Saoirse Ronan says shooting wartime film amid global conflict felt ‘poignant’

By Ellie Iorizzo and Rachael Davis, PA

Irish actress Saoirse Ronan said shooting her new Second World War film gave her a “new perspective on everything that’s going on around us right now”, amid a backdrop of world conflict.

Blitz, directed by Steve McQueen, launched the BFI London Film Festival on Wednesday and Ronan posed on the red carpet alongside co-stars Stephen Graham, Paul Weller and Benjamin Clementine at the Royal Festival Hall.

Ronan stars as East End mum Rita, who decides to send her nine-year-old son George (Elliott Heffernan) to the countryside from war-torn London, but grows frustrated when she is told her son has not arrived at his destination.

Asked how she tapped into the despair and grief of a mother of a missing child, Little Women star Ronan told the PA news agency: “I could only pull from my own life experience of just loving something so much and imagining that being taken away.

“I think at its core that’s the only way that I could actually relate to it. But certainly, it gave me a new perspective on everything that’s going on around us right now.”

The film was shot in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ronan added: “When I would leave set, I would turn the radio on, or I’d put the TV on and I saw it on my screen, it made it all too real and the fact that we were getting the chance to actually give that sort of struggle, but also that beautiful relationship time in a movie like this – it felt very poignant.”

Steve McQueen whose film 12 Years A Slave won Oscars for writing and best picture a decade ago, was knighted for services to art and film by the Princess Royal at Windsor Castle in 2022.

On releasing the film amid a backdrop of escalating global violence, he told PA: “I think it is a film that one could release unfortunately at any time, but particularly now, things are pretty heightened.

“I’m just grateful, in a way, I feel as an artist quite useful, because seeing war through kids’ eyes, a child’s eyes, is kind of sobering.”

He said Heffernan “merged” seamlessly into the character of George.

“The maturity and comprisal was pretty astounding,” Sir Steve said of the child star.

He added of the film: “I wanted it to be steeped in historical accuracy, but also tell us about who we are as humans, and what we always refer back to, which is just love.

“We always go back, it’s timeless.”