Saoirse Ronan has started another promotional tour, but this one is for Byzantium where she plays a vampire alongside Gemma Arterton. Byzantium releases May 31st in the UK. Seeing as the last film that was released starring her was The Host, the film came up in interviews.
Scotsman.com interviewed her in Glasgow, Scotland. Below are the excerpts referring to The Host.
“The Host was also her first brush with a new kind of film fame. Until then, she’d been a poster child for the arthouse circuit, fascinating to watch, and Oscar-nominated for her preternatural performance in Atonement. In person it’s not her looks but her ease that is startling. It’s not a hot-housed precocity, but a natural, cheerful confidence that only falters when we talk about the possibility of another film, bringing potentially rabid, Twilight-level fame to her doorstep, especially since both The Host and the vampire saga are based on books by Stephenie Meyer.
“It’s a different kind of attention, a lot more intense and a younger audience. They’re more involved in social media. They tweet and use Facebook. It’s much more immediate, and when you see the reaction at premieres to Twilight, or the Harry Potter people, it looks a little extreme.” Then she adds: “But I don’t really think The Host is that kind of film.” It’s as though she is trying to reassure herself, but the film, released last month, makes her meaning clearer: Ronan always knew The Host, although popular with tweens, was not destined to do Twilight style-box office.“
Byzantium has reignited talk of boyfriends and romance, because her character is drawn to a frail teen, played by Caleb Landry Jones. However, as Ronan briskly points out, she’s been kissing boys for the camera since she was ten. “As long as you feel comfortable, it’s just another day,” she says, although Max Irons in The Host caused her some soul searching. “He smokes like five cigarettes between takes,” she rolls her eyes. “And he drinks coffee. My make-up artist looked after me though. If she saw him puffing away, she’d be after him with mints, saying ‘You need to have this before you go near my baby.’”
Irons is the son of Jeremy, and despite the fag breaks, they bonded over acting dynasties, and an Irish upbringing: his father owns a stately pile over there. “Max understood the Irish way. We could tease each other and he’d take it for what it was.” At the Twilight premiere they attended, someone kept calling him Jeremy “which I thought was really funny. So I’ve been calling him Jeremy since”.
The Independent also interviewed her. Excerpt below:
“Earlier this year she played the lead in The Host, an adaptation of the book by the Twilight author Stephenie Meyer. Her co-stars said they would love to be appear in any sequels, but Ronan is typically cautious of committing to a franchise. “Um, yeah, I’d like to in theory but it would depend on the script. It always depends on whether the script is good.”
Source: The Scotsman, The Independent
