Actress Saoirse Ronan has revealed she was “unbelievably nervous” about her debut on the London stage as Lady Macbeth.
The four-time Oscar nominee stars opposite James McArdle in the latest stage retelling of William Shakespeare’s tragedy, which opened on Friday.
The 27-year-old Irish star said that during rehearsals she was sick with butterflies over taking to the London stage for the first time.
She told the BBC: “You get hit with waves of panic and terror and I’m not kidding about that.
“You do feel suddenly stuck for a minute in anxiety about what you’re doing. But then you pull yourself out of it. It’s been a real learning curve for me in just how much you can test yourself. Because you do feel that on film as well, but I think this is intensified.
“Every day, every hour is completely different. You could feel really confident for a while in what you are doing and feel really great going forward and then something happens that will knock you again.
“It’s just the experience of doing something that feels initially very, very new and feels like uncharted territory.”
Saoirse – who is treading the boards at Islington’s Almeida Theatre in the Tragedy of Macbeth – also suffered crippling stage fright when she made her Broadway debut in The Crucible in 2016.
She said she “sort of floated above my body for the whole first act”.
