Timothée Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan may both have two films each vying for awards contention this year in Chalamet’s “A Complete Unknown” and “Dune: Part Two” and Ronan’s “The Outrun” and “Blitz,” but the pair took the time to reunite in London to discuss two films they appeared in together at the earlier stages of their careers.
In a special event hosted by the British Film Institute and Vanity Fair at the BFI Southbank on Wednesday evening, Chalamet and Ronan reflected on making 2017’s “Lady Bird” and 2019’s “Little Women,” both from a pre-“Barbie” writer/director Greta Gerwig.
While the two hadn’t me prior to “Lady Bird,” Chalamet recalled being told about Ronan by Emery Cohen, who had worked with her on the 2016 hit “Brooklyn.”
“I kept hearing this name ‘Saoirse, Saoirse’ and didn’t put two and two together when I saw the name spelled out, because I’m an ignorant American, but then we got to work and I was just blown away immediately,” he said.
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Added Ronan: “We were very lucky that we clicked straight away and we had Greta, who from day one seemed to be so excited about what was happening between the two of us.”
While not her first major role, “Lady Bird” would further cement Ronan’s leading lady status (and land her her 3rd Oscar nomination). For Chalamet, his supporting role in the film, coupled with his Oscar-nominated lead turn in “Call Me By Your Name” that was released around the same time, would dramatically boost his profile.
“Everyone was sort at a genesis, especially on ‘Lady Bird,” Chalamet said. “It was a small production and I feel like we had no clue how well received it was going to be.”
It was while doing the press tour for “Lady Bird” that Ronan recalled having to pitch herself to Gerwig for her next feature, “Little Women.” “I sort of had to tell her that I was going to be in it,” she said. “She hadn’t sort of landed on me yet, and were in the middle of promoting ‘Lady Bird’ and I was like, ‘By the way, I’m going to be Jo, right?’ And she was like, ‘I guess, sure.” For Chalamet, meanwhile, he said Gerwig simply asked him to play Laurie, but while he was shooting “The King” in Budapest (and also while he was “chasing” “Dune,” having already “met with Denis [Villeneuve] a couple of times”).
During the shoot for “Little Women,” Chalamet recalls getting a vital lesson in timekeeping from Ronan. Promoting “Beautiful Boy” — “which was basically the second ‘biggish’ movie that I was in” — around the same time, he got caught up in his trailer on the phone arranging tour dates, meaning he was late to get to the hair and makeup and was holding the production back.
“I was on the phone trying to do this thing, and I get this bang on my trailer door, like really intensely so I was thinking someone had died,” he said. “And I opened the door and there was Saoirse in a bald cap and she was like ‘get your fucking ass to the trailer right now.’”