Nothing Is Off The Table In Saoirse Ronan's New Dark Comedy Bad Apples

Published Sep 19, 2026, 11:08 AM EDT

As a graduate of Columbia University in New York City, Tatiana studied theater and comparative literature. She has been passionate about all manner of storytelling from Jane Austen adaptations to anime. Aside from writing for Screen Rant, she co-hosts podcasts: The Flash Podcast and Ladies With Gumption.

Bad Apples is finally in theaters across the country a full year after its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025. Starring Saoirse Ronan, the surprisingly off-the-wall dark comedy follows an elementary school teacher named Maria who is at her wits' end when it comes to the class troublemaker, Danny (Eddie Waller). An intervention gone wrong ends with her locking him in her basement, and that is only the beginning of the wild tale that unfolds.

Directed by Jonatan Etzler and written by Jess O’Kane, Bad Apples explores the failures of the education system through the lens of an absurd situation with no clear-cut resolution. Outside of her interactions with the student she's abducted, Maria is shown to be a bright and caring teacher, but she is blocked from being more effective at every turn and offered no real help to manage the outsized issues in her classroom. At the same time, as she digs herself a deeper and deeper hole, it becomes impossible to rationalize her actions — though she remains sympathetic throughout thanks to Ronan's superb performance.

ScreenRant interviewed Ronan prior to the wide release of Bad Apples, and the actor shared how her own trepidation about working in comedy gave way to a no-holds-barred approach to her role. She also discussed her own feelings about Maria's actions, and how she strove to create the ideal environment for the movie's child actors, including Waller and Nia Brown, who plays too-nosy-for-her-own-good Pauline.

Bad Apples Represents One Of Saoirse Ronan's Greatest Challenges As An Actor

ScreenRant: Bad Apples was quite the ride, and it had me laughing even when I knew I shouldn’t be. It also felt like something of a departure for you. How would you say it most stretched your acting muscles, as it were?

Saoirse Ronan: I think, whenever I do anything vaguely comedic, it always challenges me in a way that other things don't. Comedy always scares me more than anything else because I have so much respect for real comedians, and I think it's a skill that you either have or you don't. So, to be able to just play around with that is lovely.

I do find that the older I'm getting, the less I care about what I look like, how messy I am, or how over-the-top something might be. It was a really great time for me to do this, because nothing was off the table with Bad Apples.

ScreenRant: When the movie first starts, I’m like, “He deserves it, let’s go!” But obviously, that morphs as the story progresses. At what point do you think her intentions really shift, and were you tracking that sincerity vs. calculation in your performance?

Saoirse Ronan: I've never heard someone say that! [Laughs] I think that, from one moment to the next, I only needed to look at what had just happened versus where I was now, and to not think about where the script was going to take us.

It's not that her actions are justifiable at all, but they're certainly understandable. You're essentially looking at this wild animal that's been caught in the act, and they're trying to find any way they can to get themselves out of it. And that's such a human response! We all have that. No matter how good and moral we think we are, we all have that in us. If we're really pushed, there's a very high probability that we'll behave in a similar way - even if we're a "good" person.

That just raises the questions, "What is good? Is one person's greater good another person's downfall?" These were all of the questions that the project really asked of an individual. But from one scene to the next, I needed to remain in that one moment. I do think it's important as an actor - or certainly for me and the way that I work - to not be thinking of the overall message, but just where we're at right now.

ScreenRant: You’re dealing rather harshly with Danny, who is a literal child, in the film. What was that dynamic like on set, and how did you and the director make it as smooth as possible for Eddie Waller?

Saoirse Ronan: The thing is that I was a child actor, so I really treat young performers like they're coworkers and are great at what they do, which is why they're here. I want to make sure that there's an environment that's been created for them, so that they feel safe and supported and loved, but also so that we can still go head-to-head as actors.

There were actors I was working with who were three times my age when I was growing up, and the best thing that they gave me was patience. I wouldn't have seen it at the time, but they treated me like a peer.

So, I didn't treat Eddie or Nia [Brown] any differently from any of the other actors that I worked with - apart from when they weren't around, and I was like, "Can we make sure they've got this?" and, "Let's make sure we've got that ready." Just whatever it was to make sure they felt safe. But in terms of the actual work, it was like working with any other actor.

Bad Apples is now playing in theaters.