ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Saoirse when you began makingAtonement, you were only 12.
How aware of Ian and his reputation as an author were you?
I was still reading Jacqueline Wilson and Roald Dahl at that stage, who are brilliant writers also.
Credit: Robert Viglasky/Bleecker Street; Inset: Matt Crossick/PA Images via Getty Images
On Chesil Beach,the novel, debuted the same year asAtonementhit cinemas.
Weve had a lovely time.
She was the star of the set then without even trying.
She charmed us all.
Everyone was in love with her.
What attracts you to each others work?McEWAN:Saoirse has a wonderful analytical intelligence.
Its a problem solving intelligence.
Rightly so, theres a lot of writers who are incredibly protective over their work.
It was rather improbable because at that time she was about 16 or 17.
But it was written for her I really did key in those words thinking Saoirse would speak them.
It was deliverance.RONAN:One of the things that Im really drawn to in his work is the delicacy.
His stories portray this delicate, fragile quality.
The idea that a life can be that fragile is something we dont quite see enough in film.
You had a very collaborative process in the rehearsal room.
The discovery is actually through the work itself.
More restrained, more formal.Head back and held in really.
That was a journey for all of us.
None of us were of 1962.
We were all just feeling our way towards something.
To do that difficult thing in the company of others is a real pleasure.
Its very intimate, sexual, and I hope for an audience, very tender.
I could see a thousand ways to make it more exploitative, semi-pornographic, or an over-sentimentalized story.
I very much wanted to do it myself.
Short novels go well into screenplays.
Writers doing their own work tend to hug the shore a little.
That is something one has to fight.
Theres no doubt there at all.
Briony inAtonementand Florence inOn Chesil Beachexperience tragedy because of misunderstandings surrounding sex.
I was aware of it, but I didnt fully comprehend the weight of it.
Or maybe I did and just wasnt aware of it.
This time to be at the forefront of it, you have a different relationship to the work.
It is endlessly fascinating to us.
Its permutations are infinite.
