Saoirse Ronan Opens Up About What Drew Her to 'Lady Bird'!

Saoirse Ronan and Greta Gerwig are on the cover of Variety‘s first issue of 2018, out on newsstands now.

Here’s what the 23-year-old Lady Bird actress had to say:

On the reaction from fans: “I’ve had girls, really smart girls, come up to me, and they’re so excited that they’ve finally got their movie. A lot of them say, ‘That was me! I was Lady Bird.’ The film has actually made them understand that whole period a bit more. You feel like it’s almost a photo album you’re looking back on.”

On what drew her to Lady Bird: “What I knew would be so exciting about playing her and what was also really scary about playing her, is that she’s sort of trying on all these different roles, to see which one fits best. One minute she’s the showman on stage, and the next she’s the adoring girlfriend, and the next she’s the girl who’s going to pipe up in school,” explains the actress, still sleep deprived from the night before when she hosted “Saturday Night Live” and was up all hours at the cast party. “She’s testing them all out. She’s testing herself all the time.”

Ronan on her what she admires of Lady Bird: “I admired how brave Lady Bird was to just take a risk and potentially fall flat on her face. I think there’s something very admirable in someone who just goes, ‘F–k it! I’m gonna do it anyway.’ And I love the complexity of her. You don’t get to see teenage girls like that on screen. They’re always longing after a boy.”

For more from Saoirse, head to Variety.com.