Saoirse Ronan

Saoirse Una Ronan is an American-born Irish actress primarily known for her work in period dramas. Over the course of her career, she has received a Golden Globe Award and a Scottish BAFTA Award, alongside nominations for four Academy Awards and seven British Academy Film Awards. In 2016, she was featured on two of Forbes's 30 Under 30 lists, and in 2020, The New York Times ranked her tenth on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century.

Ronan was born on 12 April 1994 in the Bronx borough of New York City to Irish parents from Dublin. Her family moved back to Dublin when she was three years old, and she was raised in Ardattin, County Carlow, where she attended Ardattin National School before being tutored at home. She later lived in Howth, a seaside suburb of Dublin. Ronan holds both Irish and United States citizenship, identifying as both Irish and a New Yorker.

Ronan made her screen acting debut in 2003 on the Irish television medical drama series The Clinic. She made her feature film debut in the romantic comedy I Could Never Be Your Woman. Her breakthrough role came in 2007 when she starred as a precocious 13-year-old aspiring novelist in the period drama film Atonement. Her performance earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, making her the seventh youngest nominee in that category, as well as nominations for a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award.

Following her breakthrough, Ronan appeared in films such as Death Defying Acts (2007), City of Ember (2008), and Peter Jackson's supernatural drama The Lovely Bones (2009), which earned her a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role. In the following years, she played a Polish orphan in the war drama The Way Back (2010), a trained assassin in the action film Hanna (2011), and a vampire in the horror film Byzantium (2012). Her subsequent roles included starring in sci-fi and drama films such as The Host (2013), How I Live Now (2013), and Wes Anderson's ensemble comedy The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).

Ronan achieved further critical acclaim for her leading film performances. She portrayed an Irish immigrant in the drama Brooklyn (2015), earning nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama. She then starred as the titular high school senior in Greta Gerwig's coming-of-age film Lady Bird (2017), winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical alongside Academy Award, BAFTA, and SAG nominations. She reunited with Gerwig to portray Jo March in Little Women (2019), securing another Academy Award nomination.

In addition to her film work, Ronan has performed on stage, portraying Abigail Williams in the 2016 Broadway revival of The Crucible and Lady Macbeth in the 2021 West End revival of The Tragedy of Macbeth. Her other film projects include the biographical animated drama Loving Vincent (2017), On Chesil Beach (2017), The Seagull (2018), and Mary Queen of Scots (2018). She also produced and starred in the drama film The Outrun (2024).