[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Allison Stewart: This is all of it. I'm Allison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here. Thanks to all of you who came out last night for our first Get Lit conversation of the fall. Big thanks to Eric Larsen and Sons of Town Hall. You'll hear the radio edit on Friday. A reminder, this coming Thursday, schools are closed, so we're hosting our first Get Little conversation of the season. It's a book conversations for kids. And we have a very special guest, Questlove, musician, filmmaker, and a whole lot more.

He's written a book about fostering creativity and inspiration in kids, and he joins me this Thursday at noon to talk about it. Your kid could have the opportunity to ask Questlove a question about creativity. That's coming up at noon on Thursday. Your kid Questlove together on the radio. Speaking of Get Lit, on today's show we're going to get political with Paula Ramos, whose new book is called the Defectors. It's talking about Latinos drawn to the far right. We'll also talk about the political influencers of the manosphere. It's a network of male-directed media.

Then later we're going to hear some live music from our studios with singer-songwriter Lutalo. That is the plan. Let's get this started with a trip to the Isles of Scotland.

[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: You and Me]

In the new film The Outrun, Saoirse Ronan plays a young woman struggling with addiction who finds healing on the islands where she was raised. Rona has left the remote Orkney islands off the coast of Scotland for a life of excitement and partying in London. She falls in love with a great new guy, but soon her drinking escalates from club antics to a serious problem. After one drunken night that leads to a dangerous encounter, Rona decides to get sober. To do that, she heads back to the Orkneys, to her mom, who has embraced religion to help her cope with her daughter's addiction, and to her dad, a farmer who struggles with his own mental illness.

At first, Rona chafes at the isolation of the islands. There aren't many young people in the Orkneys and she's still fighting to stay sober. After a while, the sea, the birds, the seals, the lambs, and even the seaweed come to play a part in Rona's recovery. The Outrun is based on the memoir of the same name by Amy Liptrot, and it's in theaters on Friday, October 4th, and joining me now is Saoirse Ronan. Hi, Saoirse. How are you doing?

Saoirse Ronan: I'm good, how are you?

Allison Stewart: I'm good, first of all. [chuckles] I understand that you discovered this memoir and had the idea to play this part during the pandemic. How did you come across Amy Liptrot's book?

Saoirse Ronan: She had written the book about 10 years ago, and my husband, who is a very proud Scotsman had done a bit of research when he had gone to visit the Orkney Islands a few years before on writers who had come from the place. He had the book, but he hadn't read it. It was on our bookshelf while we were in lockdown, and of course, we were really making a dent in our library just as everyone else was. He read it in a couple of days and just totally fell in love with it and knew that it would be something that I would respond to the particular subject matter that's very personal to me.

He sent it to me and he said, "This is the next role I think you should play." I agreed, and we didn't know necessarily how we were going to do it or how it was going to be developed into a film, but we knew we had to try. That's how it all started.

Allison Stewart: Have you ever played a person who was living before?

Saoirse Ronan: No. Unless you count Lady Bird, who's based on Greta. I don't think I have, no.

Allison Stewart: What were your concerns about playing someone still living?

Saoirse Ronan: That they wouldn't like what I did. That they didn't feel it was an honest representation of them or their story. I think, to my relief, what we decided on pretty early into the process was that it was important that what became Rona, but was originally Amy in our film, that the film character version of Amy felt like an evolution of who she really was. We made the decision to change her name to Rona, to give Amy some healthy distance from this incredibly surreal experience of a movie being made out of her life, but also for me to feel like I had agency when it came to evolving the character and being able to bring some of myself to it.

We really didn't want it to feel like it was just an impersonation of Amy and instead was our interpretation of it. The character isn't necessarily Amy, but it's a combination of who I am and Amy, and Nora, our director.

Allison Stewart: Amy Liptrot wrote in the Guardian after watching you play Rona, "The way she spoke and moved channeled me. My nervous delivery and expressive hands. I was freaked out, but also immediately reassured by her talent. We had only met briefly online, but she seemed to have conjured my manner through reading my words, their rhythm and spirit embodied." When she says channeled you, that's a really interesting choice of words.

