Irish actress Saoirse Ronan has said that her 2015 movie Brooklyn ‘saved her’ and that she sees it as her ‘guardian angel’.
In the film Ronan played the lead role of Eilis Lacey – a young woman who left her home in Ireland in the 1950s to find a new life in America.
It is a scenario that resonates with many Irish people and Irish Americans throughout the generations.
Ronan says she is grateful for the role as it was the first time she has been given the chance to play a grown woman rather than a more juvenile character.
As a child she appeared in grown up films such as Atonement, but this is the first time she has appeared in a serious drama as an adult woman.
The 21-year-old star told the Irish Independent: “I mean it’s interesting because even when I was a kid, I never was involved in children’s films apart from maybe one or two.
“They were always quite grown up, and so when I got to the age of about 18 and 19, I was really ready to play someone older, and certainly by the time I reached 20.
“When Brooklyn came along, it was perfect, and it was like a b***dy guardian angel or something coming down and kind of going, ‘Okay, you’re ready now.’ I think just going through that experience, I felt quite changed afterwards, but I was very much ready to take that step.”
It was also the first time that Ronan had actually played an Irish character in a movie, with the majority of her roles to date being either English or American characters.
She has gained universal acclaim for her performance in Brooklyn and was named Best Actress at the New York Film Critic’s Centre.
The awards are seen as a strong indicator of how things might pan out at the Oscars. Hopefully 2016 will see Ronan receive at least a nomination in the Best Actress category.
To cap off a great year for the star, she was named as one of Forbes magazine’s Hollywood and Entertainment ‘30 under 30’.
Take a look at the video below.
Take a look at the trailer for Brooklyn.