Photograph by Ryan Pfluger
While filming The OutrunSaoirse Ronan gave birth to lambs, swam with seals and interacted with her fair share of flora and fauna.
Rona, a four-time Oscar nominee, plays a young woman who leaves London and returns to her small hometown on Scotland’s Orkney Islands as she escapes the small, windswept islands while experiencing all the harsh realities and natural wonders. Scotland’s coastline has to offer.
The film, directed by German helmer Nora Fingscheid (System Crasher) and based on the Amy Liptrot novel of the same name, will be screened after its premiere at Sundance in Berlin, where it received rave reviews (THRof David Rooney observed that Ronan “wears himself out physically and emotionally”). Ahead of the film’s Berlin bow, Ronan spoke THR She talks about why she connected with Liptrot’s book, the benefits of making the project, and how the unique culture of the Orkney Islands informed the film.
How did you discover Amy Liptrot’s book?
It was Jack Lowden, who also produced, who introduced him to me. He is a very proud Scot and spent some time in the Orkney Islands. Whenever he goes to a new place, he tries to read a book by an author from that place if possible. So, he had already fallen in love The Outrun, and while we were in lockdown — going through books left, right and center because we had all the time in the world — he recommended I read it. “This is the next role you should play,” he said. So, of course, typical actor, I was freaking out a bit. I think almost everyone has had their own relationship with addiction, whether it’s something you’ve gone through yourself or you’ve seen a loved one go through. It is a disease that has affected all of us in one way or another and I am no different. It is an illness that has shaped my life so dramatically, I have not lived through it myself but have been on the receiving end of what can come with it. I always wanted to understand it more, because it was something that caused so much pain. I finally felt in a place where I wanted to dive into the other side of it, trying to understand it better.
When it comes to onscreen addiction stories, very few follow young women. Was that something you were considering when developing the project?
It was one of the first things we picked up. This was not just to follow a young woman who is in recovery, but to follow someone suffering from alcoholism where the torture, the heartbreak, the spiraling is not just driven by her relationship with her man or her partner. You could also take the addiction element out of it, and it would still be this very relatable story about a period of a woman’s life when she’s moving into her 30s and you have to examine your life in a way that you never really have. This element of prior addiction enhances the journey that we are already on as women at that point in our lives.
Did the book being so internal help you craft your performance?
We knew that the central performance would really be the beating heart of the film, because even in the book, you’re following this one guy so much. Nora, when she read the book, really captured this elusive element of Amy’s psyche. She’s really fascinated by specific topics and goes into such great detail about the current in the ocean or the DNA of jellyfish or how ethanol affects the brain. Nora really wanted to incorporate that into our overall story in the film. From a producers point of view, we really wanted to capture the energy of Orkney. It is far from the mainland, and it seems very much like it belongs only to him. If you’re Orcadian, you say you’re Orcadian, you don’t say you’re Scottish. We really fell in love with the mentality of the people living there, the very can-do, get-on-with-it attitude, which is really admirable to be around. But to combine that kind of mindset with mental illness and the emotional upheaval that someone can go through, Jack and I always thought it would be really interesting.
You filmed on location on the islands, correct?
We started in London, which was so intense because it was like the highest high and the lowest low that the character felt. Then we went to mainland Orkney, which was about focusing on relationships with parents and reintegration into the community. We end up in Papa Vestre, which is the island she ends up on. We were slowly isolating ourselves more and more. That was the perk of being a producer at work: I was like, “Listen, I want to shoot this way.” I have been working with myself for over 20 years. It’s a tool — you know what you need to do when it comes to your work.
Courtesy of Studio Canal
How do you think living on Orkney influenced the film?
By the time we reached Papa Vestre, there was a real satisfaction. This was at the end of COVID – we had all come out of multiple lockdowns – so to reconnect with a small community, to be around friendly faces, we were grateful. All of them inspired the performance very organically. We shot in (Amy’s) house, and we shot in her farm. We met his father, who still lives on the farm. When Stephen (Dylan) and I were shooting the scenes between Amy and her dad, her dad was around, so it was quite a surreal experience. I think it was very helpful for the cast to remind us that it’s a real story and it’s about real people.
I did two other films (during the pandemic). One was in Australia, and when we were there we were still in a lot of lockdown. That film was Paul Mescale and I did (Garth Davis’ 2023 sci-fi drama the enemy), and indeed we both got COVID one after the other. We were in a very barren, dry desert, and it was essentially just the two of us. Interesting thing about doing the enemy To do first and then The Outrun that is the enemy There are 100 years, 150 years in the future when everything living, any organic material, dies. So, I went from being in that environment, to then going into this movie where I was fighting people to the ground. It went from no life to very much life in the span of a few months.
Was there a lot of infrastructure on the island?
It was the first movie we shot in Orkney. Normally, it’s not a place that people even know about, so all that infrastructure was being brought to the island. In a small community, a lot of effort goes into keeping everyone really engaged and busy with something to do. So, there were many amateur actors, especially many young people who were really into drama. I’ve shot in small towns before, where there’s always that one person who’s a little difficult or makes your shoot day really difficult. We haven’t experienced an ounce of it. I hope it inspires them to keep doing more because there’s just romanticism. It is a real kind of fusion of Celtic and Nordic culture. It’s Viking country, essentially.