Saoirse Ronan: Yes. I think that's a really wonderful way of putting it, is that it was never going to be an impersonation because no one can do that, but the energy was there and the energy was aligned, I think, between the two of us. That's my job. Whether it's someone who's real or not, the whole part of the process is to take whatever information you can and allow that to percolate until it starts to form into a person. Whether I'm creating someone who's only existed in a book, or someone who's only existed in a script, or someone who is real and standing in front of me, it's really all about that energy and the dialogue between me and it, I suppose.

The fact that Amy feels that I captured that for her is obviously the biggest compliment and the biggest relief for me.

Allison Stewart: My guest is Saoirse Ronan, star of the new film The Outrun. It's about a young woman struggling with addiction, who moves back home to remote Scottish islands of her childhood. You were able to film in the Orkneys. I hope I'm saying that correctly. What is something about those islands that you really can't understand unless you've spent time there?

Saoirse Ronan: I think what no one can understand until they've been there is how special the people are. I've never met a group of people quite as incredible as the Orcadians. They're so unique in their culture and their identity. They're very influenced by Nordic culture, probably more so than Scottish culture, or as much as because for a long time, those islands all around the UK, they were handed back and forth between Denmark and Norway and England or an earlier version of it.

Its identity has solidified and they really know who they are as a people, I think, which was really gorgeous to be around. They were naturally very protective over their home. They'd never had anyone, apart from maybe one film production in like the '80s or the '90s make anything there, so they'd never been represented in a film before. I think this was a real leap of faith for them. I think once we got them on board and they knew that we wanted to show Orkney in the best light, they just couldn't have been more giving with their time and their energy, and their knowledge of the place.

I also think that what we wanted to show in The Outrun is that Orkney is incredibly rich in wildlife. It's very diverse and people will travel there in order to study seabirds in particular. There's puffin colonies and there's lots of seals and there's no trees, really, because it's too windy. It's similar to Iceland in that way. Everyone has three jobs. It's a very specific place. It's very individual, and I feel very grateful to have been exposed to it.

Allison Stewart: How long were you there?

Saoirse Ronan: We were there on and off for like a year because we did about three pre-shoots before we actually started principal photography. Myself and Kat Morgan or her makeup designer, and Grace, our costume designer, and a couple of other people, we'd go up there, we'd shoot for a few days. We did lambing season six months before we actually started the film. A lot of what we were doing in the shoot had to coincide with different calendar events that revolved around farming or wildlife. Whether it was nesting season or lambing season or we just needed a particular type of weather, we had to bend to that.

We were spending a lot of time there before we actually shot there, which was great for me because I felt like I really had a connection to the place.

Allison Stewart: It's interesting to hear you talk about the different seasons that you went through because this story really does follow Rona on this long journey of addiction. When you think about addiction, when you research the idea of addiction, what did you come to understand about Rona's journey?

Saoirse Ronan: I guess the reason why I wanted to do this is because I'd been on the receiving end of someone else's addiction and I'd only ever felt pain and confusion because of it. That came from the thinking that surely they can just quit and it's a choice, and if they loved me enough, they would choose me over it. Of course, that's not the situation at all. It becomes completely a form of self-medication. I think learning about the science behind alcoholism and addiction and the effect that it has on the brain helped me to understand it more fully and become less angry at it.

Allison Stewart: It's interesting because Rona tends to get angry when she drinks. She's mean when she drinks, and then she wakes up and she doesn't have any memory of what has been going on. Why do you think this harshness, the meanness comes out in her when she drinks?

Saoirse Ronan: That was a creative choice. I wanted to bring that out because that's what I had seen. I also found that it was quite powerful to see a young woman be quite ugly in her behavior and her treatment of the people close to her. I think it was really important that we-- because we also have moments where she's drunk and she's a real laugh or she's quite funny, and she's a bit of a performer. Then, as you say, there are other scenes where she's incredibly cruel and pointed in her venom towards someone.

