Saoirse Ronan - featuring Greta Gerwig

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1:47How often have people said to me, there is a certain person I must meet. Ruthie, I know you'll love her. For a while, this has been said to me over and over about Saoirse Ronan. In a way, I feel I have met her through the intimacy of her performances, the movie she's chosen to make, and her forthright interviews. Greta Gerwig, who directed her in Lady Bird and Little Women, sat at the table with me in our house, talking about Saoirse and how unique the experience of working with her is. It's like we have one brain, she said. Now the three of us are here together sitting around a table at the River Cafe.

2:26We're going to talk about food and cooking, Saoirse's garden, learning to eat spaghetti, and much, much more. And now when people ask me, I will say, yes, I've met her, and yes, I love her. That's so nice. I know, it was beautiful. It was so beautiful. It was so beautiful.

2:49Spaghetti with crab. Okay, so today we have 500 grams of fresh crab meat. Is it white and dark? White. White. Three fresh red chilies, seeded and finely chopped. Four tablespoons of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped. The juice of four lemons. Three garlic cloves, peeled and ground to paste. 250 mils of olive oil. 500 grams of spaghetti and extra virgin olive oil. Simple. Simple. Put the crab in a bowl. Add the chilies. most of the chopped parsley, the lemon juice and garlic. Season well. Stir in the olive oil. I feel like something's happening behind my head while I'm saying this. Cook the spaghetti in a generous amount of boiling water and drain thoroughly.

3:36Stir into the crab sauce, but do not reheat. Serve sprinkled with the remaining chopped parsley and a generous amount of olive oil. In Brooklyn, you were taught how to eat spaghetti. Oh, this is a crab spaghetti? Yeah, this is a crab. So you're going to teach us. Oh, you've got your own. You're going to teach Greta and I how to eat. Is Greta doing this right? Yeah, because the girls in the film did it. Oh, there you go. I mean, that went on there. The girls in the movie do it with a spoon. I never use a spoon. I would never use a spoon. I would never use a spoon. For pasta? Well, they do that, like they put the, Well, go for your technique.

4:20I mean, my technique... Do you want a spoon? This one? I don't like using a spoon. Do you? No. You just use the plate to... Yeah. So what would you say? The Italian way. You just stab it and spin it. Stab and stir. Stab and stir. You were born in New York. Yeah. Did your parents still feel a sort of sense of identity with Ireland in New York and food-wise, do you think? They did. They did. I think my mom did especially. everything was just always homemade for us. It was always the main event of the day. She would cook more traditional Irish stuff so she still does. She cooks like coddle. Have you heard of Irish coddle?

5:02No. Which is like a stew. I don't know. She also, when I was working, she didn't do it on Lady Bird because she wasn't around for long enough but mum used to like batch cook and just like bring food in for the crew even though nobody asked for it but she was like I'll just make this and I'll bring it in and whoever wants it can have it and she would heat it up in my trailer when we were doing night shoots on like Hannah and stuff when we were in the middle of like I don't know Munich or something and she'd make these like home-cooked meals and that's just kind of what I was used to and coddle is sort of like an Irish stew that you can kind of put anything into it it's peasant food like Like Ireland doesn't really have a cuisine in the way that like Italy, France, like Southern America does.

5:47Like there's no kind of specific diet except for potatoes and whatever meat you can get your hand on. So the soup would be, she'd use like a vegetable broth. She puts barley in it, celery, carrots, onions, sausages, rashers as we call them, but bacon. Just lots and lots of goodness. And we used to have that a lot growing up. But we had that in the Bronx. Like, that was the kind of food that she used to make. Did she work? When I was a kid, she was a nanny. So she would come home from work and then cook? Yeah. She did it all. That's a lot. She brought me to work with her. Then she would cook at home.

6:24She took care of other people's children. She took care of other people's children. She would not only cook for Dad and I, but we always had Ireland stay with us. So because dad became an actor while he was over there, and that was absolutely not part of the plan. Like dad had not finished school. He hadn't even been to the theater before he auditioned for his first play. And when he got into that world, it became everything really. And they became such a part of that Irish American off-off Broadway community. And so we had actors staying with us all the time. In the Bronx. In the Bronx, in this tiny little one-bedroom flat.

