08 February 2016
Newsdesk
Oscar-nominated actress Saoirse Ronan is convinced she saw Santa Claus in New York when she was a toddler.
The 21-year-old actress was born in the Big Apple before moving to Ireland aged three, where her parents are originally from. Saoirse has fond memories of the US, all of which came flooding back when she shot her Academy Award-nominated film Brooklyn in the city that never sleeps.
"I remember one Christmas, when, to this day, I’m convinced, I was looking out the window and I saw Santa Claus in the sky with all his reindeer," she grinned to New York Magazine. "Mom and Dad have video footage of it, and my dad was at the other window out of my sight ringing these bells. Whatever kind of time I had here, it has given me a very strong connection to the city. When I came back, it instantly felt right. There are things about the city that are new that you have to get used to, but it doesn’t get me down, it really just excites me."
Saoirse has favoured New York over Los Angeles since finding fame almost a decade ago with romantic drama Atonement, which gained her an Oscar nod for best supporting actress. This could be to do with the fact that she finds the city more relaxed with its approach to fame, as the star is more wary of her A-list status now.
"It’s funny, I didn’t really feel (some of the pressures of Hollywood) when I was younger," she recalled. "I feel it a bit now, and I could see a change when Hanna came out, because it was the first sort of commercial success I’d had, apart from Atonement, and I was very young then - a lot of that went over my head.
"Part of it was that I’d grown up outside LA, so I wasn’t exposed to the competitive side of that world, where you feel like you have to do a thousand and one things in order to keep up with everyone else. I didn’t have that pressure of feeling like I needed to be exposed more or do a big studio film in order to get more work."
