Saoirse Ronan and Greta Gerwig by Robert Deutsch for USA Today December 2019

Saoirse Una Ronan (born 12 April 1994) is an Irish and American actress. Primarily noted for her work in period dramas since a teenager, she is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, and has been nominated for three Academy Awards and four British Academy Film Awards.

Ronan made her acting debut with the Irish medical drama series The Clinic in 2003 and her first film appearance was in a supporting role in the romantic comedy I Could Never Be Your Woman in 2007. Her breakthrough came with the part of a precocious teenager in Atonement (2007), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Ronan followed this with starring roles of a murdered girl seeking closure in The Lovely Bones (2009) and a teenaged assassin in Hanna (2011), and the supporting part of a baker in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). She received critical acclaim for playing a homesick Irish girl in 1950s New York in the romantic drama Brooklyn (2015) and the titular role of a high school senior in Greta Gerwig's coming-of-age film Lady Bird (2017). She won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for the latter and earned nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress for both films.

On stage, Ronan has portrayed Abigail Williams in the 2016 Broadway revival of The Crucible. In the same year, she was featured by Forbes in two of their 30 Under 30 lists. Ronan is vocal about social and political issues of Ireland.

Greta Celeste Gerwig (born August 4, 1983) is an American actress and filmmaker. She first garnered attention after working on and appearing in several mumblecore films. Between 2006 and 2009, she appeared in a number of films by Joe Swanberg, some of which she co-wrote or co-directed, including Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007) and Nights and Weekends (2008).

Since the early 2010s, Gerwig has collaborated with her partner Noah Baumbach on several films, including Greenberg (2010), Frances Ha (2012), for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination, and Mistress America (2015). She has also appeared in the films Damsels in Distress (2011), To Rome with Love (2012), Maggie's Plan (2015), Jackie (2016), and 20th Century Women (2016).

Gerwig's solo directorial ventures were the coming-of-age films Lady Bird (2017) and Little Women (2019). For the former, she received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.