That had been my experience, and so I wanted to show that. I wanted to show that in the shape of me and in the shape of a young woman. I just thought that would be incredibly powerful, and it's very true.

Allison Stewart: I spoke with a director of Another Round, it's another movie about alcoholism, and he spoke about how to direct actors to play drunk. What was that process like for you? What feedback did you get from your director?

Saoirse Ronan: Oh, gosh. Trying to remember now. [chuckles] I guess Nora, when I needed it, was always there to give me context. She was very good at giving weight to a situation, whether that meant that I played it heavy or I played it light, that there was some purpose behind it because otherwise, you can go into default mode, and that's where the caricature drunk comes out. I think she was incredibly mindful of what we needed to say with all of these scenes when I needed to just remain in it and let myself go. I don't remember particular notes that she would have given me when it came to the drunk acting in particular. B

It was a great working relationship between the two of us because it really did feel like we were collaborating on this and we were creating this character together. It's probably the first time that I've worked on something where you would walk onto set in order to shoot a scene, and nothing was really off the table. There were no rules that needed to be followed. We could take it wherever we wanted to. Also with the way Nora works as well, she'll shoot a lot and she'll shoot a lot of coverage. We would go from one end of the spectrum, performance-wise, to the other.

She was never really afraid of that. She wanted to see it all so that they could piece it together sometimes in the edit afterwards. I would go from big to small and cruel to playful just so that she felt like she could have this erratic nature if she needed to.

Allison Stewart: That must have been really tough for you, though, to have to go such a span of emotions.

Saoirse Ronan: Yeah, sometimes it was because I am the type of person who thrives on a goal being set and trying to accurately hit that. When you're going all around the houses, sometimes it can be knackering. I think that it probably made me fitter as an actor because because I was doing everything. Then also we started to figure out really quickly what degree felt right for a certain moment I think the more we shot, the more context we had.

Allison Stewart: My guest is Saoirse Ronan, star of the new film The Outrun. It's about a young woman struggling with addiction, who moves back home to remote Scottish islands of her childhood. In the beginning, Rona's lonely, looking for anybody to hang out with, but a few months later, she decides to go to this incredibly remote island to live by herself in this little house. Why do you think she goes from searching for company to embracing being alone?

Saoirse Ronan: Because not all the time, but I think you'll choose to disappear into a crowd in order to distract you from yourself. I think that it takes being in a certain frame of mind to not be afraid of the quiet and the emptiness that some people can view a rural part of a country as. Of course, I personally see it as very inspiring and invigorating, but if you're always trying to outrun yourself, that's the worst place for you to be, because there's nothing to distract you. I think that we show that relationship to the land and her rejection of it, and then ultimately her acceptance of it and almost enjoyment of it through the soundscapes, through the score.

Her relationship with sound is incredibly informative, I think, for the audience with this particular film. We watch her for the majority of the movie, just listen to very heavy drum and bass electronic grime music that is not reflective of the place that she's in. She's so unwilling to accept where she is physically that she's trying to put herself back in the past until she ultimately gives up. I think a lot of it is about her not giving up, but giving herself over to who she is now and where she's at. I think that takes a lot of clarity of mind and strength and character to be able to do that.

Allison Stewart: Let's talk a little bit about her parents. Her mom has turned to religion. Rona seems a little bit threatened by it. She's not there for it. Why do you think her mom's faith gets under her skin so?

Saoirse Ronan: We added context to it ourselves, myself, Stephen, Delane, and Saskia, and Nora. Based on what was in the book and what Amy had told me, I think religion for a long time felt to her like the thing that ripped the family apart, and of course, it wasn't. Her mother's faith is exactly what she needed in order to feel stability and support and to get those things that she wasn't receiving at home or from her partner. Essentially, the movie is about a bunch of people feeling lost and trying to feel less lost by using different tools.

