In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Jack Lowden picked up one of the many books gathering dust on his shelves. A few years earlier, the Scottish actor had bought a copy of journalist Amy Liptrot’s 2016 memoir “The Outrun” while visiting the Orkney Islands, a chain of remote islands off the northern coast of Scotland, but had yet to delve into it. Lowden often seeks out books related to places he’s visited, and Liptrot’s brutally honest accounts of addiction and recovery bring Orkney to life in excruciating detail. After reading it in one go, he knew the story would make an incredible movie. He just knew the person who played Liptrot: four-time Oscar nominee and his current wife, Saoirse Ronan.
Ronan recalled, “Jake ran into the room with his copy of ‘The Outrun’ and said, ‘This is the next role you have to play.'” “I immediately read the book and was mesmerized by Amy’s story and her poetic writing style. It was amazing to imagine how we could translate this into a movie and what this character could do for me as an actor. Fascinating.”
The Irish actor is currently starring in The Outrun as Rhona, a fictionalised version of Liptrot, who spent her 20s drinking and taking drugs in London. Lorna lost her home and her boyfriend – the talented Paapa Essiedu – and returned to the Orkney farm where she grew up in a last ditch effort to quit drinking.
Ronan carries the film on her shoulders. She’s there for nearly every minute of the two-hour running time – the story is told mostly in flashbacks, occasionally interspersed with animated scenes of Ronan pondering Scottish folklore – and delivers what may be the most defining moment of her career and will surely earn her her fifth Oscar nomination. Lipprott spends much of the book alone with her thoughts in Orkney, listening to EDM music, and gazing out to sea in self-contemplation. While the film uses some voiceover to convey this interiority, Ronan often communicates only with a frown or a quivering lip.
“It’s all about respecting the chaos of this woman’s life, but also being grounded in empathy,” Ronan said. “Having seen a loved one affected by this particular disease, it was very important to me personally to give this woman’s story the space it is.”
That doesn’t mean the film was a walk in the park or even a success from the start. After reading “Get Out,” Ronan and Loudon approached producer Sarah Brocklehurst, who had acquired the rights to Liptrotter’s memoir. Loudon and Ronan decided to work on the film together, signed on as co-producers, and spent two and a half years developing the project.
“I never thought about producing anything until now, but for a long time I’ve wanted to do something more than just act,” Ronan said. “I no longer see myself as a producer, but as someone who wants to be involved in the early stages of a project so I can help shape it creatively.”
The team hired German filmmaker Nora Feinscheidt to direct the film and write the screenplay with Liptrot. It was important to all parties that they change the main character’s name from the beginning, giving Liptrot some distance from the story and giving Ronan the creative freedom to make it her own. Feinscheidt wrote the script with a loose structure and minimal dialogue, instead giving brief descriptions of what each scene contained.
“At first I was really nervous because I’d never worked like that before,” Ronan said. “I’m well aware that when filmmakers decide to let actors improvise large portions of the script, things can get messy. But it was the most liberating creative experience of my life.”
Loudon, however, never had any doubts about his former partner. (He and Ronan met while filming 2018’s “Mary Queen of Scots.”) “She’s not a very rare actress,” he told Eskom. “She’s an actress whose work demands a lot from everyone involved, and ‘The Outrun’ demands a lot from her.”
Finschitt plans to shoot on location in London and the Orkney Islands in late 2022, so he assembled a small German crew to shoot the film on a low budget. The production also did not have enough money to buy wigs, so hairstylist and makeup artist Kate Morgan used clay to dye Ronan’s hair different colors to help differentiate the story’s timeline. Ronan often begins her filming day with turquoise blue hair and ends with burnt orange hair, reminiscent of her character in “Lady Bird.”
The main challenge for Ronan was acting out the flashback scenes where Ronan was in various states of wakefulness. Although no one wanted the tone of the film to veer toward melodrama, it was important to convey the reality of Lorna’s deteriorating condition. To help her physically accomplish these moments, Ronan called on local choreographer Sir Wayne McGregor of the Royal Ballet.
“I wanted to make sure that every time we see Ronan drunk, we’re not saying the same thing over and over again,” Ronan said. “At some point, it’s important to look at the character and see that she’s having a lot of fun – she’s dancing and laughing and it seems like you could enjoy hanging out with her at night.” But watching her reach her extremes really makes you feel the reality of her illness.
