For star Saoirse Ronan, filming 'The Outrun' filled her with gratitude

In lambing country, an outrun is the wide sweep of land where a dog can run out and encircle a flock of sheep without scaring them to calmly guide them in.

It's also the name of the new film, “The Outrun,” in which sheep, seals, rare birds and a pounding surf on the rugged Orkney Islands off of Scotland seem to nudge a young woman into sobriety. Saoirse Ronan plays Rona and also produced the film.

When we first meet Rona, she's just returned to her childhood home on the Orkney Islands after 10 years in London where she studied marine biology and fell in love — and then fell hard off the wagon.

Rona's alcoholism is not pretty, but the film, even when bleak, is beautiful. “The Outrun” is based on the best selling memoir by Amy Liptrot.

“I just got so much out of it. It's a very personal topic to me. It's one that's really shaped who I am and many people in my life,” Ronan says. “I've had a healthy relationship with alcohol, but I've seen the really kind of destructive effect it can have on a person who is addicted to it.”

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In the film, Rona finds herself in some dangerous situations. The book provided Ronan with both scientific and emotional insight into what alchoholics go through, she says.

Ronan also spoke with people in recovery, some of whom are featured in the film’s rehab scenes.

“In a way, I think loved ones of alcoholics have a clearer idea of what that looks like than they themselves do,” she says. “So because I'd seen it so much, I knew at least sort of on the surface what that looked like.”

The film shows Rona in ecstasy at raves in London before she comes home to her childhood home on the Orkney Island. She believes she can’t be happy sober.

But then Rona finds part-time work with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and enlists in the search for the elusive corn crake, which brings the desolate, beautiful Orkney Islands to life as a character.

The Orkney Islands are central to Rona and author Liptrot’s recovery, Ronan says.

“There's a real kind of tragic beauty to the place. The landscape is incredibly wild and dramatic. Addiction is a huge problem up there,” Ronan says. “The weather is harsh. Many islanders have like three jobs, and are incredibly kind and giving. They don't refer to themselves as Scottish most of the time. They're Orcadians first and foremost.”

In making the film, Ronan says she helped birth seven live sheep.

“There's probably about half of them that I had a lot of help with because those little guys don't want to come out. They're very comfortable in there,” she says.

Rona’s relationship to the interconnectedness of the island’s nature starts to feel like a metaphor.

“I think that sort of connection to mythology and folklore, we use narratives as a way to make sense out of the world, out of something that feels quite irrational,” Ronan says.

Ronan stayed in the same little shack that Liptrot stayed in when she was writing this book and going through her own story. She also swam in the ocean with seals, known in the area as Selkies.

“The seals almost sound like women in the sea actually,” Ronan says. “That's sort of we think that that's probably how they got their names in Scottish and Irish folklore is that the women would call to them. And they would sing back.”

There have been many great roles for actors playing alcoholics, characters that can be very ugly, as this illness is, but the audience always roots for them. The supporting characters — namely Rona’s mother and boyfriend — portray the stomach-churning feeling experienced by people who love alcoholics, who see the behaviors that they may not remember.

Because of her alcoholism, Liptrot wasn’t present for much of her story, Ronan says. In one scene, Rona wakes up after a difficult night with her boyfriend with no memory of what happened.

“If it's something you've experienced in some shape or form and it's had an impact on you, you want to show the most sort of real version of that because it's incredibly real for you,” Ronan says. “I think we were aware at material that's come out over the last few years in TV and film which certainly serves its purpose but … can either be overly glamorized when it comes to substance abuse or it's too far the other way and it's just completely depressing. We wanted to achieve honesty, but ultimately hope and redemption for the character.

After living on the island to make the film, Ronan left with a feeling of gratitude for the experience.

“It's changed us and we came away from it better people, I think, and better filmmakers,” she says. “The fact that they trusted us enough to allow us to take over their island for a month or so is just something that we're very grateful for.”

Emiko Tamagawa produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Mark Navin. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.