Rona doesn't get that at the time. I think when she returns back to the Orkney Islands, the church has made its way into her family home in a way that's so suffocating for her and causes her even more resentment. We even added little moments in, like when you see her in an AA meeting, any mention of God, she doesn't join in. That is her villain in her life, I think, for a long time.

I think when we finally have that moment, which I don't think has given anything away, where her and her mother really reconnect and she speaks about how God has really saved her and the church has saved her and that community has saved her, it's the first time where Rona doesn't fight back and just accepts that that's who her mother is. It's quite a beautiful journey that they go on with one another, their acceptance of one another.

Allison Stewart: Rona's father also struggles with mental illness. He has depressive episodes, episodes of mania. How do you think Rona's relationship with her father complicates her own recovery?

Saoirse Ronan: Oh, I think she models herself on her father so much and is incredibly proud to be his daughter. I think they have a kinship that she doesn't share with her mother. They have a wildness about them and a madness that she thrives off of and is celebrated by her dad, almost, which has served her for a certain amount of time until she starts to move away from it and gains clarity and realizes that it's an unhealthy way for her to continue to live.

It's that really difficult moment in any person's life where you have moved on and you have progressed and you have grown, and this person, whether it's a parent or a friend or whatever, who you're very close to, hasn't. They're still stuck in that place and at a certain point, you need to decide to either stay there with them or move on without them. Even though we're following Rona, and this is very much her solo story, the insight that I think the story gives and the film gives to those relationships, those central relationships in any person's life, and the hard growing up and the challenges that come with that, the hard lessons of that really hit home, I think, for a lot of people.

Allison Stewart: I need to ask about your hair in the film. [chuckles]

Saoirse Ronan: Okay.

Allison Stewart: It switches from electric blue to pink to it's dyed on the tips. Sometimes it's bright orange. What do we know about Rona through the state of the color of her hair?

Saoirse Ronan: I think we all realized very quickly that her hair was her tool of ultimate self-expression. That's what Amy used as well. Amy rebelled against her environment, her mother belonging to the church. This conformity was not something that she was ever going to buy into. Her hair was the easiest and probably cheapest way to put a middle finger up to society. We have a photograph that was our main reference point for Rona's look of Amy when she was younger and she had this incredible turquoise mermaid hair almost, and it looked really punk and really ethereal at the same time.

Myself and Kat Morgan really loved that idea for Rona. It's also a very useful tool in showing the progression of time. We jump between three timelines throughout the film, so for the audience to feel like they're not completely lost, that was our way to keep it clear for people. Even when she's dressed in a boiler suit on a farm, the fact that she's still got this echo of her London life in her hair was really helpful for me. It was very powerful, I think, to see that image. These two worlds colliding.

Allison Stewart: Saoirse, what do you hope people who have struggled with addiction or have addiction in their lives take away from the film?

Saoirse Ronan: I want people who have struggled from addiction, so many of them know this already. I hope that the growth that they've experienced in their life through recovery is something that we can all learn from and progression, and I don't know, recovery from the addiction doesn't run in a simple, straight line. There's going to be points where you'll take three steps back and two steps forward, and that's okay. You're never a failure. I guess it's an incredibly lonely existence to be an addict.

For them to be able to watch this and feel like they're not alone and there's a community out there, whether they've chosen to become a part of that or not, it's there and it represents them, and this film is for them. For the people who have been on the receiving end of it I suppose, like me, what I've experienced from making this film is that to rationally figure this out is just not going to serve you. This isn't a choice. It's not because of you that your loved one has chosen this substance over you. You haven't done anything wrong, and all you can do is just be there for them when they're ready to get better, but you can't make them do it themselves, which is the really hard fact about addiction.

It's just I don't think we necessarily want to teach anyone anything. We just want people to come into the theater for two hours and feel like we're all connected through this story, which we really are.

Allison Stewart: My guest has been Saoirse Ronan. The new film is called The Outrun. It's in theaters this Friday, October 4th. Saoirse, it's really nice to speak with you.

Saoirse Ronan: Lovely to speak to you, too.

 

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