“One reason alcohol is addictive is that it doesn’t quite work,” writes Amy Liptrot in her 2016 memoir The Outrun. “It’s difficult to get enough of something that almost works. It temporarily gave some relief so I chased it, again and again, my Fata Morgana, and it made me feel worse.”

In the book, a rich and rewarding read, Liptrot details her years of excessive drinking in London, a resultant stint in rehab, and then returning to her hometown in the Orkney islands to escape alcohol. Now, in 2024, she’s 13 years sober, and sitting across me to discuss being played by Saoirse Ronan in The Outrun, a movie adaptation of her life directed by Nora Fingscheidt. Well, sort of, as Ronan’s character is called Rona, an amalgamation of Nora and Ronan. “The film is slightly fictionalised,” says Liptrot, a former freelancer for Dazed. “She’s not got my name, and in the film she’s a biologist, not a writer.”

In Hackney, Rona is the life of the party, and also its aggressive, glass-smashing nightmare. She has a loving boyfriend, Daynin (Paapa Essiedu from I May Destroy You), who eventually can’t cope with her alcoholism; heartbroken, Rona turns to a bottle of red wine hidden in their flat. Rona’s salvation is an escape to Orkney’s sparely populated, picturesque landscape where she assists on a farm (Ronan does lambing for real) and searches for a rare bird as part of a conservation project. Fantasising about controlling the weather, Rona is hypnotised by the island’s crashing waves and engulfing sounds of nature – yet she frets that happiness won’t be possible without alcohol.

“It’s a story about an individual where it was essential she stopped drinking,” says Liptrot, who co-wrote the screenplay with Fingscheidt. “But it shows other people who are able to drink in a healthy way.” Fingscheidt agrees, adding, “It’s a story about healing and recovery. It’s not so much about alcohol – at least, not for me. It’s about the inheritance of mental illness and family histories, and the ability of a human being to, under extreme circumstances, find the power within themselves to heal.”

Told in a non-linear manner, the story is mapped out by the evolving colour of Rona’s hair dye and choice match cuts that juxtapose London’s hedonistic nightlife with the isolation of Orkney. In a rare sight of Ronan in a film that isn’t a period drama – it could be the first time she’s captured on camera using a laptop – it’s a textured, mesmeric performance that captures both the pained, anguished depths of Rona’s addiction and the eventual relief of recovery. After receiving Oscar nominations for Atonement, Brooklyn, Lady Bird, and Little Women, Ronan would easily deserve a fifth for Rona.

In a hotel room in Soho, we spoke to Ronan and Essiedu about the secret to impressing a Hollywood A-lister in an audition, how the film is about more than alcohol, and the lengthy process behind creating romantic chemistry for the screen. After all, Rona wasn’t built in a day.

Paapa, how did you prepare for your audition with Saoirse? Did you watch Brooklyn and Lady Bird beforehand?

Saoirse Ronan: Did you watch all my movies before we met?

Paapa Essiedu: I actually went through her whole Wikipedia.

Saoirse Ronan: You’re an expert.

I was wondering if you’d watch YouTube videos, or something like that, in advance.

Paapa Essiedu: If I’m watching YouTube videos of Saoirse, it wasn’t in preparation for this, particularly.

Saoirse Ronan: It’s just what you do.

Paapa Essiedu: Yeah. What else do you do when you’re bored? It was quite odd, because we wanted to explore this really intimate relationship. But you were in the Outback, and we were on Zoom, doing it at a weird time. We had some ideas of what some scenes might be like – the first time they met, or a time when she relapsed. It was very loose and easy, even though we were on Zoom, and should have been fighting with the lag.

We’ve got mutuals, but we’d never met before. That’s how I knew, ‘Oh, right, this is someone who’s going to be an incredibly available, giving collaborator’.

When you say mutuals – is it like normal jobs where you need a reference, and Saoirse’s asking people if Paapa turns up on time?

Saoirse Ronan: [laughs] I don’t think we used our mutual friends for that, did we? Well, I didn’t.

Paapa Essiedu: I’m glad you didn’t. I suppose what I’m saying is that we hadn’t met each other, but we kind of… [pauses, then laughs] knew of each other?

Saoirse Ronan: We share a lot of the same friends, which I guess means we must be on a similar wavelength.

It’s important for intimacy to feel real. That might not happen on the very first day. But if you’ve got two people who are joined in their ambition to get there, we will – Paapa Essiedu

Saoirse, in the auditions, what could Paapa do that the other actors couldn’t do?

Saoirse Ronan: It’s not so much what the other actors didn’t do! Myself and [fellow producer] Jack Lowden wanted Paapa because we’re huge fans of his. I knew we would get on. As soon as we met, we had a laugh. Paapa, as he says himself, has the CV of an old man when it comes to the amount of incredible theatre, film and TV that he’s done. And yet he doesn’t take himself too seriously. It gives you a feeling of being quite relaxed when you’re on set with someone.

