The one thing Saoirse Ronan hated about being a child actor: “I found it to be hell on earth”
There has always been fierce debate around child stars in Hollywood, dating back to the days of Shirley Temple appearing in Baby Burlesks – sexualised and objectified from a terrifyingly young age. Throughout the history of cinema, children have consistently been placed in situations they simply weren’t equipped to deal with, struggling to balance normal coming-of-age issues while existing under the harsh spotlight of fame.
Look at Brooke Shields, who was cast to play a child prostitute in Pretty Baby when she was 11 years old, which included nude scenes. The actor was tragically exploited, and a distinctive lack of safeguarding left her vulnerable and exposed to the world before she even had a grasp on it for herself. Natalie Portman felt similarly uncomfortable in the limelight after appearing in Leon, telling The Independent, “Being sexualised as a child, I think, took away from my own sexuality because it made me afraid.”
Even when child stars manage to avoid sexualisation and abuse, the experience of navigating such a corrupt and fast-paced industry certainly comes with other challenges. When you’re young, how are you meant to star in intense films, often with adult themes, and not be affected?
Saoirse Ronan found her breakthrough role playing Briony in Atonement when she was just 12-years-old, which saw her character wrongly accusing her sister’s lover, Robbie, of being a rapist, driving the couple apart and leading to tragedy. At such a young age, it wasn’t easy to fully wrap her head around the dramatic themes of the film, but her performance was highly impressive, even earning her an Oscar nomination.
The actor has since admitted that she found being a child star difficult, even if she was showered in praise for her role in Atonement. Alongside the Joe Wright-directed film, when she was a teenager, she appeared in I Could Never Be Your Woman with Michelle Pfeiffer, the sci-fi movie City of Ember, and Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones. In the latter, she played a young girl who is murdered by a man, subsequently watching her family from the afterlife; clearly, Ronan was drawn to rather challenging parts from a young age.
However, even without the challenges of tough roles, Ronan found the experience of balancing school work and acting difficult, finding that she wasn’t able to simply be a kid. Spending so much time on a set with adults and being asked to do demanding takes took its toll on her, and in a 2024 interview on The Graham Norton Show, she said, “I don’t think actors who start out as adults know what is expected of a kid.”
She added, “They have to do three hours of tutoring a day and they are dragged away from the amazing time they are having on set to do schooling, which is awful.” Thus, now that she is in her 30s, she has realised the importance of supporting the child stars she works with so that they have as good a time as possible. When filming Blitz, which starred Elliott Heffernan in his debut film role, Ronan ensured that he was enjoying the process of shooting the movie.
“I personally found it to be hell on earth, so I wanted him to feel he had another kid on set,” she concluded.
