth Banks and Carey Mulligan and don't forget to subscribe to varieties Channel

Channel: Variety

Views: 2,333,994

Rating: 4.9676757 out of 5

Keywords: Variety, Variety Studio, Saoirse Ronan, Kate Winslet, Brooklyn film, Steve Jobs movie, Actors on Actors

Id: NzyN5kcbusY

Length: 23min 31sec (1411 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 16 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

This was a great conversation between two great actresses. Saoirse Ronan is so lovely.

[u/Cera_is_Tops]

thanks for this

[u/ohmeohmy78]

This is a great pairing. Saoirse Ronan is so mature for her age, and seems cut from the same cloth as Kate Winslet. I can see her developing a career full of variety and challenging roles similar to Kate.

[u/spyson]

Wow I thought Saoirse was English, didn't know she was Irish with a heavy accent.