Actor Saoirse Ronan is styled by Leith Clark in ‘The Queen & I’ , promoting Ronan’s current role as Mary Queen of Scots. Photographer Erik Madigan Heck is behind the lens at Hammond Castle Museum in Gloucester, Mass USA for a story in Harper’s Bazaar UK February 2019./ Makeup by Sam Addington; hair by Jordan M

Nominated for Oscars in ‘Atonement’, ‘Brooklyn’, and ‘Lady Bird’ at age 13, Saoirse Ronan assumes her role as the Queen who might have been at age 24. Ronan talks to Erica Wagner about British monarchs, Irish borders and whether history will repeat itself in the age of Brexit As for the expected #MeToo convo, Ronan, the actor credits her mother, who was very involved in the development of her acting career, as keeping her safe.

Saoirse Ronan On #MeToo

“I don’t know what would have happened if she [Ronan’s mother] hadn’t been around,” Ronan tells Wagner . “I’m sure I would have been exposed to that quite a bit, but she just protected me from all that.”

“I wasn’t unaware that there were people in the industry who abused their power, or who were seedy or untrustworthy,” she explains. “But because of her I was never a victim and I’m very, very thankful.”

Relating to Mary Queen of Scots in a Brexit Moment

Perhaps this is the perfect moment, as we teeter on the brink of Brexit, to consider Mary and her place in history. Born in Scotland, raised in France, with a claim to the English throne: monarch, woman, wife, mother – of a son, James, who would finally unite the two kingdoms of Scotland and England – she was a woman with a multiplicity of identities. We seem to be living in a time when people are being pushed into describing themselves as one thing and one thing only: British or European, to take just a single example. Ronan’s portrait of Mary is of someone who didn’t see those choices as necessary; the pressures came from outside, not from within.

Not Your Typical Bloody Scene in a Movie

In the film, Mary’s womanhood may not completely define her: yet one aspect is strikingly on display. We see the Scottish Queen get her period, staining her white shift; the ladies-in-waiting clean her, and the cloths they rinse swirl blood into a bowl of water. I’ve only ever recalled menstruation being referenced in Brian de Palma’s Carrie – not the most positive example, I offer. Ronan disagrees, and argues that the sense of shame that still surrounds this everyday aspect of women’s lives should be removed. ‘What’s genius about Carrie is that it shows what it feels like when you have your period for the first time,’ she says. ‘When I watched it as a teen with my mam, I’d already had my period for a few years, but if I hadn’t known what it was, I’d have thought I was dying. And that’s why it needs to be talked about.’

Read on in the interview.