Saoirse Ronan missed the role of Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter
At the time aged 12, she was too young for the role. And so much the better…
Once again excellent in The Outrunwhich has just been released in cinemas, Saoirse Ronan has 4 Oscar nominations, even though she is barely 30 years old! And yet, she was rejected from the casting of Harry Potter !
This is what she revealed this weekend to Jimmy Kimmel (see below), confiding that she had auditioned to play the eccentric Luna Lovegood. A role which will ultimately fall to her Irish compatriot Evanna Lynch.
“It’s a role that has stayed with me.” tell Saoirse Ronan. “There are things that you refuse, you pass by and you say to yourself: Oh, my God, that was a mistake on my part! But the role that I missed and which marked me the most, This is the one I didn’t get in Harry Potter. I had missed the audition, which happens often to me… I had applied to play Luna Lovegood.”
She explains that Luna was “the Irish character in the saga, so all the young Irish actresses tried their luck. Half of Ireland came to audition.” Saoirse Ronan admits that she knew from the start that she wouldn’t get the job, because she was “too young. But just being able to read for a scene from Harry Potterit was still the coolest thing ever.”
At the time, the young actress was just 12 years old. However, Luna Lovegood is introduced in the fifth part of the franchise, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The children of Hogwarts are then young teenagers. And so Luna is about 15, the age ofEvanna Lynch at the time of filming.
Saoirse Ronan can thank Warner Bros. for not having retained it: because that same summer of 2006, instead of filming The Order of the Phoenixshe played Keira Knightley’s younger sister in the epic romance film Come back to me. One role earned Ronan his first Oscar nomination…at just 13 years old!