Saoirse Ronan knows you think that Mary Stuart, the ruler of Scotland from 1542 to 1567, was a shrill, manic and potentially disturbed Queen. At least, that’s what most people think based on her depictions in popular media over the past few decades. The three-time Oscar nominee hopes to change that with her performance as the Celtic monarch in Josie Rourke’s “Mary Queen of Scots,” which expands nationwide this weekend.
The Focus Features release finds the 24-year-old Irish native plays Queen Mary during the early part of her reign when she’s just returned to Scotland after the death of her first husband, King Francis II of France. Director Josie Rourke and screenwriter Beau Willimon’s version of events find Mary open to progressive ideas in 1569 and battling insurgents in Scotland’s royal court. And, there is the growing conflict with Queen Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie) who is constantly being warned of Mary’s potential to lay claim to her crown as well. It tells a good deal of Mary’s story from a different perspective while having to leave out much of her lengthy history (and all those times she actually did try and overthrow Elizabeth).
Ronan, who recently wrapped Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” and will soon star in Francis Lee’s “Ammonite,” jumped on the phone earlier this week to talk about her passion for another take at Mary, just what she thought the Queen was thinking when she met her legendary end, working with Robbie and just whether or not better roles are coming her way these days or not.
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Saoirse Ronan: Hi, Greg!
The Playlist: Hey, Saoirse, how ya doin’?
I’m good. How are you?
Doing very well. Congratulations on the movie.
Oh, thank you.
I know you’ve already been asked this question 350 times, but what made you wanna do this one?
It was a few things. I had worked with Tim [Bevan] and Eric [Fellner] from Working Title Films before and they were kind enough to bring “Mary” to me when I was about 18. And it just kinda felt like gold cause at that point, which a lot of female actresses tend to find themselves in around 18 where there just aren’t really many interesting roles out there. And, so, to get the opportunity to play a Celtic queen was just incredible and I loved the idea of playing someone Scottish. I’ve always kind felt affinity with Scotland since I was a kid. And, yeah, I just knew it was gonna afford me a chance to play a bit of everything, really, because here you’re following, I mean, initially, we were gonna follow someone’s whole entire life. And even with this, we follow her for about six or seven years.
When you jumped on the project had you gotten the script? Where you aware of the direction it was going?
We had different versions of the script over the years so it changed quite a bit, depending on who was on board at the time and what age I was asked [to play]. I think just in the last couple of years, allowing that the landscape has sort of changed a bit in film and people wanna make movies or certainly feel the need to make movies about female-driven stories. So, if had been a few years ago, it might have more focused on just her getting married at that being it. Whereas, thankfully, we made it at a time where you could watch someone navigate their way through a world of men and that is interesting in itself.
I wanted to ask about that because even some of the most recent depictions of Mary play her as this sort of shrill, maybe mentally deranged or disturbed to an extent person
Yeah.
What did you discover about her that showed a different side of her that people aren’t expecting?
Well, history shows you that. And I think when it’s condensed and…there have been a few biographies written about her that are just really unfair towards her and paint her out as, as you say, a very sort of shrill, witchy, leading with her heart instead of her head, ruler. Which wasn’t really true, but she was passionate. And she felt deeply, but she knew how to rule and politically, she learned on the job, and she learned it pretty quickly. And John Guy‘s book [“Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart”], that the film is based on, gave me all of that information [I needed]. And it wasn’t biased and it wasn’t unfair to her either. And he really painted a picture of the time that she lived in and where she had come from and just the type of ruler she was. And even more so than that, just the type of person she was. And that, really, as a politician she should be taken seriously because she made a lot of changes. So once I started to read that, I just felt like she’s just been so hardened by [what happened to her]. And it was so unjust, the way she’s been painted over history and it was time to re-write that, you know?
Obviously, we know what happens to her and the film doesn’t hide her fate. You knew that scene was coming, though. What are you thinking in your head when you’re bowing down about to get the chop. What did you thinking she was thinking at that moment?
Oh, at the very end? She’s thinking, “My kid’s gonna take over. I’ve given them everything I can.” In a way, it’s her ultimate act as ruler, to give her body up and her life up for the future of her son, as King. So, yeah, she was under house arrest for 26 years and, you know, there was no other way out, really. She used it as an opportunity to basically, pull a publicity stunt. Even though she was a Catholic queen and was a practicing Catholic, she sort of painted herself out to be a real Catholic character, [a martyr]. And she just made sure that she really made a statement on the way out.
There’s a scene between you and Margot, as Queen Elizabeth, but we don’t know if they ever actually met. History doesn’t say they did. That being said, can you talk about how you handled that scene? Did you rehearse beforehand?
We both decided that we didn’t wanna see each other before our scene and we didn’t wanna see each other throughout rehearsals at all. So she went off and did her rehearsals for the English court and I did it with the Scottish court and we stayed apart for all of that period. And then she shot her three weeks and we came together on her last day and it was my first day and we shot the first half of the scene, first, without seeing each other and stayed apart throughout lunch and all of that. And then they had two cameras simultaneously shoot our close-ups as they pulled back that shade and I see her for the first time. It was incredible and there was an amazing amount of adrenaline that bulged from our reaction being recorded in real time for the film that you’re doing. And having this journey take off for me and it’s ending for her, so it was a really emotional scene.
Was it hard to shoot that as one of the first things you did?
I thought it would be but once I got into it, it was actually brilliant to start with that because it sums up everything that she is. You see everything that Mary is in that scene. How forgiving she is and how strong she is and how much of a fighter she is and how civil she can be to the people around her in order to work together. But also how strong and stubborn she can be. So her essence is in that scene so it was actually a really nice way to start.
Earlier you mentioned how you’ve been with this project for a while and how hard it was at the age to find interesting roles. You’ve had such luck over the past couple of years, with this finally coming out, “Lady Bird” and next year’s “Little Women,” which I know you’ve just shot. But you’ve also been in the industry for over 10 years. From your perspective, do you think it’s getting better? Do you think there are better roles for women than what you’ve seen in the past or do you feel like it’s always gonna be a fight to find good roles?
I do. Yeah, I do. I think there’s a lot of struggle just for any actor just to get any job but it’s doubly hard, definitely, when you’re a girl. I’m 24 now. I only have the experience from [being] 10 to 24 and not when I’m older. Whereas, it’s notoriously difficult to find roles that are written for women past 30, basically. I would hope that that’s changing because of the likes of Great Gerwig and Francis Lee and people like that. But, yeah, I think it’s getting there. It’s still a struggle. And I don’t think it will be forever because I think people are so tenacious about it now and have such motivation and are so up for the fight that I think eventually it will sort of balance out. But you’re undoing a whole 100 years of film and hundreds and hundreds of years of sexism so it’s gonna take time because the whole structure of it has sort of been done in Hollywood by powerful boys.
Yeah, you’re right.
It just needs to balance out. And it’s also certainly not a case where men need to be kicked out of the picture either, at all. It just needs to be a place for everyone to be able to work, you know?
“Mary Queen of Scots” opens nationwide on Friday.
