Saoirse Ronan has told RTÉ Entertainment that she feels "calmer about just trusting the process" after making her debut as a producer while also starring in the new drama The Outrun.
Ronan has been tipped for another Oscar nomination for her performance as recovering alcoholic Rona in the acclaimed adaptation of Amy Liptrot's bestselling memoir.
When asked by RTÉ Entertainment if she had realised anything about the experience now that she had some distance from making the film, Ronan replied: "I think, for me, letting go of what I think the process of making a film should be was really important.
"Nora [Fingscheidt], our director, comes from a documentary filmmaking background, and so she had a very particular way of working where it was very much like piece by piece and letting the project evolve as we moved forward with it and as more people joined the creative team.
"And I think because I'd never produced anything before, and I hadn't been involved when nobody knows what's going on and nobody knows what it's going to be yet, initially that sort of scared me.
"Now I feel like after working with her and then working with Steve McQueen soon afterwards [on the film Blitz], who kind of works in a similar way, actually it made me feel calmer about just trusting the process and knowing that it's ok not to know everything straight away. And that the movie will evolve even in the edit from what it was when we shot it."
Although Ronan was double jobbing as star and producer, tackling harrowing subject matter, and shooting much of The Outrun outdoors on The Orkney Islands, it was not the toughest film she has made.
"No!" she laughed. "There's other movies that I've done that have psychologically been more difficult to get through than this.
"I think, actually, because so much of it was built around me and I was able to shape it... not that I ever wanted anything to be easy, but in terms of the process of making it, we could build it in the way that would serve myself and the other actors best.
"I think it's very stressful developing an independent film because you don't know if it's going to get made, you don't know where the money's going to come from and then you don't know if it's going to go to festivals and then you don't know if anybody's going to buy it, and then when they buy it, you don't know if anybody's going to see it!
"You don't know what kind of a life it's going to have, and I think you're more invested in it in that way. So that took more of my brainpower, but I was kind of relieved for that to be the case because I've only acted for so long that I was ready to take on more responsibility."
The Outrun is in cinemas now.
