'Brooklyn' Director On Saoirse Ronan Oscar Buzz: 'She Deserves Every Award She Can Get'

According to prognosticators, including no less an authority than The New York Times, Saoirse Ronan, at the age of just 22, could be in line to earn her second Academy Award nomination for the indie drama Brooklyn. The actress, whose credits include Atonement, Hanna, and The Grand Budapest Hotel, has been receiving accolades her new role as a 1950s Irish immigrant struggling to adjust to life in New York. Based on the acclaimed novel of the same name, the script was adapted by novelist Nick Hornby and stars other Irish actors, including Domhnall Gleeson.

Yahoo Movies recently spoke with director John Crowley, also Irish, who shared why his lead actress was — almost eerily — perfect for the part. Get a behind-the-scenes look at the film in the exclusive featurette above and then read on for Crowley’s insights:

There’s been a swell of Oscar buzz around Saoirse Ronan’s performance. How are you feeling about that?
To be honest the biggest kick is the reaction from audiences, which is astonishing. The fact that it’s moving audiences is beyond our wildest hopes. It’s really special. It’s incredible that people are muttering the O-word, and it’s terrifying because it could stop as quickly as it’s begun. None of that is what motivated why we made the film but it’s very nice. It feels like the film has pushed through to a level of conversation in the culture. Personally, I think Saoirse deserves every award she can get for this role because I think it’s an astonishing performance. Anything extra that comes at this point is good by me.

Like Ronan, you’re Irish — and so is much of the cast who play Irish people. What do you bring to depicting that culture that a non-Irish director might have missed?
It’s so hard to say because I think anyone can direct anything. When making a film about your own culture, the only rule is you mustn’t mess it up. I find this story to be profoundly important — not just for Ireland but for articulating the relationship of Ireland to America. To get it really right in its specifics, my hope is it takes on a degree of universality, that people who have nothing to do with Ireland would find something similar in the story. Maybe their parents or grandparents moved from another country. In terms of Irish-ness, I tried to avoid clichés at every turn in order for our viewer to watch the story unfold in a natural, unforced fashion. Irish culture is one which can calcify into cliché very quickly. I’m sensitive to that!

Was Ronan considered for the part before the script was written or after?
I had read the novel by Colm Tóibín right after it came out. I heard there was a film in the works, but with another director so I put it out of my mind. I made another film and did some plays and got a phone call from one of the producers and they asked me if I’d like to read Nick Hornby’s screenplay. I didn’t need to think twice. After I read it and became attached to it, the next move was Saoirse.

Were other actresses considered?
There were other actors in the prehistory before me. But for me it was very simple, straight forward, and clear: Saoirse.

The film shows New York through the lens of a woman protagonist, and an immigrant at that. Were there touches Saoirse brought that you hadn’t yet considered, something you added to the film while going?
The big thing that Saoirse brought that no one could have spotted was that she went through something very similar to [her character] Eilis. She moved away from home to a flat in London and had a bit of life happen to her. She was struck by how homesick she was and confused [about it]. She could fly home or talk to her mom on the phone at any point. She isn’t a poor immigrant [like Eilis]. She’s a sophisticated, very successful, young film actress. It’s partly because the story offers something universal about the condition of exile, about leaving your home country. Living in a new country, your relationship to your homeland changes fundamentally. You don’t really feel you’re from either place. And she was in that exact spot when we started filming. It was very emotional for her and it felt very raw. That is the major thing she brought with her: the emotional ability, the depth of Eilis’s pain. It was incredible to watch unfold. The other thing that changed while we shot it was just how amazing it is to see her watch something off camera. I would let shots run long because it was so bloody interesting.

Were you immediately aware that Saoirse was having that deep connection to her character?
Yes. In the two weeks we were due to start shooting we had lunch and discussed it. She wanted to know — because I had moved to London 17 years earlier and experienced the exact same thing. I had the exact same confusion as to why I should feel homesick because I had wanted to live in London since I was about 10 years old… For all the great things that may be happening to you, something fundamental has happened. It’s like a split has happened, a doubleness. She wanted to know if gets easier. I said, “Yeah, of course it does. It takes a bit of time. You have to meet people and settle down, but it’s fine. It’s life.” It’s a very particular experience.

Was everyone involved a fan of the book?
Yes. And Nick Hornby couldn’t have written the screenplay he wrote without loving the book. Everybody did it because of love for the material. It was carefully and lovingly crafted. Everybody was bound together for the love of that book.

What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
Because of budgetary reasons, we only had two days to film in New York, with a lot of Brooklyn interiors shot in Montreal. Trying to make something on that budget — a period film shot out of sequence — there was a certain amount of pressure that came down to every shooting day. Every day felt like a huge day. On a normal film you would have one or two a week, but huge days were every single day. That was a reality. That was tough and it was very tough on Saoirse — especially since the role was so emotional. I think it cost her quite a lot.

Can you describe an especially challenging day Saoirse experienced?
The toughest scene for her was when she was in the restaurant with Tony (Emory Cohen) — I don’t want to spoil it — but it was after the big event middle of film when she thinks she may need to go home. I think she had to go to a very dark place and sit there while we were trying to shoot. You could feel the heaviness she had to hold onto to get the truth of that scene. It was quite present in her.