Saoirse Ronan was worried that she was going to be fired from Greta Gerwig’s 2017 film Lady Bird.

The 30-year-old actress admitted on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that she didn’t get over her anxiety until she completed filming Gerwig’s solo directorial debut.

“It was awful. My mam flew over at one stage because I was so anxious. I don’t know if Greta knows that actually,” the Irish star recalled. “I really wanted to impress her. And it was her first film on her own and I was essentially playing her and it was a comedy of sorts and I was in my head about that. I was still young so it was stressful.”

Despite her concerns, Ronan earned rave reviews and an Oscar nomination for her performance and went on to work with Gerwig again on 2019’s Little Woman.

The Atonement star explained that she felt those nerves on both Lady Bird and 2015’s Brooklyn because she felt like they marked her transition from child star to “true leading actor”. She felt the weight of the responsibility and had become more aware and self-conscious of her acting skills.

“It was the only time in my life where I felt slightly crippled by the presence of a camera,” she shared. “And so with Brooklyn and Lady Bird, I was painfully aware of everything I was doing, how I looked, how I moved, how I sounded. But once I’d gone through that process with these two incredible directors who really changed me as an actor, then I was able to go, ‘Oh, OK, I know how to use these tools a little bit better now.'”

Ronan, who was also nominated for an Oscar for Brooklyn, can currently be seen in The Outrun. Her next film, Blitz, will be released next month.

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