Saoirse Ronan Is a Baby-Faced Killer in 'Violet & Daisy'

Alexis Bledel and Saoirse Ronan in "Violet & Daisy"

The actress co-stars with Alexis Bledel and James Gandolfini in "Precious" writer Geoffrey Fletcher’s directorial debut.

Saoirse Ronan as a child assassin? No, this isn’t the sequel to 2011's Hanna.

Violet & Daisy, the directorial debut of Oscar-winning Precious screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher, finds Ronan as a teen hitwoman with Mad Men actress Alexis Bledel as her partner in crime. Their cut-and-dry world of killing (punctuated by their love of pop princess Barbie Sunday, played by Cody Horn) hits a snag when they are enlisted to off James Gandolfini’s mysteriously sad Michael, who seems all too eager to go.

“I loved her acting, how natural she always is and how instinctive she is,” Ronan says of co-star Bledel, admitting that she was a Gilmore Girls fan years ago. “She’s really like that on our film. We got along really well.”
The film’s dark subject matter is offset by the duo’s sugary-sweet demeanor, a theme that can be linked to Precious (directed by Lee Daniels) and one that attracted Ronan to the script.
“I loved Precious and how it was written,” Ronan tells . “Her dreams and her hopes for the future, I think it’s a very big thing in Violet & Daisy as well. They’ve created this whole world for themselves and they’re obviously completely alone except for each other. Their world’s lovely and benign and everything’s great until they meet Jim’s character, who brings them back to Earth.”
Describing Fletcher’s initial script as “so strong and so together in the first draft,” Ronan says she signed on for the project right away.
“It was one of those scripts that, when it was read, you immediately choose,” says Ronan. “I had read it and it made me really excited. These characters were so different.”

In THR’s review of the film, which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival back in 2011, Kirk Honeycutt noted that Bledel and Ronan’s characters “seem like they spun out of a Tarantino movie.” Fitting, considering Ronan now tells THR she hopes to one day work with the Django Unchained auteur. She cites the Kill Bill trilogy, Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs among her favorite films.
Ronan -- last seen in the adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's The Host -- is currently working with Ryan Gosling on his directorial debut, How to Catch a Monster.
“It’s going great,” she says of filming in Detroit, noting that Gosling readily allows his actors to take liberties where they feel appropriate. “Ryan is so open to really anything that the actors want to do, which is so lovely. For a first-time director to be so confident and comfortable in the story… it’s really a testament to him.”
More than a year and a half after its Toronto debut, Violet & Daisy opens stateside in limited theatrical release June 7.