Saoirse Ronan broke out as the sharp but manipulative Briony in 2007’s Atonement, and followed it up with a turn as the lead Dead in The Lovely Bones. Her roles so far have been marked with intensity, and her characters are routinely thrust into adult situations (better than being thrust into by adult situations), so to lighten things up she’ll be appearing as a cold-blooded murderer in her next few films.
The most recent news is that she has been cast in the film Violet and Daisy, which follows two teenage assassins who get involved with a job-gone-wrong. James Gandolfini is the recent addition to the cast, though Cinematical also had Danny Trejo and Bruce Willis pegged for unknown parts (better than being pegged by unknown- sonfoabitch). It’s not clear if Gandolfini took the role one of those two was intended for.
The film Hanna may not yet be on your radar, but it is the other film in which the now 16-year old Ronan will appear as a delicate destroyer of people. In Hanna, the lead girl has been raised to kill and is assisted by a French family, Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana, who try and adjust her to the normal world. Sort of a reversed The Professional it seems. There’s no trailer for Hanna yet, but the film doesn’t arrive in theaters till April.