We see snapshots of your relationship that are often just for a few seconds. Is it a different exercise creating those small glimpses, as opposed to acting out long, scripted scenes that convey how you are as a couple?

Saoirse Ronan: Yeah. I think you need a secret history that you’ve both agreed upon. We had an understanding of what the relationship was for these people, and what it was built on, and where we’ve come from emotionally.

I really loved being able to dip into one moment between the two of them where they’re just watching telly, and how much of the story you can tell from such a simple setup. Again, there are only certain actors you can do that with, and who are not afraid to do something that is quite simple and pure. It meant that when we would go into scenes where there was a lot of confrontation between the two of us, we had something to draw on. We had the memory of the joy and the love. That fed into the pain we were experiencing at that point.

Paapa Essiedu: While we were shooting, we had a lot of time to allow the scenes to breathe. When there are snapshots of a relationship, it’s important for that intimacy to feel real. That might not happen on the very first day. But if you’ve got two people who are joined in their ambition to get there, we will get that.

What happened if you had creative disagreements? Does Saoirse get priority as a producer?

Saoirse Ronan: [laughs] It wasn’t like that. Because there was so much of the movie that I got to explore on my own, I’m very aware that when an actor doesn’t have as much time to solidify who their character is, it’s really important that they feel OK and safe, and what they’re doing is real. We didn’t have any disagreements, did we?

Paapa Essiedu: Not really, no. But we talked about every single scene before we even turned up for the first day of rehearsals.

Saoirse Ronan: The process was very unusual and fluid in that we were building it day by day.

You both have a lot of silent, powerful close-ups on your face, like when Rona is in rehab and says, “I miss alcohol.” In that scene, there’s a lot of subtle positioning of her cheek that can’t be scripted. And Paapa, there’s a bit when the camera zooms in on your eyelid! Did you practise in the mirror or study yourself beforehand?

Paapa Essiedu: You worked with a movement person, didn’t you?

Saoirse Ronan: I did, yeah. I wouldn’t practise anything in a mirror. I don’t look at playback for anything I do because I feel like what’s going on for me is very different to what people will see on the screen. When it came to the drunk scenes, I worked with Wayne McGregor, who’s an incredible choreographer. He helps you truly embody a character, and find the physicality of them. That in turn feeds into the emotional performance.

So I had a sense of how she was going to move from one situation to the next. But when it comes to the performance, you just want it to feel as organic as possible. You do all the work ahead of time so that when you’re actually shooting the scene, you can just forget yourself.

Paapa Essiedu: And always the scene that you think you’re doing the best acting in, is the worst.

Saoirse Ronan: Yeah.

Paapa Essiedu: That’s going to feel the most dead and inauthentic, because you can feel the actor thinking, ‘Wow, I’m really doing these lines well’.

And that’s when they zoom in on your eyelid.

Paapa Essiedu: Yeah, they cut out the rest of it!

Saoirse, you have another memorable vomiting scene in The Outrun. It follows your other iconic vomiting scenes in Brooklyn and Lady Bird.

Saoirse Ronan: It’s a really traumatic experience to pretend to vomit on the screen because you’re fed soup, porridge, or something disgusting that’s gone cold. In the process of pretending to vomit, you actually feel like you’re going to vomit. It’s a meta, life-imitating-art experience.

A few years ago, I spoke to Thomas Vinterberg for Another Round…

Saoirse Ronan: Ah – the best film!

I think any person who’s suffered from addiction issues will tell you – it’s the same with anorexia or bulimia – it’s never to do with food, it’s to do with control – Saoirse Ronan

He said he didn’t consider Another Round to be pro-alcohol or anti-alcohol. Is it the same with The Outrun?

Saoirse Ronan: I don’t think this movie, or anyone involved in it, was ever making it to cast judgement on a substance like alcohol, or how people use it. It was about showing the effects of it, good and bad, and the ripple effects. It’s actually not really to do with alcohol. It’s to do with mental health, and finding peace within your own life, and within your own mind, and within your own family and relationships.

I think any person who’s suffered from addiction issues will tell you – it’s the same with anorexia or bulimia – it’s never to do with food, it’s to do with control, or it’s to do with trying to make sense of the chaos of the world. It goes a lot deeper than the substance itself.

Saoirse, I hope with the script you’re writing at the moment, you can write a part for Paapa.

Saoirse Ronan: Perhaps I will! If he plays his cards right…

Paapa Essiedu: Get in her ear a little bit more about that.

As Amy Lipton wrote for Dazed, that makes The Outrun the best film about a Dazed writer I can remember seeing. I think if the film had shown Rona writing for Dazed, too, it would have made the film even more relatable to any viewers who have also written for Dazed.

Saoirse Ronan: I know. That’s the one mistake we made.

Paapa Essiedu: You’re up next, though.

Oh, yes. Maybe you could play me.

Saoirse Ronan: There you go!

The Outrun is out in UK cinemas on September 27

More on these topics:Film & TVFeaturealcoholFilm