'We were blubbering like idiots (when we finally met). We just held each other for ages, we wouldn't let go,' Saoirse reveals.
- Aug 14, 2018
AceShowbiz - Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie were "blubbering idiots" when they finally met on the set of their new historical drama Mary Queen of Scots.
The actresses, who were both up for Oscars earlier this year, wanted to be kept apart throughout filming, so their royal characters' fictional meeting would be as powerful as possible.
But Irish star Saoirse admits she hated having to spend time apart from her co-star, who plays Elizabeth I in the movie.
"We really, really didn’t want to see each other," Saoirse tells Entertainment Weekly. "I love Margot and wanted to hang out, but we wanted it (one scene) to be this special thing.
"We were blubbering like idiots (when we finally met). We just held each other for ages, we wouldn't let go. I've never experienced anything like that".
Historians have blasted the idea that Mary and Elizabeth actually met, calling it factually inaccurate, but director Josie Rourke tells the publication the film had to have a summit between the two bitter rivals.
"The whole conception of the film for me was around that meeting," she said. "We really wanted to have our version of that famous scene, with these two women looking at each other and being confronted with their choices - their personal choices, their political choices. It’s a moment that's deeply personal".
The trailer for the movie, in which Ronan portrays the title character and Robbie her cousin Queen Elizabeth I, was released last month, prompting top U.K. history scholar Dr. Estelle Paranque to point out the error, insisting the cousins never met.
"We have letters of frustration of Mary and we have letters of Elizabeth not knowing what she should do or not do in that case," she told Britain's Daily Telegraph.
Dr. Paranque also took aim at Ronan's Scottish accent in the film, revealing the real Mary Stuart would have sounded more French, as she spent much of her youth in France.
"She was raised in France and she was a de Guise sometimes more than she was a Stuart," the history expert adds.
Mary, Queen of Scots will hit U.S. cinemas in December to become eligible for an Oscars nomination. The film will be released across Europe in January, 2019.
