Saoirse Ronan reveals huge role she lost out on that still haunts her

Saoirse Ronan has admitted there’s one unsuccessful audition she still thinks about decades later.

The Outrun star, 30, who appeared in Atonement alongside Keira Knightly and James McAvoy when she was 12 and Stanley Tucci and Mark Wahlberg in Lovely Bones when she was 14, revealed there was one huge franchise she desperately wanted to star in at the start of her career.

Ronan said “half of Ireland” had arrived to read for the role, which ultimately went to the My Name Is Emily star Evanna Lynch.

During an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Ronan said: “There’s things that you’ll pass on and then they come out, and you think, ‘Oh God, that was a misstep on my part.’

“But I think the one that stayed with me over the years — I didn’t say no to it, I just didn’t get the part. I lost, again. It’s a running theme for me.”

She explained: “I had gone up for Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter years ago because it was like the Irish character, so they got everyone Irish in — like half of Ireland to come and audition — and I knew I wasn’t going to get it because I was too young.

“But I got to read out a scene that was gonna be in Harry Potter,” Ronan added. “And it was the coolest thing ever.”

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Lynch starred as the Hogwarts student Luna Lovegood in 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and reprised the role in the franchise’s three subsequent installments: The Half Blood Prince, Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Deathly Hallows – Part 2.

Lynch has previously recalled how she wrote to JK Rowling while she was in hospital for an eating disorder about Harry Potter, prior to the films being announced.

“I was sick. I had an eating disorder at the time and I wrote to her because I felt like Harry Potter was the only thing that took my mind off it,” she said “Luna especially inspired me because I think a lot of my problems were because I felt odd and felt weird and she made me see that that was okay and that was actually empowering me.

“And so I wrote to her and she wrote back and so we became friends, well pen friends, before I got the role.”

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The same year that Order of the Phoenix was released, Ronan was nominated for her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Atonement. Ronan has since been nominated for three further acting Oscars but is yet to win.

This year it’s possible the actor could get both a lead and a supporting nomination for her performance in Steve McQueen’s highly anticipated World War II film Blitz and her portrayal of an alcoholic woman in Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun.

Ronan told The Independent: “I don’t think it’s necessarily something that I would have had the strength of character to take on years before.

“But because I felt so happy and settled in my own life, and professionally speaking, I felt ready to play someone that was as messy and disconnected as she was. I was more than ready to give in to not knowing what this character was going to be, what it was going to turn into.”