Saoirse Ronan to star in film adaptation of addiction recovery memoir The Outrun

Saoirse Ronan has signed on to the addiction drama The Outrun, based on Amy Liptrot’s award-winning memoir of the same name. In the movie, which Ronan will also executive produce, she’ll star as Rona, a woman who just left rehab and returns to Scotland’s Orkney Islands, where she grew up. As Rona connects with the place of her youth, her childhood memories intersect with her recent past as she starts her recovery journey.

The Outrun was published in 2016 and won the PEN Ackerley Prize and the Wainwright Prize. Liptrot’s next memoir, The Instant, covers the period immediately after The Outrun. Ronan said that Liptrot’s writing drew her to the movie; according to Deadline, the actress said Liptrot has an “unusual way of seeing things in a way that perhaps you only can when you’ve been to the darkest place you can go within yourself.”

The film will be directed by Nora Fingscheidt. Fingscheidt most recently directed The Unforgivable for Netflix, starring Sandra Bullock, Vincent D’Onofrio, Jon Bernthal and Viola Davis. It was released on the platform in December. Fingscheidt’s previous films have all been in German.

Ronan has already been nominated for four Academy Awards for her work in 2007's Atonement, 2015's Brooklyn, 2017's Lady Bird and 2019's Little Women, but she’s never taken an Oscar home. A film where she stars as a recovered drug addict definitely sounds at least a little bit like Oscarbait, so maybe The Outrun will finally take the 27-year-old over the finish line.

Meanwhile, Ronan has a busy slate of films ahead of her. She’s currently in Australia filming Garth Davis’ science fiction thriller Foe with Normal People’s Paul Mescal and Aaron Pierre. Ronan has also signed on to the 1950s mystery film See How They Run, which also stars Sam Rockwell, David Oyelowo, Adrien Brody, and Ruth Wilson. Last year, she appeared in Wes Anderson’s anthology film The French Dispatch.