Ronan is the first to admit that in a changing cinematic landscape, an introspective drama about overcoming drug addiction isn’t the most promising commercially. She met with several studios that were interested in “The Outrun” but weren’t guaranteeing a theatrical release because she and Loden knew the film wouldn’t do well on streaming services. The film is an intimate portrait of a woman battling her inner demons, but it’s also a love letter to the brutal beauty of Orkney, and it was important to the filmmakers to show it on the big screen.
“I’m a purist when it comes to this stuff,” Ronan said. “I’ve only made movies, and I really love sitting in a room full of strangers and sharing an emotional experience.”
Sony Pictures Classics has come on board to distribute the film in North America, following “The OutRun”’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2024. (StudioCanal is overseeing its international distribution.) “OutRun” arrives just weeks before Ronan’s other project, “Blitz,” a stunning World War II epic directed by Steve McQueen. Ronan’s experience filming “Blitz” was very different from the beginning than the constraints of making an indie film like “The OutRun,” but both films represented transformative roles for the actor, who audiences have grown to love seeing him on screen over the past two decades.
“There’s definitely a change,” Ronan said of what she looks for in projects now. “It’s not like when I was a kid, where everything was pure instinct — there’s a lot more skill and craft involved now.”
Ronan made her film debut in 2007 with the one-two punch “I Could Never Be Your Girl” (an overlooked crime rom-com in which she played Michelle Pfeiffer’s daughter) and “Atonement,” winning her a Best Actor award in 2013. In the years since, Ronan has built a resume full of character-driven hits, bouncing back and forth between independent and studio productions. In an era where every rising star eventually finds their way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ronan has never attached herself to a major Hollywood franchise. Her highest-grossing films to date have been with directors like Greta Gerwig (“Little Women”) and Wes Anderson (“The Grand Budapest Hotel”).
“I’ve never been particularly aware of what I’m attracted to, but I feel like I’m constantly evolving with the material,” she says. “It’s like you really like certain types of literature or music at different stages of your life. It all reflects where I am personally or what I’m craving creatively.
Ronan turned 30 earlier this year and is excited to start a new era. After playing young people for years, she finally got a role closer to her actual age in The Outrun, and in Blitz, she played a mother for the first time and even sang on screen. As far as the next step goes, Ronan is open to the possibilities. She’ll never give up independent movies, but that doesn’t mean she’d be opposed to working in a big blockbuster movie if the right one comes along.
“What I’m focused on right now is the scale of the film I’m making,” Ronan said. “I’ve made a lot of independent films, but I’d like to make some big commercial films because that’s a model I haven’t really explored in my career.”
Loden thinks the sky is the limit for Ronan. “I’ve performed with her and now I’ve produced with her, and there’s never been a moment when I felt like she was lost or didn’t know what she needed to do,” he said. “She’s like a Swiss army knife.”
The pair would love to produce together again, but they need some personal connection to the material. It’s important for them to not just put something on the slate, but to actually be involved in the development process. Lowden is particularly keen to bring more productions back to her native Scotland and Ronan’s native Ireland, while Ronan hopes to learn from her friend Gerwig and try directing herself one day.
“I’ve been working as an actress for almost 20 years, and while I love this profession – and I still love this profession – my relationship with it has changed over time,” she said. “I’ve gained so much experience from the hundreds of talented people I’ve worked with that I want to take on more responsibility.”
Ronan compares her situation to that of a football player who serves on the field and also continues to coach. Although Ronan assures me she won’t be quitting acting anytime soon, she still has a desire to lead the next generation of actors. She has certainly worked with enough directors to know how she wants to manage a set.
“It’s difficult when you’re working with a director who isn’t honest about his intentions. I’ve found that as a child actor and working with other child actors, specificity is very important to us,” he said. “I feel like I thrive when I know what the boundaries are and I can work within them.”
But she didn’t want to get too far ahead of herself. She still has two blockbuster films to finish this fall and is likely to be a double Oscar nominee next year. Ronan and Loudon live relatively low-key lives in London, so when she does choose to commit to something, she prefers to go all out.
“Both of these movies — especially ‘Get Out’ — came from within me,” he said. “I like to embody the person and not over-rationalize everything, which is a very liberating experience.”