7:09And we had this pull-out sofa, and you'd have people like Brona Gallagher, who's this incredible Irish actor. They would live with us, and man would cook for all of them. Did your parents go to New York out of a desire to do better? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They left school when they were like 15, 16, and that was the place to go back then. So I think they had friends who had moved over ahead of them. And then they went back to Ireland. and so you probably don't remember New York if you left when you were three. I remember what I ate. You don't before three. Can you remember what you ate before three?

7:43I don't, she does. Yeah, interesting. Okay. There was this diner that I went back to for like a 60 second, 60 second entry, 60 minutes? 60 minutes. 60 minutes. It's only 60 seconds. Your generation. That was like my interview before you came in. Your generation is for TikTok. 60 seconds. It's a TikTok version. 60-minute segment. And they brought me back to this diner that I used to go to when I was a kid, when I was like three or four. And I always had a grilled cheese sandwich and a pickle. I love a grilled cheese sandwich. And that was like my thing. Yeah, and you can remember that from being...

8:25Yeah. And so was it, how did they react when they went back to Ireland? Did they go back with joy and pleasure, or did they just find New York was too tough? New York was tough. They didn't have enough money to stay there. But also, Dad had become an actor that was doing relatively well. And there was a surge of Irish work at that time because of Jim Sheridan, Neil Jordan, people like that. So the work was just taking him back home. And I think when Mam had me, she was adamant that she was going to have me in the States so that I had citizenship, so that I was free to sort of roam in a way that they never were, which has been such a blessing in hindsight because I've lived and worked in the States and I can come and go as I please.

9:14I can vote in the election, which is great. But I think she realised that this wasn't the kind of environment she wanted me to grow up in because they didn't have enough money to get a beautiful apartment or have a garden or to afford daycare. Like they just didn't have that. And also I think to have that support system for anyone no matter where you live is so important when you have a kid. And also the work was taken dad back there. So they moved back. But the really interesting thing that my mom has kind of very honestly talked about to me over the years is that there is still this notion of like the American dream and you sort of becoming like the next Kennedy.

10:00And when you come back from America and that hasn't happened, you sort of feel like your tail is between your legs a little bit, that you came back and it wasn't the success story that you thought it would be. It really made them who they are and they made some incredible friends over there. And I don't know if I would be doing what I am doing if they hadn't made that move because that's where he was sort of discovered as an actor. but it was hard, you know. And they were also coming back to Ireland during the Celtic Tiger where everything had become so expensive in that boom. That was what, the 90s?

10:37That was like, yeah, the 90s, early 2000s. And that was to Dublin? They moved back to Dublin for a spell and then that's what took us to the countryside because Dublin was just too expensive. Do you remember the garden? Was there a garden in the countryside? Yeah. Did your mother, because you have a garden in London, don't you? I have a little garden in London. And what was a garden like in your house when you were growing up? It was the best. That's where I used to do all my audition tapes. And that was always the thing that directors and producers commented on. When I sent over my audition for Atonement, I remember Gina Jay, the casting agent, and Joe, the director, and everyone was like, we just couldn't believe it when you came out of that RP English accent and you showed us around this beautiful garden that you grew up in.

11:25Show me around the garden. It was a big garden. It was probably like half an acre. It had, I remember when we moved in, there was two rose beds that my mom hated. My mom never liked roses for some reason. I think they were sort of hard to tame. And she did the whole garden by herself. She used to use like a manual lawnmower and she would do the whole thing. It was like back break and work and it would take her like two days to cut all of the grass. It was quite manicured when we moved in and she kept it up for years. Was it vegetables or flowers or both? It was flowers and we had, the people who owned it before us were an older couple, I remember, and the woman was really into vegetables and she had a grapevine in a glass house.

12:11So I remember that was in the middle of the garden and then over on the other side there was a sort of big stone wall with a tree growing out of it and my dad did tree surgery for a while and there was a guy that he worked with who one day just decided to tie sort of this thick blue rope to the tree and he added a little log to the end of it and that was our swing we just called it the rope and myself and any of my friends that were over would just spend like the whole day out there yeah we have a really beautiful garden in Scotland my husband's Scottish and we have vegetables that we grew this year and so I keep thinking about like hopefully when we have kids one day being able to be like should we go out to the shops and just wandering outside and like digging up a load of potatoes and onions and shallots and I'm getting so much enjoyment out of that and I find it it might sound silly to say but I find it really inspirational it like it feeds my soul in a way that the city just doesn't.

