The only genres left on Saoirse Ronan’s to-do list: “Two types of films I’ve always wanted”
It beggars belief that, despite being only 31 years old, Saoirse Ronan has already been a fixture on the big screen for nearly two decades.
In that time, she’s accomplished a dizzying amount, including landing four Oscar nominations by the time she was 25.
In her career, Ronan has primarily starred in period dramas, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t dipped her toes into other genres. She’s tried her hand at fantasy adventure (City of Ember), action (Hanna), horror (Byzantium), a YA adaptation (The Host), comedy (See How They Run), and psychological thriller (Foe), making her one of the most well-rounded young actors in the game.
Having said that, Ronan still hasn’t made two kinds of movies that are on her wish-list for the future. Fascinatingly, they’re polar opposites in cinematic style, which speaks to how the acclaimed star is always trying to stretch herself as a performer and do new things.
“The one thing I really want to do is a musical. That’s the one thing. A musical and a silent film are the two types of films I’ve always wanted to do. A really loud film, and a very quiet film.”
Saoirse Ronan via Awards Daily
Ronan’s interest in making a silent film is interesting, and not as outside the realm of possibility as it may seem. After all, there have been several movies in recent years that have been predicated on characters being as quiet as possible, and some are almost wordless for long stretches. It’s been an especially popular style in the horror genre, with the A Quiet Place series being the most well-known example. However, other examples include The Silence, starring Stanley Tucci, and No One Will Save You, starring Kaitlyn Dever.
As for her desire to be in a musical, this wasn’t the first time Ronan expressed that hope, and it certainly wasn’t her last, either. “I’m not a singer, but I would love to be in a musical,” Ronan reiterated in 2024 to The Playlist. “I’d love to be in a film musical. I think that would be really fun.”
At that point, she’d even pondered who she’d love to write the musical – her Little Women and Lady Bird director, Greta Gerwig. When asked if Gerwig knew about Ronan’s grand plan, though, she smiled, “She will in time. That’s good. I’ll tell her when I’m ready.”
Throughout the years, even though she’s not made it into an out-and-out musical, Ronan has at least been able to utilise her love of singing in a few of her projects. She sang in Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch and, most recently, in the AppleTV+ World War II drama, Blitz. Interestingly, she recorded the songs she sings in the film ahead of time at Abbey Road Studios, but when it came time to shoot on the day in front of a large crowd, she and director Steve McQueen would decide whether she would actually sing live or not.
“I’ve done little bits here and there,” she revealed. “And listen, I’m not a professional singer, but I love to sing, and I get very nervous doing it in front of anyone. So, it was a big thing to have to perform in front of people.”
Perhaps, in the future, Ronan will finally fulfil her dream and star in a musical, as it sounds like she has been preparing for it her whole life. After all, she admitted she was a music lover long before she became interested in acting, and would still count it as her first love. “I grew up with music just being played all of the time,” she wistfully remembered, “and that’s sort of the art form that I am drawn to the most, more so even than film and TV.”
