And, you know, I'd been working in films since I was about 10. RONAN: I think initially, when I read the script, I was still living at home. GROSS: Saoirse, I know that the story of "Brooklyn" has personal meaning for you. You've - you become something else, which is an exile, I suppose, for a while. And this book by Colm Toibin captures that sense of sort of displacement and Dublin-ness (ph) that you feel when you leave your country, which is that you're obviously not from the country that you are now calling home and - but equally, you're not from home anymore either. And because I had been over and back to London all the time, I didn't actually think I'd feel that. I did - I thought homesickness was - I don't know, I suppose I thought it was the preserve of unhappy immigrants who had to leave because of economic deprivation. And my relationship to Ireland changed fundamentally. And when I moved there, I was struck by how different the city seems when you actually move there, when you don't have a return ticket, as it were. I was offered a play at the National Theatre in London. GROSS: What personal meaning does this story have for you?ĬROWLEY: Well, when I was 27, I moved from Dublin to London to carry on directing plays. GROSS: John Crowley, Saoirse Ronan, welcome to FRESH AIR. Homesickness is like most sicknesses - it'll make you feel wretched, and it'll move on to somebody else. RONAN: (As Eilis) I wish that I could stop feeling that I want to be an Irish girl in Ireland.īROADBENT: (As Father Flood) All I can say is that it will pass. So when your sister wrote to me about you, I said the Church would try to help. It'll be three nights a week and I've paid your tuition for the first semester.īROADBENT: (As Father Flood) Why? Not thank you?īROADBENT: (As Father Flood) I was amazed that someone as clever as you couldn't find proper work at home. I've enrolled you in a night class for bookkeeping - Brooklyn College. JIM BROADBENT: (As Father Flood) I'd forgotten just how bad it feels to be away from home. She's talking with the priest, played by Jim Broadbent, who sees how homesick she is. Let's start with a short scene after Eilis has arrived in Brooklyn. Once there, she has to decide which life to choose - the familiarity and limitations of her hometown or the possibilities and unpredictability of America. Just as she's on the verge of starting a new life with him, she's called back to Ireland. But loneliness is unending until she meets a young Italian man at a dance. With the help of the Irish priest who sponsors her, she finds a room in a Brooklyn boarding house and a job in a department store. After a miserable voyage by ship, she arrives in New York, homesick and disoriented. "Brooklyn" is adapted from a Colm Toibin novel, set in the 1950s, about a young woman named Eilis from a small town in Ireland, who's encouraged by her older sister to cross the Atlantic to New York City where she might have a better future. Ronan was nominated for an Oscar at the age of 13 for her performance in the 2007 film "Atonement." She starred in the 2009 film "The Lovely Bones." In Wes Anderson's recent film, "The Grand Budapest Hotel," she played Agatha, the fearless and loyal girlfriend of Zero, the lobby boy. My guests are the director the new film, "Brooklyn," John Crowley, and the star, Saoirse Ronan.
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