13:18When I interviewed Michael Caine two things he liked were gardening and cooking because being an actor on a set you have hundreds of people it's collaborative you've got people around you and it was something that he could do by himself alone but he could make something you know whether it was. And it's something that's taken out of your hands when you are an actor a lot of the time. Like I've gone on to jobs where I vowed to cook for myself and then bring everything in during the week and you just don't, you just don't follow through with it. But I really miss it and it makes me feel quite empty when I can't cook for myself.

13:56Like yesterday was Sunday. I cooked a massive roast for just myself and my husband with all the trimmings and it was delicious and full of love and I took a few hours to put it together. Tell me about it. What was the root? Get the root produce. So I was telling your chef, I think it's from this cookbook that I found called Bitter Honey. Have you come across that cookbook? And it's this English woman who moved over to Sardinia and she has this beautiful recipe for like this anchovy garlic rosemary butter with lemon zest that she puts into the chicken. And so I made a big stock of it ages ago and froze it and then just used a little bit of it yesterday.

14:40And I did that with like lots of gorgeous roasted veg with a honey that I got in Broadway Market yesterday, actually, which is honey from the Venetian lagoon. Lagoon.

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16:32Every penny back. Upgrade now at washablesofas.com. Offers are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. Food has always been so important to me. It's so emotional for everyone, but like my dinner in particular is something that I cannot skip. It's kind of how I like anchor myself. I build my whole day. I'm not joking. and I build my whole day around my dinner and what I'm going to cook and when I'm going to have it and who I'm going to have it with.

17:19Was your mother brought up with that notion of food? Was your grandmother? Do you think your grandmother brought your mother up to have a meal every night and that food was something you had? I don't think mam will mind me saying. Mam has quite a complex relationship with food, but I think she's always believed that by making... And my dad is an incredible cook as well. She believed by injecting love into the food, you will taste that. And she, every single Sunday, no matter where we were, would make a Sunday roast. And that was our tradition. You started so young acting. So your mother brought domestic life wherever you were working.

18:05Yeah. So when did that stop? I was about 18 or 19 when I did. Why did it stop? But you just thought you were on your own. It was just time, you know. But it was an adjustment because she had been with me constantly for this whole time through this incredibly formative, intense stage in my life for every single moment of it. She was the one who I ran lines with. She was the one who, when I would come home at the end of the day, I'd go, do you think this director likes me? Or like, I don't know, did this go well today? oh I don't think I did that as well as I could have done and she was the thing that really kind of kept me in reality and it was an adjustment for both of us I think.

18:51Did she teach you how to cook? Did she share this with you? She did. My dad is an excellent cook so I think I learnt a lot from my dad and then also just when I left home when I was about 19 I moved to London. I was in Highgate which wasn't the right place for a teenager to go But anyway, I went to Highgate and it was lovely, but I was very much. You had your own flat? I had my own flat because I'm not into like living with anyone. But I do kind of regret that now. And I was very, very lonely. And I don't know, I didn't make a conscious decision to do it, but I just, it seemed to be very, very important to me that I picked a recipe every single day and decided what I was going to cook for dinner just for myself that night.

19:39And I hadn't figured out like portion control yet. So I cooked for like four people for myself and ate most of it. And I did that every single day. Did you entertain? Did you think of having people over? You know what? I didn't know as many people as I thought I did. What were you filming each time? So when I moved over, I just moved over for myself. I just wanted to leave Ireland and I needed to be somewhere else. But soon after I did Brooklyn, which, of course, heavily focuses on leaving home and homesickness and how shocking it is actually when you go through that experience because nothing can really prepare you for it.

20:18And so I was going through that exact feeling and didn't have enough distance from it in order to see it clearly, I think. So that was, I would say that and Lady Bird, and I've been saying this recently, both of those characters were highlighting something that I was feeling very, very vividly in my own life. And sometimes I found it really difficult playing those roles because it was so close to home and it was very hard to have any separation from it, I suppose. But Brooklyn in particular was very difficult. It was very overwhelming at times. Was it completely filmed in London? Was it? No, we didn't film anything in London.

21:01We filmed three weeks in Enniscorthy, which is where it's set in Wexford. And that's where Colin Tobin's from. And then we went to Montreal, which doubled for Brooklyn. Because Brooklyn nowadays doesn't look like it did in the 50s. Did you go to restaurants? Was that a kind of experience for you? Did your parents ever take you to restaurants? Or did you, when you were living alone in London, did you go to Greek or Chinese or eat food that was other than Irish? I ate a lot, I mean, we ate a lot of different types of food in New York. Chinese was my favorite. And actually, when I did Jamie Oliver's cooking show a few years ago, I asked, could we make General Tso's chicken?

21:43Which is something that you don't get here. And I don't think he'd heard of it before. What is it called? Some people say Tso, some people say Tso. It's like tangy, but spicy as well. It's not quite sweet and sour. or it's kind of more like an orange dish. But yeah, we made it together, which was really nice. Does Jack, does he love food? He loves food, but he loves how much I love food. And I think he, I remember when we were sort of coursing, I ate, I think I was eating like a burger or something. And I looked at him and I was like, what are you looking at? We were watching something on the TV and he was like, I'm watching you while you eat the burger because you're getting so much out of the burger.

22:29And that was when I knew I was like, you're my guy, I think. So, yeah, so we, yeah, we love it. We were talking about Little Women and we were talking about the food. Can you talk about, both of you, tell me about the food scene in Little Women. The food in Little Women was period correct and there were always like cakes and buns and things I was just watching you eat all the ice cream in between. I was like... It was Florence that ate all the ice cream. I feel like you got it there. Maybe it was me as well. I ate a lot of popcorn that day. It was just really interesting that we would have these scenes where either there was such a lack of food and that's all we could talk about or there was too much food or then we had a Christmas sequence in Little Women where the food was repurposed for Christmas decorations, which I've been very inspired by every Christmas since.

23:31So I like dry oranges and use bits of popcorn and put them on string and things like that. They got very creative on Little Women. When you talk about film sets, and you've talked about the dinner, the importance of the dinner at night, Do you have breakfast and do you have lunch when you're working? Yeah, I definitely have lunch. Breakfast, I'll have something small. Sometimes I'm not that hungry during breakfast, but each movie has had a different type of breakfast. So, like, I did a film in Australia a couple of years ago, and they love Vegemite and they love their smashed avocado. So I would have a smashed avocado on toast with Vegemite.

24:18For breakfast? Every day for breakfast. Every day for the whole shoot, yeah. On a job I did at the start of the year, I was just having smoothies. It depends. Breakfast isn't as important for me. But then when I'm away, you know, on holiday in places like Italy and France, it will become very continental and very much about the cheese and the meat and the fruit. And I think when I'm in Italy or France, that's the only time that I really enjoy breakfast. I look forward to breakfast because of how they do it. I prefer how they do it to how we do it. And when you're working, are there foods that make you feel more like working and some that make you feel more tired?

24:59Yeah, I mean, that's the problem actually on a lot of movie sets is that less caterers are doing it now, but for a really long time, caterers would make like really stodgy heavy food when we were doing Little Women and you were preggers but nobody knew I knew something was off because on Lady Bird all she ate were Cheetos like six packets of Cheetos a day. You said that, you went back to the food of your kind of teenage years and then we went on to Little Women and I'd come over to the monitor and she'd have a wooden, I specifically remember a wooden bowl, a big wooden bowl with an entire roast chicken in the bowl, like on a bed of salad.

25:45And she'd eat that every day. And I was like, what happened to you? Like, why are you so health conscious now? This isn't the credit I knew from a few years ago. There was like a day I had like a full leg of lamb. And you were like, what are you eating? You were like a queen. I know. Henry VIII over here. My young prince needs only the best. Then at the end when someone was like, she's pregnant, that's what it is. I was like, that's what it is. That's what it is. Is that a fox? Yeah. Is it a fox or a cat? That's a dog. It's a border terrier. It's not a fox. There's so many foxes around London now.

26:26One wandered into, we have a flat in the basement and somebody, my son was down there and Bo had the door open. It was a fox wonder day. I like that London has foxes. I'm kind of wild. It makes me feel like it is not totally controlled. No. And I feel like the number of foxes has gone up in the last few years. We have a street around the corner from us, and it's like the fox street. Like, there's a whole family that live there.

26:59If you like listening to Ruthie's Table 4, would you please make sure to rate and review the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.

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